From an office e-mail ...

Just needed to vent.

The coffee pot was empty, as always. So I started making a new pot and stood there waiting. Now while the brewing isn’t even half way through, someone came in front of me and took half a cup.

And added some hot water to his cup.

I mean, come on, you knew it’s still brewing, you knew it’s too strong for you, and you don’t mind ruining the rest of the pot.

Renewables

I gaze out of the oval window next to me. The entire cabin is sleeping though it is just 9 in the morning. DC to Seattle is a long flight, and I recognize a number of faces from the international flight from Dubai last night. They must be exhausted, I think.

Outside, it is crystal clear, a rare sight for late November. Not a single cloud in sight. I look down at the countryside. We are flying at 34000 feet, but I can see the farms and roads clearly. Straight lines, geometrical shapes - squares and rectangles mostly - and the occasional turnabout. I keep staring outside for almost half an hour - the shapes and symmetry appealing to my compulsive sense. Then I notice something - the scene has hardly changed in half an hour. The same plots, agricultural fields, one or two houses per farm - as far as the eye can see. I feel sad for a moment. I muse at how we have taken Mother Earth and drawn lines on her to demarcate areas - yours and mine, his and hers. It doesn't seem fair. But it is just human nature I suppose - to feel power, greed, the need to organize, improve efficiency and learn. I can't make up my mind whether we are better off today or a thousand years ago.

I look down again and see several tiny-looking windmills dotting some of the farms. I am told these are over 200 ft tall, but from up here, they look teeny, blades idly doing their work. I feel better - at least we are using something that is available freely, is clean, renewable, and we don't have to draw lines around to demarcate our shares. Or is it that we just cannot draw lines around wind? I'm certain we would have, if we could!

Back home

It is not the best place to be first thing in the morning - the last person in a 300 long queue of Non-US Citizens lined up for immigration check and stamping in the nation's capital. At 6 am. Only 3 of the 10 counters staffed (recession took its toll?). The collective bad breath of the crowd blowing towards me by a big fan at the front. I won't blame the 300. They had, after all, endured a gruelling 13 hr trip from Dubai to DC, harassed by the turbulent weather, the trembling 747 and the completely unkind United flight crew (my bar for flight crew mannerisms, professionalism and service has gone sky high after traveling on flights in India - those guys just rock!). Add to this the high probability that I would miss my connection scheduled to leave in an hour and a half, I am on the edge of my nerves already. I badly need some sleep and I'm famished. Just finished reading Chetan Bhagat's first novel - Five Point Someone - good book, amateurish writing (but I guess that's the essence of the book). I feel like I have relived my 4 years in college - I studied at BITS and not at IIT, but the experience was almost identical. Am onto his 3rd novel - The 3 Mistakes of My Life. Hope it is as good a read.

18 lbs and growing

So they sent him in a box with no-return policy and no a-z guarantee and now he is 18 lbs and growing .. all we do is order diapers .. great business model!

The Morons of McD's

I don't lose my temper easily, though my wife thinks otherwise ;) .. So, a couple of days ago, when I came across a totally moron-ish McDonald's employee in Auburn, WA, I was forced to give her some advice. I was on my way back from Mt. Rainier (ohh, so magnificent!) with my dad-mom and stopped at this neat-looking McD's to grab a quick bite.

I ordered a veggie sandwich - which is not on their menu and trust me, as simplistic as it may sound, is not easy to order. "Plain cheeseburger, take out the meat, add lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, pickles, and ketchup". Hah! Wish it had been that simple .. I had to reiterate the order twice through the drive-thru mic and since I realized the waitress (are they waitresses technically? they don't wait on your table, do they? anyway .. ) did not get it, I parked and went in with my party in tow. And ordered again at the counter. "Plain cheeseburger, blah blah" and two Grilled Chicken sandwiches. Smile, swipe, receipt, and I go sit at my table. 2 min, and my order is ready, I'm impressed. My mom opens her sandwich and there is just two halves of the bun and a slice of yellow American cheese in it. I smile, this is not the first time this has happened, there are a lot of such employees around the country's McDs - the same exact thing has happened to us in Scottsdale AZ, San Diego CA, Iselin NJ, Gaithersburg MD and Pittsburgh PA. Next, my dad opens his sandwich and there are two strips of bacon in his chicken sandwich. I ask him to stop (Bacon? Taboo!) and look up at the menu chart on the wall. There are two grilled chicken sandwiches - Club and Classic. I take it back to the counter and ask her what the bacon is doing in my sandwich.
She: "It is a grilled chicken sandwich"
I: "I know, but there is bacon"
She: "We have 2 varieties of grilled chicken - Club and Classic. You asked for ... " ... and immediately realizing her error ... "I should have asked you first which one you want when you asked for a grilled chicken. Okay, sorry, I'll fix it"
Smile, and I get back.
A minute later, she's back with 2 "grilled chicken" sandwiches to our table. I'm impressed - one minute service!
I open mine, dad opens his .. and there, the same two old sandwiches, which are quite cold by now, are sitting smugly - sans the bacon strips. Now I'm pissed, really.

I go back to the counter and ask to speak with her manager. The manager, hearing the commotion has already arrived at the scene and asks what the matter is. I explain the situation and she says I should have specified which variety of grilled chicken I wanted in the first place.
I: "So, if I don't specify, you're going to make the decision for me, huh?"
She: "That's not what I meant"
I (really angry by now): "I know that's not what you meant. But when I asked your people to fix the situation, they instead fixed the sandwich. They pulled out the bacon strips and gave it back to me. Do you think I couldn't have done that myself. I don't eat bacon, it is religious thing. And you know how religious things are. If the bacon touches the chicken, then I don't eat the chicken either. Get it?"
I see that she doesn't get it.
I: "So will I get another sandwich, without the bacon?"
She grumbles something and goes away, and a minute later comes with two hot grilled chicken sandwiches - the "Classic" variety - and thrusts it at me.
I: "Thank you. And what about the veggie sandwich? Will you please fix that?"
She: "See our systems are not set up to handle what's not on the menu ... "

And immediately, I realize the pitfalls of standardization that have plagued this country. In the name of uniformity and standardized customer experience, Walmarts and Targets are laid out the same across the country and Taco Bells are furnished exactly the same everywhere (I understand the branding part of it, but let's pretend to forget that for a moment). There are numerous benefits to this standardization - including scalability, cost effectiveness and ease of training and management. However, I greatly miss the personal touch that is so evident in a customer's shopping experience back home in India. Just the other day, my MIL was telling that Tanishq (a high end jewelry chain in India) in Mumbai has launched a program where they invite customers (women only, please!) to come play bingo at their store once a month. The program is structured in a way that the ladies contribute a sum of money every month for 10 months, and at the end of that period, the store allows them to purchase gold for 11 months' worth of contribution at the price as of the first day of the first contribution. In addition, there are attractive prizes every month for the bingo winners. The math behind it reveals a decent rate of interest, the risk being that the price of gold falls, but it is a decent hedge against rising gold prices and inflation. But what I find most interesting about the program is the personal touch in the shopping experience (the personal attention to each shopper, the coffee/tea/drink offered and so on) which is so lacking in western countries, even in a jewelry store. In the name of cost-cutting, everything is self-service. Expensive labor takes away a variety of privileges that are a given in countries like India. "Customer is King" comes alive, literally, only in Mumbai, never in Manhattan. They say it all comes full-circle. Once customers are bored of this plain vanilla shopping experience and start demanding these services and attention, companies will be forced to cater to their demands, and of course, contain costs in the process. I'm waiting for that day.