In India, the process of Economic Reforms and Liberalization was initiated in 1991 by the then finance minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh who is now the prime minister for almost 7 years. The process also encouraged and led to the privatization of the systems in the country. The Indian public thought that the privatization would remove the bureaucratic obstacles from the system of working. But after 20 years in 2011, one finds there are little reforms or changes – both in government departments and in private sectors.
As a customer or prospect, when you try to approach a small, medium or big enterprise to inquire, suggest or complaint something to the concerned person, you will have to start from the front-line person (who could be a receptionist, clerk or even a peon). S/he will invariably ask you “what work” you have got with the person (if you say the name) or with the department (if you ask for a particular post), where from you are speaking or coming, what do you do, and similar sort of multiple suspicious inquiries. In most cases a front-line person has no power to take a decision, or has no knowledge and awareness about the company’s business and communication activities such as products, services, promotion, advertising, etc. In spite of that, the front-line person will invariably behave bureaucratically and act like a ‘hurdle’ or a ‘closed door’ between you and the concerned person/ department – no matter whether you are trying to contact in person or on office phone number. The purpose is to somehow stop you from moving ahead and from talking or meeting to the concerned person. If you somehow succeed in partially convincing the front-line person about your “work” or compelling her to forward the phone-line – based on your previous communication with the concerned staff, she will ‘unwillingly forward’ you or your line to a different and irrelevant staff where you will have to narrate your purpose story again from zero.
There are other ways too to harass you such as “the person (you are trying to meet with or talk to) is away from the office, in a meeting, on tour or has gone out on call, and so on and so forth (please refer to my blog: “Indian Standard Excuses” to read about the series of excuses). If you insist on meeting any officer or authority, sometimes the front-line person will rudely behave with you with an attitude to discourage you. Often I feel that I have come to a government department. Sometimes I ask the front-line person (dealing with me) if he has worked previously in a government department. The purpose of reception is to welcome and facilitate the process which is reversed in India.
After living in a developed country, this difference of bureaucratic harassment process in our third world country (India) has become more prominent to me. In a developed country, people are very courteous and helping – even if you are a migrant from a different country and culture. They usually do not try to create any hurdle and won’t ask you irrelevant and silly questions (like they do in India) – whether you are talking on office phone or home phone (called after-hours number). If the person is not available, the receiver will inform you when you can call up again or will take your details and message to pass on to the concerned person to ring you back. Usually they pass the message. Their attitude is to help you out. But in India, they usually overlook to pass the information. If you follow up, they will tell a lie, “I conveyed your message to the concerned person and had no idea why he did not respond to you”. This is a usual way of Indian work culture. Everyone is having a degree of ‘ego’. The front-line person thinks you are trying to bypass him/her without giving any ‘importance’ which hurts his/her ego and he/she in turn tries to create an obstacle in your way to reach to the concerned person. In government departments, there is a system of bribing right from the peon-level to the officer-level via clerks. The amount of bribe is decided by the “levels of significance and urgency” of your work in the eyes of government staff. The higher the “levels” the more is the amount of bribe. But in private sectors, since the staff do not usually take ‘bribe’, you need to “satisfy their ego” in order to get your work done or to meet the concerned person. This is a tricky task more because of the reason that in India, the front-line persons (a receptionist, clerk or peon) are usually less educated, less-experienced and untrained people. They have no “customer-care” or “customer-service” training or even instructions about how to treat a customer or a prospect with a helping attitude. Usually the front-line person is not aware of the subject or matter you are talking about. In that case, he/she will try to create an obstacle in your way so that you fail to get your work done easily on the same day and your purpose of phone call or visit fails. A needy person like a prospect or a customer is usually the ‘prey’ for the ‘ego satisfaction’ of the front-line person in private sectors in India. Consequently, information that can be provided immediately over the phone or a task that can be completed by the same day usually takes a week or longer and so on and so forth. In spite of this culture of procrastination, the government and support-media claim that India is progressing at a fast pace with GDP growth of 8 to 10 per cent annually which is unusually higher than the 0.5 to 2 per cent GDP growth of developed countries...!! No matter the prospects and customers in India are discouraged and harassed to any extent and forced to pay bribes or prices of “ego satisfaction” .
Incredible India...!!
~Gunjan Gupta, Esq.
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