Sometimes, I laugh out loud at some of the policies that some business-minded people use for their business. People who use personal issues in their lives as a basis for their business don’t even take into account the effect that such a policy would have on their business. They just do it anyway, and then wonder why things are not going as they expect them to.
And when I say this, my focus isn’t on businesses per se, because even artisans are guilty of this as well. There are so many of them who are so archaic in their business acumen that you can’t help but wonder if they were born in 1925. But then, you can’t force them to change. If you don’t like what they do, you take your patronage elsewhere.
That was what I was forced to do today. Our pumping machine has developed a fault, and for a week now, despite having a regular power supply, we’ve not had water running in the house, so we had to fix it. However, with everyone being so busy and acting so aloof, I decided to step up and see what needed to be done.
I looked at the pumping machine, thinking it was something a simple wirework would fix, but I was wrong. Nothing else seemed off, except the pumping machine itself. It was faulty and needed to be serviced. I didn’t know anyone who could do that, so I asked a neighbor to give me the number of the guy who regularly does such jobs for us.
I called the number, and every time, the guy didn’t answer his call. He let it ring out until the time ran out. It happened that day, and every other day of this week that I’ve called him. No matter how many times I called, my call was ignored. This morning, I went to meet the neighbor who gave me the number. At first, I was thinking she had given me the wrong one. However, when we cross-checked, we saw that it was indeed correct. Why then wasn’t he picking?
She decided to try it herself, she called him, and right there before me, he picked up on the first ring. I was shocked. It didn’t make sense at all because I had been calling him all through the week, and he ignored me. But my neighbor called him only once, and he answered it almost immediately. When I mentioned my observations to her, she only shrugged because she didn’t know why either. She tried to use the “he was probably busy” line, but we both knew that didn’t fly at all.
When the man eventually came around casually mentioned that I had been calling him all through the week, and he ignored me, but he answered my neighbor at once. I wanted to know why that was the case. His response to me was flippant and without remorse. He told me that he doesn’t answer calls from strange numbers. If a number is not saved on his phone, nothing on earth would make him answer such a call, even if they called a hundred times. The reason he answered my neighbor’s was because her number was saved on his phone, because the last time he came around, she was the one who coordinated it.
I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that an artisan, someone who was supposed to be looking for more customers, would knowingly ignore calls, simply because he didn’t answer calls from strange numbers. If it had been a regular person or a celebrity, I would have understood. But for an artisan who survives mainly on the number of gigs you can secure, this didn’t seem like a smart move to me.
Only God knows how many customers he has lost so far because of this, because there’s no way he’d have the number of everyone he has ever come across. When I asked him how he expects to get new customers if he’s always ignoring their calls, he told me that the person who referred them had to first inform him. Yeah… it’s giving delulu vibes…
I know that everyone has a right to handle their business and privacy as they wish. However, I feel that when things like your business contacts are public, access should be public as well. Not only to those who are privileged enough to view your WhatsApp status, but also for those who will wish to patronize you as well.
When he was leaving, he gave me his phone and asked me to input my number and save it, in case of next time. I refused. There’s nothing in this whole wide world that’ll make him call that man ever again. He and his yeye policies should just getat.
