Well the Barclays experience was worst in a sense that its' staff was impolite and even lacked mundane civilities. So, dropping the idea to avail its' services wasn't the only instant reaction but it also forced me to register a complaint against the concerned person. Let's see, what it's complaints management center has to say.

Below is the text of the email for readers to get a complete picture of the story:

Dear Sir,

I want to draw your attention towards the poor state of services offered by your bank located in Jinnah Super, F-7 Markaz, Islamabad.

The name of your bank was recommended to me by many people for opening a student account, which I enthusiastically pursued. To get some initial information through a phone call, I had to face several unpleasant pauses before the call was finally taken up by the concerned officer. Not having significant information, the lady advised me to contact another officer Mr. Umair and gave me his cell number (+92 321 5696005).

Upon contacting him, he too was unable to reply to my basic queries and committed to get back with the relevant information within an hour, which he never did in the next twenty-four hours.They next day, when I contacted the same officer, his behavior was unreasonably rude and aggressively addressed with a blunt reply that he was busy yesterday. He went on to display his impolite behavior during the whole phone call.

In organizations like banks, where public dealing holds a key role in determining the quality of the services offered, it came to me as an utter surprise that ‘the officer’ was unaware of the mundane civilities and didn’t know how to address people on phone.

It has left a complete negative impression of the well renowned multinational bank, which I intend not to visit in future for availing any type of services, as its employees are unaware of the ‘Customer Relationship Behavior’ basics. I also firmly believe that Barclays Bank holds a strict recruitment criteria for its employees, but what it lacks is the wise scrutiny of well-mannered, well -conversant and polite individuals. And I hope this will be taken care of in future so as not to lose its anticipated customers.

Regards.

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And a video on YouTube is worth watching.

In the morning today i made a phone call to Barclays Bank, Islamabad. I tried all the four telephone lines but nobody picked up the phone. "They too, have closed just like Gerry's?", I thought to myself. After 15 minutes i tried again and the call was answered. Below is that short conversation cum story.

me: I want to open a student account in your bank. Can you please tell me the requirements.
guy: "OK, please wait, let me transfer the call." The guy puts me on hold and after a silence of about one minute the line drops. I had to try again.
me: A while ago i was on phone with you and the line was dropped while you were transferring the call.
guy: "Ok, hang on."

This time the call was transferred to a lady after a short pause. All this gave me the feeling of a desi environment in the bank. After listening the detail she told me to contact another guy and gave his cell number. Why didn't she transfer the call to the desired extension? That can be a poll with the following options:

a) The guy didn't have any extension.
b) He was absent.
c) He was out of bank to buy an eid gift .... No, don't take it wrong.
d) There wasn't any such guy in reality and she gave me the number of his younger brother, who, by chance, happened to be there when i called.

Anyway i contacted that guy and told him the story. In response, despite answering my queries, he told me what i had already learnt from their website. He promised me to call back after an hour but now it's three hours since i spoke to him. No reply yet and i am sure there won't be any. Either he has forgotten or he was really her brother.

The early morning encounter with the BC wasn't a pleasant thing to see as i was thirty minutes late. Noticing this, he advanced towards me but my sixth sense warned me of the approaching danger and the admonishments brewing-up in his mind, i preferred to ignore everything and kept walking while unnoticeably slowing down my pace for a while but then i picked up and entered the building. I didn't stop for a hello-hi. And why the **** should i exchange these mundane civilities when i knew that BC was approaching with a calm looking face while composing his mind to heap abuse on me. It's always better to escape for one sure reason that i would never like to lash out (at BC). For me how fatal it would be in terms of committing a career suicide, i have a very clear idea about it. I hope that these days wont last too long. 'This' way or 'That' way, but certainly not here at this T junction.

Life Goes On!

The author of the blog remained busy in a seminar throughout the last week. No, please don’t infer from your imagination that he was one of the organizers. He was merely a patient listener with empty stomach and an unpredictable mindset that continued to change its’ states like your most familiar example of grade 1 science, “Bachoo! Maaday ki teen halat’ain hoti hain.” “Achi halat, Buri Halat, ore … oreeeee … Chalo Kharay ho jao”. That mindset was almost the similar; heavy, light and only a couple of times it showed some generous sparks of endowment … a disappointment for the green-eyed monsters present there. There was a sigh of relief from the guest speaker whose ‘claimed’ intellect wasn’t tested!

To be punctual and to be on the right time are two different things. Author demonstrated an excellent example of this by reaching the venue daily thirty to forty minutes late after completing his daily chores with complete easiness. Only this wasn’t sufficient to prove the abilities and punctuality. Avoiding ‘Big Cheese’ and his nasty questions was also an art show. Defining a radius and staying out of the circle? Wrong approach my dear readers - Confine others in the circle. That is the proper way. I hope your professional approach will agree.

On the closing ceremony author received a ‘Certificate of Presence’! He can recall that they called it ‘Certificates of Participation’ – I suspected the whole series of lectures was harmful for the ‘Fasting Muslims’.

Heavens didn’t fall when yesterday I was given a task to prepare a report on the same (recreational) event. The issue was quite serious but the demand ‘what to include’ in it was completely revealing the worst effects on all the six senses of the honorable participant. The writer doesn’t hold any grudge with ‘the honorable’, the statement above was just an instant message conveyed by his intellect. Without giving any thought, quite mindlessly, he agreed to prepare a report. As we all know, “Jhoot kay Paon Nahi Hotay” so the report is still on my desk.

That was the story of the week. Life is going on in a usual way and time never stops and whatever the circumstances be we have to face. Since 2006 life and everything associated has become a big struggle, a disappointment (sometimes) and a heartless effort to drag and to get out of the situation eventually. These have badly affected rather almost killed the literary capabilities of the author. And he thinks he is going down day by day. But at the moment the question is whether he will be able to have Eid with his family or not? Waits for the outcome of the decision that has almost/already been made.

Hope to see you all soon again with a better state of mind. Have a happy Iftar and Sehar!