I had been to an insurance provider's office for paying vehicle insurance premium.As the office opens at 10 am onwards, I planned to get there by 10 am so that I would be among the first persons to stand in the queue. I was there at sharp 10, but what do I see on entering the office??? There were two rows of seats, the first row being for enquiry and payment of premium, the second for backup work i assume. The whole first row was vacant till 10.20. Slowly, customers like me poured in and waited patiently. Finally, one staff came up at the counter and calculated some premium amount and asked us to pay the premium at the cash counter which was unmanned.Slowly, the queue at the previous counter joined me at the cash counter. By this time it was past 10.30 and two more staff turned up on the first row. Suddenly one staff decided that they have to take the initiative and came to the cash counter and searched for keys and put on the system. Good, atleast they felt that customers are waiting for someone to accept the payment!! But this was not to be... the good old printer decided to take a break at this rush hour and refused to co-operate. So another 10-15 minutes were spent in discussing what to do to solve this problem and later on they decided to replace the printer with the one lying next to it. By the time this decision was taken, another 10-15 minutes passed and some 15-20 sheets of stationery found their way to their favourite dustbin. Finally, the printer started working but but... on collecting the receipt I was told to collect the new policy document from another counter where again the good printer stopped functioning. Finally by the time I got the policy document it was 11.20. A good 100 minutes spent on a task that would take just about 10-15 minutes maximum. Sheer waste of time and stationery of course...
One guy had taken an hour's permission from office which was a good 15 km away and was waiting for someone to inspect his vehicle. He was rudely told that the inspection would be only after 11.15 which resulted in lot of discussion. Finally, the harassed guy decided to wait but not before telling the staff " This attitude is taking away your customers from you". As usual, he was told to speak to the boss about complaints IF ANY!!!
This episode made me think of two things.does the good old manual entry system need to be reintroduced maybe that would save time..but who can change the attitude of such employees who come in late and have a laid back approach?