Money, money, money! Everybody out there seems to be hell bent on making money. According to people out there everybody has loads of money, so charge what you want, ask what you want, quote what you want and you’ll get it. Yeah that is all. People will buy it, consume it & pay for it, no questions asked.

A few incidents over the last few days have completely stumped me. To me it just doesn’t make sense. Let me know if it does to you.

SP Road, Bangalore – Rs 10 for a meter of LAN cable, Rs 20 for crimping (both ends). Veerapillai Street (near Commercial Street). Rs 20 for a meter of LAN cable. Rs 40 for crimping clips (both ends) & Rs 100 towards crimping charges
End result – for an additional 10 meter LAN cable that I wanted, I would have paid Rs 120 if I picked it up from SP Road but eventually ended up paying Rs 340 for it near home, only because it was needed urgently.

Kamaraj Road – Rs 850 for a 2×3 whiteboard. Ebrahim Sahib Street – Rs 340 for a 2×3 whiteboard. Quality is the difference – Ok, yet to figure out what Quality

Kamaraj Road – Rs 20 for a local courier (DTDC). Sangam Road (which is a cross of Kamaraj Road) – Rs 15 for a local courier (DTDC). Same courier service with offices on different roads & hardly a stone’s throw away from each other have different charges!

BSNL phone connection – Rs 500. I applied for two. Total one time payment – Rs 1000
BSNL Lineman tip charges – Rs 0. yeah Rs 0. I offered him Rs 100 as tips when he had finished his work. He told me very clearly that was too less for the two of them who had done the work & refused to accept the amount. So it is Rs 0

All these people who are in the food business should consider themselves very lucky. How you ask. I’ll tell you. How many of us actually stop by & tell them that the food was of bad quality. OK something like that need not be told, because over a period of time nobody goes back there & the hotel suffers losses & closes down. But what does one do when the quantity is less? You are getting it now right? Yeah the quantity.

Adigas – Rs 9 for a plate of Khara bhath. You have hardly started & its already done. You feel like you have eaten something, it also tasted well but you don’t feel full. What will you do then? Do you go tell the hotel chap, the quantity was less? No, you simply buy yourself another plate.

Lavanya Theatre (St. John’s Road) where Taare Zameen Par was playing. Rs 5 for a coffee. And what is the size of the plastic glass? So tiny, so tiny that it can’t get tinier than that. And God damn 5 rupees for that.

And everybody out there wants big business. If it is not big, it is not for them.

I called Just Dial & asked them for computer table & chair dealers. They asked me for my mobile no. which I gave. Then they said they will SMS me the contact numbers of the dealers. Ok I said & hung up. Not a minute passed & I got a call. “Hello Sir, we got to know that you are looking for computer tables & chairs. Sir, we have good range for you to choose from…etc…etc.” I replied “ok fine, can you come down & show me the designs you have”. “Sure Sir” he replied & then asked “Sir, how many tables & chairs are you looking for?” I said, “1 table & 1 chair”. Silence. Poor fellow must have cursed me so much when I told him that. And do you think he turned up to show the designs. No way.

How many times has it happened that in the process of catering to a big business the small ones are ignored? I recollect this incident from a couple of years back. This carpenter was delaying the delivery of a wall cabinet for many days & when nice talking with him didn’t work & when some tough talking was adopted came the reply. “I cant ignore a contract involving lacs of rupees for some small business” Another incident happened pretty recently. We needed to pick up an additional system & decided to pursue it with the same vendor we had purchased the earlier one. After sending mails, which went unanswered we gave the contact person a call & he said, “I am actually busy with a big project we have, I shall revert to your mail”. Till date there is no revert to the mail and we eventually had to pick up the system from another vendor.

Heard of the thought that goes something like this? – Every Crore, Lac and a thousand is made up of many one rupees

To end it, even a rupee’s worth of business is done so smartly. After eating a Masala Puri costing Rs 8 a plate at a road side push cart bhel puri wallah, I offered him a 10 rupee note. He sadly made a face & said “Sir, no change. Shall I give you two pani puri’s instead?”

How I wish I could make some money out of writing here at Metroblogs. No, No this free writing will have to stop. So I stop this here. ;-)