The Change that comes with New age generation

The summer is always a tough challenge on the water resources at our flats. Every year , just to prepare for the summer , we desilt the well (we do have a well in our flat ), clean the bore and also all the incoming water pipes .

And in spite of doing all this , there will be  a day when the metro water will not show up and your bore well motor packs up on  the same day-- leaving the residents with no water to use. This year , when we had the issue come up  , we got  a new guy ( highly recommended by the next door flat Secretary ). He manage to fix the  issue but it was short lived. My security guys were anyway unhappy with the new guy.They kept complaining that the water was not flowing from the bore well as before. And the said he will biding his time to claim the daily wage when he could have finished the work sooner !

So when the issue surfaced again , I called our old guy back. But he was in semi-retirement -- he said his son would handle but he will work under him.. That really threw me off..  We knew the old guy well . he was expensive but his work was good. And the worry bee was whether his son could fix the issue. 

So over the week end day , I was down  at the parking lot ,waiting for the new guy to show up.  I saw a smart well-dressed guy riding a high end bike in to our apartment. I ignored him as I thought he may be a visitor to one of our flats.

I was wrong . The guy showed up in front of me and as I looked at him ,he  no way fitted a description of a Plumber.   Here is how he was dressed :

Jeans

Smart looking T shirt

Sun glasses

Crocs footwear

Smart back pack bag

Clean Shaven

Ears Pierced ( one ear only )

Smart Phone wired to hands free

Perfume in the air 

I told him  about the issue and  looking at his demeanor , I feared the worst in terms of results.  But this guy was smart.  The back pack had all his tools . Neatly arranged. He got in to the act and got the work organized.

He told me to carry on and said he will call/ WhatsApp me once he figured out the problem. Spoke very politely .

After around 60 minutes , I got the WhatsApp’s – He had sent me images of the pipes , pulled out from the bore well , another image gave me details of the total footage the bore was sunk, the footage till which the pipes were laid and so on. Another message sent me some actions to take and cost ..And if I was okay to it ,  he indicated to send him a message back . While I said ok and  after a period of time , I went down and saw him at work. 

Again , it was neat. Although he had been involved in pulling the pipes out , water and some slush all over , he looked the same guy that I saw in the morning  . It was the way he was handling the job --Neat. His father was helping out but working under the Son !  The Son was in command.

Over the day , the job was complete .The guy came in with bills ( for all the expenses ) , showed actuals to his estimate . Collected the cash. And he was ready to leave. Back pack on , on to his super bike, the Sun glasses on . No one would ever tell he was in to Plumbing..

The changes I noticed which are all for good were:

1.      No Gunny bags to store the tools  ( you could see the hacksaw protruding out of the gunny bag all the time)

2.       Using technology to be transparent about the problem
3.       Well Dressed and very polite ( No lungi Sir – smart clean jeans )
4.       Keep the work area neat – no messing around .
5.       Handle the work even though it may be a messy one , in a neat way
6.       No foul language/ shouting  at any point of time  with his team (  We are used to noise and foul language only )
7.       He followed up with a call on the following day to check everything was going well
If at all  there was scope for improvement it was  the time that it took to get the issue  fixed.

Pleasant experience and a  pleasant surprise for me  but it may be one off !

As my HR Colleague tells me appearance are deceptive, attitude is not. That is what matters and makes the day ..