Fedup with Fedex

Deliver us from our sins, so said the delivery man. When life is moving along without a hitch, trust these guys to sprinkle an overdose of exasperation. There is something called business cards (the paper ones) still used, which my office finally decided to Fedex from the US of A. It is a different story why from US and why it took a couple of months to get around to it, maybe another day).

Now I was blissfully unaware of the catastrophe blooming ahead. One gloomy rainy afternoon, I get a call from a Noida number. Hello madam, your package has been received; is it for official or personal use? I really have no idea, I confessed. So, the guy rattled off a big number. Now numbers are numbers, that specific sequence did not, in my mind, create any spark of enlightenment. He carried on, unaware of my distress, you need to submit, your id proof and address proof and. Hold on, send me a mail, I pleaded and spelled out my email id to him slowly.

He didn’t, however, send an email. Couple of hours later, I get another call from the same number. Madam, your package, parroted the number, and before he could complete, I reminded him gently of my email id and please, can he send me details over email- and again gave him the spelling slowly just hoping he would get it right.

Of course, I get a call for the third time that day, and trust me, I managed to keep my patience and gave the same details all over again. I counted 100 backwards, did not lose my cool. End of day 1. Still no emails. Am I so obfuscated? Is it me or is it Fedex? I mean how difficult can it be to send an email.

Next morning, I got up with greens (as compared to the Monday blues) (yeah, bad joke, I know). And I got The Call. Since all paths to tranquility failed, I was so ready to be upset. Why can’t you get it into your heads that.. and the half-wit interrupted- madam, are we talking about the same package? That stumped me. Dutifully he repeated the numbers again. Yes, it is the SAME blasted package. Madam, see na, I am calling from a different department. What? Are you IRS?? I asked with trepidation. No madam, KYC department of Fedex. Really? So, I gave the details yesterday, use it and send me a bloody email. No madam, he was pretty calm, we don’t share information between departments, confidentiality you know!!! He said with a strong overbearing attitude. Seriously, given that you have my package, my phone number, my company details, what confidentiality is being violated by email id?? But then argument would have just resulted in a headache, so I gave him once again, my email id, to get some peace of mind.

First hurdle cleared. I got The Mail. I was ecstatic. I had managed to persuade Fedex to do what they didn’t by default. Wow, I was powerful.

Like expected, they asked for several documents, which I dutifully shared. I wondered, during moments of idle clarity, a deck of business cards, probably would have cost be 150 bucks to print and deliver in India, here I was spending my precious time giving 20 documents to retrieve that! And I am not even counting the cost of printing in Trumpraj and international shipment.

How would the stork know the delivery address? Musing, at least there would be a few storks that had to be bad at their job (babies delivered at wrong home kind). They asked for address proof and I provided the agreement with Regus Biz park, where my office currently is. They blatantly refused to accept it. Madam, we don’t accept “online” agreements, it has to be an agreement approved by the GoI. Digital India, where are thou? I don’t have it, my dear, I explained to the imbecile. I just have this. No madam. Can u give us Telephone bill, Internet bill, Light bill, some damn bill that proves you are a legitimate?  Yeah, company registration, Certificate of Incorporation and Pan Card did not prove that, I guess. No I can’t. Please get it into your head. Everything is in the name of Regus. The guy was staunchly stubborn. we cannot accept it. Notice that now they were sending mail after mail, all they did is just stopped listening. Bhai, please accept online agreement. That is the best I can do. Think about it. There are hundreds of offices that work in this co working space model.

A headache later, I sat down to talk, but they picked up the call fifteen minutes’ post ringing. Explained the whole story with growing impatience. The bell rang but did not ring a bell. Can I talk to your supervisor? Mam, he will tell you the same thing. !@#$, let me talk to him, maybe he isn’t as much a moron as you. After ten more minutes of persuasion, I got the esteemed supervisor on line. As expected, he echoed the same rote line written in his text book. Please understand, I tried negotiation skills now. I can give you in writing that my office is located here. He was puzzled, that clause is out of syllabus. I bribed him that I could write my address on the company letterhead and sign it. Okay. Let me see. I will come back to you. He didn’t know how to deal with this and neither did I!

Couple of hours later, another email, same statement, we don’t accept online agreement. By this time, I was ready to send the package back to US of A. Went home. Cup of tea and a Crocin later, I had a brainwave. I sent Fedex the Regus lease registration with the landlord. Lo and behold, they accepted it. Seriously, that document didn’t even have my company name on it. So much so for the process. All they needed was a registered deed, no matter between what parties.

And btw, the most interesting discovery of the episode. Out of curiosity, I opened the lease deed of Regus and saw the owner name “Hrithik Roshan”. Didn’t register. There can be multiple people by that name. Can’t be The Hrithik Roshan. Then I read further “son of Rakesh Roshan”. This can’t be a co-incidence. I scrolled down to the bottom of the page, and the well-known Greek God smiled back even in a photocopied passport size image.  Oh yeah, the building I work in is owned by The Bang Bang guy.

PS: Even after this long blog, the package did not arrive till three days later and follow up twice because according to them “the business was closed” on a Monday which is not possible. And to think I had such high hopes ever since Castaway.

The waiting room

Reminds you of the railway station, the crowd and cacophony, the chai and the stink. Train whistles, the incomprehensible announcements and the strain to listen for your own train. But this is a different waiting room.

Here only those people wait, whose trains have derailed, or are about to. They are trying to repair the tracks, push and pull to get the train back on track and somehow make it run, so they can leave for home. A few never do. 

Here they dont say ” train no so and so has arrived on platform number so and so.” Here it is ” Bed no 102″ and Kamble and Banerjee, the names and the numbers, and the call to feed or meet the doctor or sign something you have not read.

I am in the waiting room of an ICU. All around me is chaos. Sea of people, waiting to catch a glimpse of their loved ones, waiting for that ray of hope, that word from the doctor that can change despair to a smile or bring a frown and a tear. Noisy, crying, sharing, yet so distant from it all. Hearing it all, but not absorbing.

Hospitals are a part of life. And death. I am at the same place I was slightly more than two years ago. Same hospital, same ICU, same waiting room. I lost Baba here. He was already lost, but here I lost his physical being. All around me are faces, in despair, but still hopeful as they cross the nights of nightmares. 

When you think it cant get any worse, it does. And we get used to that and then there is a new low. How much the human mind can accept and get on with life, feels like a trial and error test.

Why does she have to suffer so much? In the past so many years, I have seen her lose her speech and her smile, her walk and her zest for life. A vegetable, that breathes and swallows, with a beating heart. That is about it. Just pain and more pain, which she doesn’t feel, or maybe feels and does not  express. Cancers, and then free from cancers. But not from this hell called dependence. Not from this journey that is a constant struggle for survival.

Who will I take home from here, a whole being or a part? A person who always smiled at me, now closes her eyes and shrinks away as I talk to her, or touch her.

Do your job, dont worry about the consequences. I was reminded today. Do your best, dont expect anything. Maybe that is the learning. And emotions? That are ready to flow, that have to be pushed back because there is so much to be done.

I try to work. In an effort to remain sane. Not break. I have to be strong and stronger, specially when I am powerless. Someone else pulls the strings and we dance. I do- the biggest fallacy. Who are we? Who am I? My face is expressionless, as I listen to the doctor’s verdict. Impassive but with a storm inside. 

Life sucks. Death sucks more. But maybe it is the end of suffering, pain and despair. But can’t it be painless? Among so much pain and pleasure, something goes on- that they call life, as it sits in the waiting room, for death. Somebody give respite from it all,  she needs to rest. In peace.