Friday, March 3, 2017

Anjali - I'll Ask Him to Pay Penalty

Anjali was reading her Tinkle in the car. One of those silent drives punctuated only by her laughter at something funny. It came inevitably. After she was done laughing she told me the tale.

'There's a dhobhi. He charged Rs. 60 for ironing 30 clothes at Rs. 2 per piece. But when the customer counted his clothes, he found there were only 28. When he asked the dhobhi why he was charging Rs. 60 for 28 clothes, the dhobi said that there were 30 clothes originally but he lost two of them. But since he had already ironed them before he lost them, he charged for them also.'
She found it quite hilarious that he was charging for clothes he lost.

I asked her what she would have done if she was in the shoes of the customer.

'I won't pay him Rs. 60,' she said after some thought. 'He lost two of my clothes.'

'Yes,' I nodded.

After some thought she ventured. 'Maybe I can put a penalty on him of Rs. 2 for losing my clothes.'

That's a possibility surely. Most times I accept all policies and rules set by the service provider as if it was written in stone. So a dhobi who is adamant that his charges must be paid could get away with most people even if he was causing a Rs. 100 loss to the customer. More than anything else, it's important to question these rules and policies which seem to be around us everywhere, most times designed to favor the one who has made them. Good for you Anjali.

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