Dis-service sector

Episode 1
A few days ago, my CEO threw a dinner party for all staff. I decided to take the wife along, and arrange a babysitter for the boys. I called up one of Sydney’s best known babysitting companies, and reserved a sitter for the night. It was expensive (120 bucks), but I had little choice. A few days later, we learnt that someone known to us through a friend would be available to babysit the kids. Apart from this being much cheaper, it was a great comfort to not to have to leave the kids with a complete stranger.

So I called up the babysitting company to cancel my reservation, one week prior to the actual date. They sweetly informed me that they would cancel, but there would be a 50% cancellation fee. I thought this was really steep, and unacceptable because I hadn’t been informed about any such cancellation charges at the time of reservation. Upon my protest, I was told that as an “exception”, they were willing to waive the cancellation charges this once. It was that simple.

Episode 2
I needed to send my mother in law some documents urgently. I used Australia Post’s most expensive service, Express Courier International, and was assured of delivery within 3 business days. Even after 4 business days, the documents were not delivered, and the much vaunted “tracking” facility obviously wasn’t updated very frequently, because the information on it was at least 2-3 days old. Finally,I somehow managed to track down the documents to a post office in Delhi, and my mother in law had to go there to collect them personally. Certainly not the level of premium service that I had paid for.

Episode 3
This is still ongoing. I lodged a claim with my healthcare insurance provider on May 31st, and was told that the normal processing time is 14 working days. It is now 16 working days since then, and the claim hasn’t been paid. When I call up the insurance company, they can’t tell me very much other than that the claim “is in processing”. Amazingly, this is one of the largest health insurers in Australia and its website does not provide an email address that one can send complaints to. There is only a postal address provided, surely a sinister tactic to discourage any sort of feedback/complaints. Who in this day and age will bother to write letters, for God’s sake?

All these experiences, coinciding over the last 3 weeks have convinced me that on the whole, service companies only pay lip service to the mantra “under-promise and over-deliver”. It’s actually the other way round. Sign up for their services, and as long as your requirements stick to the straight and narrow, things will be fine. The day you need something a little bit out of the ordinary, you are screwed.

Underwater in Fiji

Laid out on a massage table in Fiji, my face poking through a hole looking down at four red hibiscuses in a wicker flower basket, I close my eyes to soak in the gentle kneading of my back, and flash back over this holiday.

Fiji, a country of 300 islands in the Pacific, is a four hour flight from Sydney. The main cities of Nadi (airport) and Suva are on the largest island, Viti Levu. Sigatoka, where we stayed, is also on this island and about 90 minutes drive from Nadi.

Considering our choice of a resort was based on deal shopping over the Internet and checking reviews on tripadvisor.com, the quality of the Rydges Hideaway Resort has been a little better than expected. The main attraction for families with kids is the Kids Club, which runs supervised activities for the kids through the day, allowing ample quiet time for parents. Our boys were thrilled to be rid of us as well, and by the 2nd day, were quite happy to be off on their own to the main dining hall which has table tennis and pool, and the cinema room, which puts on kids movies at 6 pm. Other than that, the resort has a pool, a beachfront where one can wade far into the sea at low tide tiptoeing around brilliant blue starfish and coral, and generally offers enough to make one reluctant to venture outside, and hang around and soak in the laziness, in Fiji time.

Almost half of Fiji's population is of Indian descent - we met 3-4 taxi drivers, all fourth-fifth generation Indians, who seemed to have assimilated very well into the local scene. They all spoke Hindi, but with their own peculiar accent, which made it hard to trace them back to any particular part of India, and they do not seem to have any physical links now to the country of their ancestry, although are still deeply influenced by its culture (temples, radios playing the latest film songs, etc).

This was not one of those holidays where we got up purposefully each morning with a checklist in hand, and measured our success by how many things we had ticked off. On Day 2, I unknowingly found myself in the deep part of the swimming pool and was flailing about underwater for what must have been a good minute or so, before I attracted enough attention for some bystander (bless him) to help pull me out. It was a rather unpleasant experience that left me sick in the stomach for the next couple of days, and I haven't yet fully recovered my appetite.

So, we just decided to take it easy this holiday, sit back and let the kids enjoy themselves at the Kids club.

It's back to Sydney tomorrow, and a ten degree drop in temperature.