The Earthy Word 'Customer'

I work for IT, dealing everyday with customer centric product, customer’s complain on a product, customer’s satisfaction on a product. And my daily bread and butter is making this ‘product’ perfect for the 'customer'. My hurried morning and my engrossed afternoons and my ‘traffic’ed evening and my tired late nights- all these dedicated to this work ‘customer’, rater ‘devoted’. So, long back, I had grown a human expectation when I’d be on the other side of the table, I will be privileged.

Now, the irony is when I am the customer, seldom they bother to feel ‘I am the bloody customer’.

·         I take BMTC bus every morning to commute to office and the bus fare is 25/-. I try to give the exact fare, sometime if I tell I don’t have 5Rs Change the conductor shouts like I just announced I will ride free in his bus.

·         I stay in an apartment where they charge huge maintenance due to its ‘brand name’, which implies they will provide water backup and power backup. When we find no water in a summer afternoon, they say due to some unavoidable reasons, they can’t help it.

·         When I have normal fever, I go to a clinic and doctor prescribes 3 tests – blood, ECG, ECO-2D. Expectedly every time (oh I am blessed) reports show nothing significant to worry about but I keep on splurging on these tests fearing precaution is better than cure!

·         When I want to work from home or download any random thing using my personal internet connection, I thank to the disgusting internet speed from a service provider who promised up to 7Mbps speed. When I call them to complain, I find the fault is the location I live (Of course they have nothing to do with that, it’s completely my burden) where they have not installed a tower. They give me hope indeed, soon they will install one (might be one of their 5 year plans which is quiet impressive).worst is when I want to stop the service, they log a ticket for that but send me a message after 2 days “Dear madam, your connection has been resumed and we have taken care of the speed issue”. This of course is an endless loop after several escalations to different managers in customer care. NOBODY CARES ABOUT ME, “THE CUSTOMER”.

·          Oh and not to mention, the misguiding advertisements in Television, overly prized retail market, multinational food chain charging 150 bucks for a cup of coffee and 250 for sandwich, mammoth amount of broker charges to be catered while buying/ renting a house, requirement of illogical security deposit almost everywhere in the city be it a 20 liter water can or a rented house or a medical card (oh I found even guitar classes take that in a city like Bangalore), and so on.. The list of frustration is endless.

I feel pity on myself when I am THE CUSTOMER. Let me be on the other side of the table rather.