Service? What service?

Wonderful things, watches. They tell the time. I pointed this out to my bank manager who seemed more than mildly surprised that I knocked on his door to complain about it having taken 47 minutes to make a simple retail banking transaction. Think about that — 47 minutes. That is more than half a football match. Not that I am a footie fan but hey… All those minutes of my life spent standing with my number in my hand and watching the glacially slow tick past of the queue manager and then the… yaaawn… wait for the teller to be roused from a coma and plugged into their life support machine — I’m sure you get the picture. And the bank wasn’t even busy. We, the customers, looked like one of those crowds you see in TV shows like The Walking Dead. Shambling vacant-eyed creatures drawn by the sound of a buzzer.



The bank manager admired my watch, was fascinated when I explained the concept of the Pakistani Minute to him — it has 120 seconds — and promised to look into why I considered 47 minutes to be unacceptable in the context of cashing a cheque. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Indeed haven’t we all — but how many of us actually complain about it?

Come with me now and let us transfer 100€ to the Netherlands. A friend there keeps me supplied with the little model planes that I build in an effort to stave off the dementia brought on by life in Pakistan. I send him money; he sends me boxes of plastic bits. Sit with me now at the counter of the money transfer shop. Observe the mummified bodies on the other side of the counter and resist the temptation to indulge in a little Frankenstein-esque galvanism by inserting a live wire into one of their ears and watch in wonder as they gradually reanimate, seemingly spontaneously. Now look at your watch.

An hour has passed. A whole hour — plus a few minutes of extra time added on for signing the blizzard of paperwork. To transfer 100€. The owner of this speed-of-light enterprise is a man I have known and dealt with for almost a quarter of a century. He greets me like a long lost relative, plies me with tea. Enquires of the family and how is that lovely little girl of yours Mr Chris? Oh… over an hour you say? My-my that is a long time isn’t it? And you had all the paperwork in order before you went to the counter? Well dear me…

Take my hand again Dear Reader and let’s toddle off and buy an air ticket shall we? Let’s not mention who the carrier is other than to say they are the one that still operates three-seater biplanes that give you the option of lighting a fire in-flight to boil your own kettle to make a cuppa — yes, that one. Open the door to the booking office. Sound of wind whistling across empty prairies. Tumbleweed. The sense of eons having passed, Rome risen and fallen. The time of dinosaurs a recent memory. You emerge only to discover that your flight left yesterday.

Purely in the interests of science and to the considerable surprise of my friend in the Netherlands I availed the services of another money transfer outlet — and was in an out in around eight minutes. Want a bus ticket? No problem Sir, there you go… under a minute from start to finish and that includes the time counting out my change. Bit of a problem regarding your identity card is there? There was and it got sorted in remarkably short order even if I did have to make a round trip of 1,600kms to get it done.

Service… it’s all a matter of mindset. Between around 9:30 am and 4:30 pm I, along with millions of others, am time poor. I’m busy. In a rush. There are deadlines to meet. Unfortunately my time of time poverty coincides with many of the services that I need to avail myself of having an extended siesta. You need what Sir? A railway ticket? Yes… this is the railway booking office is it not? Is it Sir? Let me check… tootle-pip!

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th,  2016.

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