Time time time

It seems part of the Delhi (North Indian? Indian?) culture to not mean what you say nor to say what you mean. Especially when someone else's time is involved.

If you call a plumber or electrician or carpenter and he (I haven't yet come across a she in these professions in Delhi) says he will be there in a short while (मैं अभी आ रहा हूँ), it could mean half-an-hour, or an hour or two or three or four. It could even mean the next day or the day after or next week. By which time, another ten phone calls will have been made, with the same response each time. Is it because people are so busy that they don't know how long it will take them to finish the work in hand (then why not say so)? Is it because they don't want to disappoint you by saying they can't be there immediately or in real-time? Or is it that they just have no thought for the other person's time?

It is not just the small-time service providers who do this. After all it is these little acorns who grow into the oak-tree big-time service providers.

There is the travel agent, who promises to call me back with definite information "on Monday", "tomorrow at 4:30", to bring the printout over with the confirmed flights "tomorrow before 6" - and then calls me the next day to ask me my first name, from which I infer that he hasn't yet made a booking at all! While I, like the gullible fool I am, look at my watch and wait restlessly for the appointed time, still not accepting that the appointed time is just something that runs off the glib tongue! And the next day I call, no answer. I call again, no answer. But then, wonders will never cease, he notes the missed calls and calls back - only to tell me that he is busy in the High Court trying to save his various properties from his ex-wife, and he will surely get back to me later in the day. Many phone calls and many hard lessons. A longer tale to be narrated elsewhere.

And the bank staff (private sector, not public sector) who have messed up simple requests, cannot give me details of what they have done, and routinely take my phone number every time I go to the branch, with the promise to get back to me the next day. I wait several days, go back, find new faces, again explain the problem (of their creation), again give my phone number, and again wait for the promised call. After two months of this, I ask them why can't they just email the information at their convenience, rather than trying to give it to me on the phone? So they take my email address, send me a test message to confirm that they have got the address correctly, and then promise to send me the details "asap". That was more than a week ago. I am still waiting. And wishing that I had just closed all the accounts and gone back to the public sector bank, where things do at least eventually get sorted out.

I could go on, with many examples of this implicit devaluation of other people's time. But is anyone listening? What kinds of skills are being developed by/for the service industry in this country?