Musings on life ... Saurabh Jain: November 2005

This issue has bugged me for ages ...
Ever since I was able to do most of the things myself ... booking tickets, paying the bills, buying and ordering things, I've had this major issue with Indian Companies ...

Most of them .. and I am talking of about the 99% of them ... have the shoddiest service and their product quality is so pathetic, that you could throw your money - literally - down the drain and be happier for that.

People and companies who actually deliver, are very, very rare in India ... and if you come across some person or organisation which truly does this, you should not even think of going anywhere else and never, ever forget about them ...
Recommend them to all your friends, and those who'd care to listen and do the people ( the customers ) a big favour.

Anyways, I learnt the lesson the hard way.
Never - and I mean NEVER EVER compromise on quality, OR the services of a professional to save a few pennies here and there ..
In the long run, you will be the one losing out on your time and money and mental balance in pursuing a jackass who promises you the world, but can't even deliver a decent product if his life depended on it ...

The story actually starts with us guys needing to make the sweatshirts ...
I am going to take real life examples here ... and these shops do exist.

So, we people decide to make our college sweatshirts ...
We had 2 options - Uberoi sports on MG Road and Champion sports at Deccan ( for those of you who are familiar with Pune )

I had previously got some sweatshirts made from Uberoi when we guys were in the tenth standard in Vincents ... and though they were not stunning, they were affordable and okay.

Plus, Uberoi was a lot closer to our college - and hence we decided to get it made there.
So, we go and place the order sometime on the 10th of September for the sweatshirts and give him the specifications.
Mind you, to do this, we actually visited his shop 3 times because most of the times the guy who owns the place - Sanjeev Brar someone, wasn't at his shop.

So, finally when we meet him, we place the order and he agrees to deliver the sweatshirts for 300 bucks on the 18th of September which is also the last working day of our college.
He collects 50% advance and agrees to get the job done even with the ICICI bank type of "Mein Hoon Naa" kind of glance at himself ...

We give him the slogan to be put on the back, which we write ourselves and mention to him that it has to be specifically done in a particular way, otherwise the meaning would be lost.

On 17th of September ( one day before d day ), his father mysteriously becomes unwell and so the guy does not answer any of my calls.
Later, what ensues is a series of calls which are just cut off. At one time, he himself put me on hold - after 8 minutes, when I disconnect the call and recall him back, his daughter picks up the phone and says that he hasn't been to the shop for the entire day.
I had to resort to asking my other friends to call him to fool him into answering the phone - which he did on all occasions.

Then suddenly, in the middle, someone falls off from the 2nd floor of his building, and our sweatshirts again get delayed because he was in the hospital tending to him.

After lots of hassles ... and believe me ... I have NEVER been so harrased in my life, we finally get to see the sweatshirts on the 28th of September.
But to tell you honestly, the quality of the material looked like stuff they use to make tents.

And best of all, he gets the printing all wrong in the back.
Not only does the sweatshirt suck, we will look like fools if we had to wear it.

To cut a long story short, he tried to rectify the printing job, but he got it all messed up and the idiot tried to sell me the story that it would all go away after washing it ...

I demanded my money back, for which I had to drag 10 of my classmates - the huge and hefty kind - to his shop ( thanks you guys ! ) to demand the money which he eventually gave us ( that too using a Post dated cheque which thankfully cashed in later )

Now, after collecting the cheque on that day, we rushed to Champion Sports ...

This is on a Saturday - 5th of November and we place the order for our sweatshirts ...
After a lot of thinking and looking at the hundreds of sweatshirts which Champions previously had made, we place the order for the sweatshirts.

He agrees to do it for 310 bucks and not charge us for the printing ( he has his own printer setup ).
They have an inhouse designer, who designs the print job for us on the comp - and hacks at it till we are satisfied with it, and then creates a template for the print job in front of us.

Champions then calls me on Monday - 7th of November - and asks me whether I could come on Tuesday to look at the temp embroidery job ( college name ) which they did.
I check it out on Tuesday and find it satisfactory and approve it.

Thursday evening -10th November - I get a call saying that the sweatshirts are ready and we can pick it up anytime.
Friday evening, we pick up the sweatshirts and by Saturday, everybody has it.
Boom !

Quick and painless - how to get sweatshirts made in 6 days.
After what I had gone through, this looked like a fairy tale ..
The quality of the fabric is awesome and everyone loved the sweatshirt.

I have very high regards for Champion Sports after this, and could not recommend you to anyone else for sports wear related matters.

He may be slightly expensive - for the more jazzy designs ( ours is a plain black with name embroidered and slogan printed on back ), but you can be rest assured he will deliver on time and the quality would be exceptional.

What he offered us for 310 bucks, made the Uberoi sweatshirts for 300 bucks look like rags to clean the floor with.

Lesson learnt !
Point noted !

Never ever ever compromise on quality !
Professionals charge more coz they know what they are offering you.

I don’t know how many of you know this, but BSNL has got this awesome feature called “Bandwidth under control” in which, they themselves help you in controlling your broadband usage.

I am using the Rs. 500 plan in which I get a 256 kbps line and a 1 GB limit for a month.
Now, 1 GB per month is roughly 33 MB per day.

I generally stick to about 25 – 35 MB per day, which keeps me in the 1 GB safe zone … however, during exams and submissions and seminars, this limit touches about 55 – 60 MB per day.

So, what BSNL does is awesome …
During the peak time, exams and practicals and stuff, my phone magically goes dead for 2 days.

No phone, no broadband.
This works perfectly.

Coz, during the peak times, when I really need to use the internet, I would be hitting about 150 MB in 2 days.

So, by cutting my phone, these guys help me save up on that.
It’s really awesome you know …

You should definitely give it a try …