We all pride ourselves on being professionals.
And, we claim, we’ve rights to. After all, we wear crisply pressed formals and polished shoes to work everyday; a suit and tie on occasions; speak flawlessly accented languages; not to mention extensive etiquettes at the dinner table and rules on handling the fork.
Then we step out on to the streets of Chennai, and it’s another world altogether. From cursing the auto-rickshaw driver who just overtook you to jumping red lights because ‘there was no one there’ and traveling on the wrong side of the road to cut a turn, we the ‘professionals’ do it all. And it doesn’t end in the streets. We jump queues (provided there is one, to begin with), rush into moving buses or trains, arrive 15-20 minutes late for just about anything And it doesn’t end with us.
We do it because everyone around us does it, and besides, you can’t expect to survive in the big city unless you join in and yell with rest of the crowd.
And crowd is right. How many of us have actually seen a polite traffic policeman?
Or how about courteous bus conductors?
Maybe a smiling face behind a counter?
And don’t even think about auto rickshaw drivers; I think it can be safe to declare auto drivers as the most despicable, loathsome and hated people in all of Chennai.
But skip all that. That’s on the street. Even on the job when was the last time a professional, any professional for that matter, acted such?
The other day I saw a hospital receptionist yak endlessly on the phone about some new sari she bought, blissfully unaware of the people waiting…
A banker behind the counter not sure of how to boot his computer or check the customer’s request…
Customer Care executives who don’t know what facilities their bank/telephone company/credit card company offers…
Software people engaged in a 3 hr call with their spouse/fiancé/boyfriend in spite of the pending work to be done…
Sales people in showrooms who don’t know about the discount coupon the customer is holding…
Sounds familiar? It should; after all, we are that face in the crowd. And from the looks of it, not a very professional face. Time we cleaned up our act and professionalize our professions.
