Interaction Dossier - Antony

I spend a lazy afternoon in the only 24/7 CCD in the east of the country, the one in Infinity Towers, reading Liar's Poker. I leave early in the evening and reach home by 6ish. I am about to reach the guest house and I realize that my mobile is not to be found. I mentally backtrack to all the places that I visited through the day and all the calls that I made or received, it became clear that I left my mobile at the Coffee Day...

I pick my roomiez mobile and dial my number, an anxious voice greets me. I ask who it is and the voice booms back asking if I misplaced my mobile. I reply in the affirmative and the voice goes on to explain how the mobile was lying on a sofa and that the person found my mom's number in the dialled list and appraised her of the development, she was a good 1500ks away from the scene of occurance...

I was mighty pleased with the voice, the owner of the voice was a gentleman by name Antony. In his own words, 'I am the manager of the only round the clock CCD in the east'...

I went back to collect my mobile and that is when I first met him, he was a shortish, balding, peacocked (a Neil Strauss term, a person whose attire consists of one or more entities that are meant to act as conversation starters), accented guy. But what do I care, I got my mobile because of him and I thanked him for the same.

I ran in to him a couple of days later in the RDB CCD. 'Hi Sir!', he excused himself from a table packed with CCD managers and flambouyantly greeted me. He introduced me to the other managers, a development that proved useful later, will write about that later...

Our paths crossed on a few more occasions, mostly at one or the other CCD...

On one occasion, I walk in to the first mentioned CCD as run a bill of 310bucks, he walks over to the table with a sidekick, again flambouyantly, and declares that we did not have to pay for our consumption but should do for the cookie boxes (3 of them, each worth 110 each) that he will offer us and that the 'beverages were on the house'...

Me being me, I got suspcious and checked the expiry date, they had 3weeks left in them. I could have turned down the 'offer' but then let it be, the mobile episode remember...

It actually turned out to be a good deal, I exchanged one of them for 2 coffees at anoter CCD. Someone whom I owed a hundred bucks wanted to munch on cookies, I was only too glad to repay in kind. The third one earned me a good amount of 'dua' from a mendicant who was longingly staring at the can.

That was about the deal, not coming back to the dude.

The other day I was in the same ol' CCD and he grabs the order book from a waiter who was walking towards out table and did so himself.
'I will be moving to the South City CCD', he informed, rather proudly...
'Oh, is it like a promotion?', his demeanour seemed to suggest that is was a good development...
'Yes, a much bigger place, you should come some time', he suggested...
'Yeah, sure bro, I will and Good luck'.

That was our last interaction.

Signing off...

My Weakness...

I have a weakness, which is, I lack 'sense of time'...

Not to be confused with punctuality. As in, I may not be the most punctual guy around the table but my 7 up on 10 times bang on-time rate definitely puts me out of the perpetual late-comers list. It is not that I do not respect time or that I derive some vicarious pleasure by making others wait. Neither am I a romantic, who thinks that the world runs at my pace, which I have to admit is rather fast. It is nothing to do with intuition as I am a fairly intuitive person.

I just lose track of the absolute value of the time a given point in time...

Now that I know, a weakness of mine, I need to chalk out a plan to overcome it...

Signing off...

The 'rickshaw' Series - part 1

I walk up to a hand-rickshaw stand and declare my destination aloud, on my way to the gym, I was...

One of them walks up to me and dusts the seat for me to sit...

Not to be taken in by this strategy, I ask for the expected price (One of the better ways to close a deal is by giving a impression that the deal has actually been closed, while the negotiations are under way). X taka (X rupees is Bangla), he replies. Sounds reasonable, so I hop on...

I was exploring my mental paradise and suddenly a hoarse and unsure voice pulls me out of it...

'Will you be coming back?', he inquires.
I reply in the affirmative.
'By when?', he seemed to be making small talk.
'In an hour, maybe a little less, not sure.', I say noncommittally, I really did not know.
The amount of time I spend in the gym is purely a factor of how long my stamina holds up...
'Hour is too long, if you can come back in half hour, I can wait for you.', he offered.
Ever heard of a rickshaw guy waiting, not me, never did, this was a real first...
I knew there was no way I would get out so early, but the guy was being nice so I thought why refuse bluntly...
So I politely tried to change the topic...
Then he said something that caught me totally off guard.
'If you pay me waiting charges I will wait for an hour', he sounded slightly upity...
What, if I pay him waiting charges, sure I will, I bollocks will...

Here is a guy, who wants to sell me something that I do not even want and to worsen the bargain he wants me to pay a premium...
Is he not a nut at negotiating...

'How much would you charge?', My mind was made up but I played along...
'X for one way so 2X for both ways and X/2 or X depending on how long I wait', that was his offer...

On most days I jog back from the gym, so he wants me to spend 3X when I normally spend X and he is not even making it sound useful to me...

The customer is always willing to pay more not less, provided he sees value in what is being offered...

This gentleman neither demonstrated value nor sympathy, so obviously I did not take his offer...

Signing off...