What a smile and good behavior will not get for you! Good behavior costs nothing, yet how seldom we remember it. Thankfully, I remembered this age old axiom when the handy man from our housing complex came to our house to fix a tap. As usual I asked how he was doing and offered him a cup of tea after his work was done. And that worked like a charm.
There was this broken sewer pipe just outside my bathroom window that had developed a fresh leak and was stinking up the entire rear end of my house. I had lodged a complaint and had even spoken to the complex care-taker about it. But week after week passed and nothing happened. Then along came this guy with a range and a scowl to fix my tap.
A cup of tea and five minutes of listening to his stories of home and I had the sewer pipe leak fixed the very next day! In a country like ours, letters and memos don’t work. What does work is relationship building and a little empathy. It will stand us all irate people in good stead to remember this when we vent our frustration at auto-rickshaw drivers, taxi drivers, bus conductors, house-maids and all sorts of folks on whom we have to depend to have our work done.
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