Jan 11
5
Poor Cutomer Service
When it comes to a monopolistic market trend it is the customer or the end user at that end who suffers the most. Poor competitions is not only far from being a consumers market but rather far from being productive and quality conscience as well, with the woes of the quality not ending an limiting to the sale or production of the product but also deepening up to the customer care and support as well.
Recently I had been to India where you can get a 128 kbps broadband connection on your mobile phone with a limit of 2 MB per month for less then a 100 INR or say 2 USD. The connection would be off course over the 3G and can be used on a laptop provided your phone has the proper supports. The other mobile services are so cheap with a second wise pulse billing going down to a paisa per second, the Indian market is booming with so much competition around.
Back in the UAE the monopolistic trend prevails with not much competition to look at when it comes to the Telecom sector and it is far from being a consumer market. I happened to visit the Etisalat Main Branch in Sharjah for registering a few .ae domain names, which cannot be registered other wise, such as over the Internet. There were 12 counters with only 4 of them active and it took me about an hour to get the 2 out of the 3 domains registered. The remaining one was available when checked on the NIC and aeDA websites but could not be registered because of some technical problem in the Etisalat system. For which I had to go to customer service and report the matter so that it could be escalated to the IT Department, which took another hour just to be informed that it would be solved in 3 working days.
On returning home it was discovered that the sales lady over the counter had made a mistake while entering the email address of the Registrar of one of the domains. Therefore I called the NIC helpline to know that they could not help me and that I would have to visit an Etisalat branch physically or send down a fax for the problem to be solved in 3 working days. I chose the first option and visited the branch the next day. 12 counters and 7 of them working. It took me another hour to get the mistake corrected.
On asking about the domain for which I had raised a request, I was told that the issue was still pending to be resolved by the IT department, even after 24 hours. Such is the quality of customer service you get when there is no choice left.
A request for the reader not to mention the so called competitor Du which is not better. Look at its twitter notification service which is dead since a few months and all you find @dutweets are excuses.
Posted in Internet & Hosting Technology by .
Here are some suggestions to help someone who has lost a loved one:
“Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.“
Make a personal commitment to help the one grieving get through this journey. After a death, many friendships change or disintegrate. People don’t know how to relate to the one who is grieving, or they get tired of being around someone who is sad. There is always a huge wave of support at the time of loss and for several days after but they will still be at this process six months from now and a year from now. Vow to see your friend or loved one through this, to be their anchor in their darkest hour. . It may be a good idea to get together with their other close friends and share some of the responsibility. So use your imagination. Anything you can do to help your friend will let them put more energy into healing, which is what they really need to do. You will need simply to be there with them as they experience what is probably the fiercest sadness and pain of their entire lives. Don’t search for profound words or try to think of saying something meaningful. Your presence and doing the simplest tasks is the most helpful gesture of compassion. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel . Be comfortable with tears – yours and other’s – they can be a bond, an encouragement. If you don’t know what to say, simply say ‘I’m sorry.’ The words are not important, but they convey a sense that you know and care.
Your willingness to listen can be a profound expression of friendship.If you are concerned with what not to say, consider relevant circumstances and avoid giving advice on either how the family should grieve or on why such tragedies occur. The family will want to know what you FEEL, NOT what you THINK. Please be sensitive to the experience of the person who has lost a loved one. They might be tender in age and may not have the experience in dealing with life’s setbacks. Please support them through this period without being judgmental.
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings….
- Be available and accepting . Avoid telling them what they feel or what they should do.
- Express genuine sorrow
- Silence is ok
- Call or visit your friend frequently. Call and say “I called to see if you wanted to just chat for a while or talk. If you’re not up for talking, I can call back later or in a day or two.” Leave it up to your friend as to what they want to talk about, or if they want to talk at all.
- LISTEN.
- Call them just to check up and offer to visit, if they are not up to it at the time you call, don’t take it personally, try again.
- Don’t expect the person to reach out to you. Many people say, “Call me if there is anything I can do.” At this stage, the person who is grieving will be overwhelmed at the simple thought of picking up a phone. If you are close to this person, simply stop over and begin to help. Those who are grieving need this but don’t think to ask. There are many people in the good times—but few that are there in life’s darkest hour.Make suggestions and initiate contact with the bereaved.Don’t let discomfort, fear, or uncertainty stand in the way of making contact and being a friend. Decide on a task you can help with and make the offer.
- Please do not say “if there is anything I can do just let me know”
- Please do say “I am available Day- Date- time for (the task). Use me.
- Run errands to the grocery store, drug store, post office, dry cleaners – any trip that interrupts the daily schedule. Make a list of everything that needs to be done with the bereaved. This could include everything from financial matters to picking up laundry. Prioritize these by importance. Help the bereaved complete as many tasks as possible. If there are many responsibilities, find one or more additional friends to support you.
- There’s always work to do around the house . A little dusting, a load of laundry, making meals and cleaning up not only relieves your friend of the chores, but gives them company while they attend to some things.It is important for them to have their space and they do need time alone, but they also lack the emotional energy to structure their lives during the grieving process. Having someone in the house who takes over the details of running the home is so helpful as they sometimes can’t even think of the things they need.
- Determine when close support system will begin ending and plan to intervene for continued support.
- Offer your car with the driver for one day if only for ziyarat.
- Offer to do business/tax preparations, legal services, etc.
- Offer to drive the one who is grieving to appointments. When emotions are compromised, being alone in public places can be frightening. The presence of someone is reassuring.
