It pays to be rude.

Santa Cruz Airport on 24th June 2005

I happened to arrive at Santa Cruz Airport around 8 am on 24th. I got to know that there is a cheap flight to Calcutta, by Sahara Airlines. And it was to leave at 10pm. I rushed in and bought a ticket, checked in my baggage and then went to the boarding gate. At the gate, we were told that there is a half hour delay in the flight. It was raining cats and dogs... no not literally. Anyway, as the half hour drew near we were told of a further delay of one hour. At the end of that, we were told that the flight had to be re-routed to Ahemedabad due to heavy rains. Finally the flight took off at, believe it or not, 6 pm!

Being a true psychologist, I was more interested in how the group behaved than the flight per se. Initially the group was ok about waiting but increasingly the crowd got more and more beligerent. The airline staff at the gate, on the other hand seemed helpless to do anything. While they claimed it was due to bad weather, it is well known that air sahara has a problem stretching its thin fleet over so many sectors. Either way, it was clear that the staff at the gate were unable to do anything about the situation, other than offer apologies and pacifiers like food, coffee, etc.

For some reason, it appears that when you are a "customer" you can "demand" things, be rude and even shout at the people who are serving you. This approach has created a world wide wave of RUDE people. It struck me hard (and I have been saddened ever since) was when I visited a museum in Sonoma, California. At the desk was a grey haired lady and on her desk a notice was pasted that read "Don't shout at me, I am a volunteer here."

Being a customer DOES NOT give you the right to be rude, to shout at people. The people who serve you are NOT your worst enemies. Having said that, I am also saddened that so much gets done only when you shout at people. Several years ago, I had lost some baggage while travelling on Singapore Airlines, they dragged their feet about the compensation for MONTHS until we wrote a nasty letter threatening to sue them. At the moment, I am in a similar position with a laptop I bought from ACER. I reported very nicely to the local service representative and there was NO solution in sight after a week. When I wrote a bad letter, they gave me the contact details of the Ajoy Paul ( ajoy_paul@acer.co.in ) in Calcutta. Ofcourse Ajoy never called me or contacted me. So I called up Ajoy on his landline (the mobile number given by the local service people was unavailable). I threatened AJOY with action, and he promised to get back to me with a solution by Monday. He didn't so I wrote to ACER bangalore.

While it is true that customers have become rude over time, business organizations have begun to expect that too, and the polite customer is often left out in the cold.