People behind the jobs.

I just spent about ten minutes crying my heart out.

Now this could be mostly because of PMS, but there was a definite trigger to it.

Like most working people in metros now, we order our groceries from Grofers, which is pretty much the next best thing after sliced bread. Today evening when the bell rang, I was expecting my order’s delivery. But when I opened the door, it was the building watchman looking extremely agitated. First he asked me if my husband was at home. That not being the case, he asked me to come down and talk to the delivery guy who was behaving extremely rudely. I was quite surprised, because this has never happened before in the last 8–9 months that I have been ordering from Grofers. The guys are mostly quite polite and efficient. Anyway, I went down, calmed matters down and told the delivery boy to come up to the house. I was obviously mad at him, because I assumed that the watchmen were correct in what they were claiming was his very rude behaviour. I fully intended to call up customer support and ensure that this guy never came to our building again. This delivery boy, I noticed, was literally just a boy. Probably still in college. I asked him his name and curtly took the packages. He was trying to explain himself, and then I saw how he was teary eyed. I suppose that he thought I asked him his name to complain against him. He could barely speak with the emotion and was trying to tell me how sorry he was, and how it would never happen again. How he would have parked outside the gate but he couldn’t walk so far with the heavy bag and if he parked outside his motorcycle would be towed away. And I realised that this was probably this boy’s first decent job. This was probably how he supported his family. This was how probably, I don’t know, he was paying for someone’s medication …and all the possible Bollywood movie scenarios you could think of.

And it hit me. We, or rather I, have been so careless in my complaints. All these mushrooming ‘service’ start-ups with their one-call-away customer support and feedback stars have kind of desensitized me to the people who are actually providing that service. I don’t think about how maybe an Uber driver would lose his job if I give a really low rating — or how putting in an ola complaint about a rude driver would be the difference for his family between a decent month and starvation. I don’t think how tweeting mean things back to the poor kid running the Vodafone twitter account would be reflecting on his performance score.

I don’t think anymore. I just demand. The best service, the politest people, the nicest customer care, the best value for money, the most awesome everything.

I don’t know if this is everyone, or I’m just a super horrible person — but I have made a new resolution today.

Stop and think of the person behind that technology. Judge the service, the system, but be generous to the people running it. They are people too, just trying to do a job. Earn a living. Just like me.