- Help them do the hard things. The mountain of paperwork that erupts following a tragedy is overwhelming. Legal documents, policies, certificates, what have you, must all be accounted for and in order. Help as you are able and seek resources when they can’t. It’s this aspect that undermines the grief process and compromises time and energy.They may need to handle some legal issues that are difficult, or things related to the incidence of death may be too hard for them.
- Your offer to walk through it with them is invaluable. There are a lot of things to do that come with the loss of a loved one.Prepare help sheets with appropriate information eg legal, financial, useful helplines, etc.
I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way.
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things
I learned from her
When Sorro
walked with me!
-Robert Browning, Poet
May Allah grant Maula TUS a long, healthy life. Ameen
Amte Syedna TUS
Alifyah Saifuddin
Posted in Interesting by .
Dec 10
28
National Security and Human Rights
The people who have wanted to create terror and fear in the hearts of men so that humans seize from living a peaceful and fruitful life have indeed succeeded in many ways. If we closely look at the way governments have turned and changed their policies we would surely see this picture. The work of these incompetent people who have looked at the liberal and progressive world with eyes of jealousy is just to create imbalance, disturb public harmony and create fear.
Certain policies of world governments have helped these extremists succeed in their evil intentions. These policies rip off the “aam aadmi – mangoman” with his basic human and civil rights and under the pretext of national security destroy the democratic and for the people, by the people, constitution of the nation.
India has implied stringent measures on visa applications of Pakistanis. The simple reason is that they are Pakistanis. A close Iranian family friend, now an American, whose mother was a Pakistani was denied Visa by the Indian Authorities to visit India with her Husband. Reason her mother was a Pakistani. Under the pretext of national security the story does not seem to be justified.
Wives are denied visit visas to accompany their Indian Husbands. The Indian Government officials have gone nuts by writing the nationality of a child’s mother in his or her passport only if the mother is a Pakistani. The mere stupidity of the undocumented rule was declared by another government official by saying that people with evil intent do not travel legally.
The people who sit in high offices do not see the plight of ordinary people who are being harassed and deprived of basic human and civil rights under the pretext of National Security which is more of a concern for the common man who is not being protected by body guards or commandos. The national budget in protecting the common man is far beyond the scale of the expenditure done towards protecting politicians and public figures. Instead pity rules are being placed to protect the civilians which further cause disturbances in their lives. The price of such incompetent national security measures is not only paid by the pockets of patriotic citizens but also by the suppression of their social and civil rights.
Posted in The World by .
Nov 10
28
The Math Teacher ‘Duggal’
The education system that we have today has several faces and it has recently come into focus due to the big screen especially in Bollywood.
There was “Taare Zameen Par” and ‘3 Idiots” by Amir highlighting the plight of students in our current educational system where talent is given less priority and students are rather HR products for capitalists, as John Gatto puts up in some of his speeches about the American educational system. Then there was the movie, “Paathshala” in which Nanapatekar was supposed to play a more better role then he did while the message was against private educational gimmicks that has turned education into a profitable industry, in the name of professionalism and commercialism. In either case the teachers are never the ones who get a bigger pie nor are they satisfied with their job.
“Do Dooni Chaar”, another such movie highlighting the lives of middle class families of India, including within it, the economical status of teachers in our society who produce highly paid officials and professionals but are themselves regarded as low class, economic untouchables and are at plight if they try to live with decency. Rishi Kapoor has played an excellent role after so many years of acting.
Rishi Kapoor, playing a working-class loser who for the first time in his career pitches in a near-flawless performance as a maths teacher whose students have gone on to own the best cars in the world while he, the gyan guru, remains frozen in his middle class karma. The movie has a practical illustration of an honest but frustrated teacher who would turn to selling marks for money, which does show the reality in some of our schools in real life. The reality is brought forward very cleverly. The movie careens towards a scathing comment on the road taken by the underpaid teaching fraternity of the country, while the protagonist up the road of corruption is pulled back from temptation just in time.
The character sketch of both the middle class teacher and his wife Neetu Singh is done brilliantly, and there are some lessons to be learned by parents as well, as the math teacher declares his fault for not providing enough time for his kids while thinking that paying for a child’s fee at private school would suffice. The punishment or rather disciplinary action of Santosh (played by Rishi Kapoor) to his son, of distributing all the money to the poor, was just an exemplary lesson for parents.
The one thing that is prone to criticism is the huge amount of money given to the teacher for private tuition. Though the mithaiwala’s intent was to help the sincere teacher by offering him a handsome amount to create a ‘Good Man’ of his grandson but today the term tuition has also turned into a nuisance. Under-paid and desperate teachers have also turned it into a channel of extra income. Though one would not call it a corrupt practice but at times it results into the child being forced into extra classes for passing just so that the teacher could have a better life worth living.
On a level that goes beyond entertainment ‘Do Dooni Chaar’ is actually a timely warning to the architects of the country’s education system. The film says…don’t let the guru become a shishya of compromised idealism. Pay the teacher well, and start showing respect to them, else the product would indeed have its defects, as Kapoor explained, that, he would be remembered as corrupt person who taught that money could buy anything rather then a gyan guru.
Do Dooni Chaar, the title says it all, suggesting not only that the protagonist is a mathematician but also that he is constantly trying to count the ways to make his family’s life comfortable. The message is simple and clear.
Posted in Interesting by .
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Disclaimer
Not all posts on this blog are my own words. Nor are all articles written by me. The blog is intended serve as my journal and dairy of interesting reading I have enjoyed and want to share. Some write-ups do not have the name of its author, the reason behind it is that I do not know the original source nor the author. If someone knows it they can add it to the comment box.
