28.10.04
T&T Office
On 25th of August I along with Palash bhai(my relative) went to Chittagong Telephone Board at Bayezid Bostami. When he heard my story of chronic failures in convincing those officials to fix our telephone line, he told me that he would go to the T&T office and talk about it entering every room of the office and tell everyone there about it. I now became confident that the phone would at last get fixed. For the last one month I have tried my best to get the phone re-connected. I complained about it to the T&T office several times but to no avail. So today I took him with me.
Now let me tell you something about the T&T office of Bayezid Bostami. Not to mention, like most of the government offices in Bangladesh it is huge in size with shabby out look, dirty staircases, doors with broken lockers, windows with broken glass, walls with bad plaster and inside there are age-old documents piled up in giant sized shelves.
We went inside the building. I told you before that the building is huge and certainly lot bigger than it was necessary. In the first floor’s corridor there are enough doors to baffle you easily. You will have to wonder which door to enter first. And it gets harder to find the right room when you find that there is no one around there to help you. But it was easy for us on that Tuesday because out of those 13 doors only one was open. It is named, “Test Room”. And surprisingly there was only a woman inside that room. Her name is Rabeya.
Palash Bhai asked her to show the complaint book to see if there was any complaint from our part. He discovered that there were complaints on 23rd, 18th, 13th, 10th and 3rd of August. I made these complaints coming to the office. I don’t know if they bother to notice the complaints made by over the phone. Palash Bhai then asked the woman to tell him who the head of the office is, so that we could go to him. But she didn’t have any idea about that. She is a mere complaint writer (Yes, there is such a post in T&T office. Then there are other posts as complaint reader, complaint book carrier…etc. etc.). It is not surprising if she doesn’t know her boss’s name.
Then a man came into the room who seemed to have a good position in the office. Palash Bhai asked him the same question to know the head official’s name. And surprise, surprise… He doesn’t know either. He was asking Rabeya to help him. Then he said, “You know he is a new officer. So….”
Hmm….that indeed was a good answer, similar answers I often hear in different government offices.
We then went to the 3rd floor where the officers sit. And on this floor there are 16 doors on the corridor and most of them were closed that day. We went in the second room. The first room was locked with a big locker. But on the second room there was neither Mr. Molla nor Mr. Bhuiya. There was only a man who seemed to me to be a minor employee. And he told us that they have gone home.
Gone Home??? At 3pm? I know that the working hour is till 5pm. It means they are reluctant of working after noon. But couple of days ago when I went to the office to have my complaint written at 9:30am, I couldn’t find them then either. I was told to come again at 10am because 9:30 was too early. My relative said, “Isn’t it funny Zahir!!! But when you will find them at the office they will be on lunch break.”
We found only one room that was not locked but it was closed. To my embarrassment Palash bhai pushed the door open and went inside. After entering the air-conditioned room we peeped through a curtain and found a fat man with a very loose pants sat in front of a computer smoking. Next to him was another man who was standing and helping the fat man to do his work on the computer. They didn’t notice us. He was checking the e-mails slowly smoking the cigarette and the other man was helping him to do that. At one time the standing man said, “Sir, to open the letter you will have to double click on the mail ad. Like me, quickly” We understood that this fat man is the head of the office.
You cannot blame the other employees when the boss is like this.
Then we talked with him about the problems with our phone connection.
He said, “Why have you bothered so much? You could have simply written a complaint to Mr. Molla’s room. The problem would have been solved soon after”. “Is it the first room on the left of this floor?” I asked. He said, “No, it’s on the 3rd floor.”. That’s amazing because we were on the 3rd floor then. After getting out of the boss’s room Palash bhai told me “ How ridiculous! The employees don’t know their boss’s name and the boss doesn’t know where his employees sit. Hahahaha…..”
On the 30th August workers from T&T office came to fix our telephone line. I hearing their arrival news went to them to see what the problem was. I found that there were four men working there. One with a spade had dug the soil; another (Nuru) was fixing the cable problem, and their supervisor (Nabi), sitting on a chair was watching them do the work. And the fourth man who is a guard at the T&T office was wondering what had happened.
When Nabi saw me he said, “There was problem in the cable. But there was no spare cable at the office. I have reconnected your telephone line to a different connection coming from that area. It is illegal according to government law. But as you are my known person and your uncle is my friend, I’ve done this work on my own accord and with my own expense. For the digging and changing of the cable it took us 700tk., tell your mom to give us 1000taka for the repairmen. In other places we would have taken at least 3000tk for this…”
Really, every government employee works for the people with their own pocket money. Unfortunately they don’t get any material from the government.
I didn’t say anything to them then. After this they came to our house and we gave them tea and snacks. When they had finished and demanded the money, I bargained for some time with them. It was necessary to pay them as little as possible because if we had paid them a big amount they would have made that the required amount. And not only that they would disconnect our phone line willingly every few months later to get more money.
At first I gave Nuru 300Taka but he wasn’t satisfied. Then after bargaining for a while he wanted to have at least 600Taka. I told him with disgust, “Ok, take this 600Taka.” “Are you hurt?” he said. “If giving me this money hurts you then I won’t take it.” Bringing a big phony smile on my face I said, “Oh no. I’m not hurt at all. I’m rather very glad to be able to give you this money.” He then said, “Ok, I will take it then.” They then departed taking 600Taka.
I think my conversations with the government employees have some literary value that’s why I’ve put them here. Sometimes when I talk with them I can hardly help laughing.
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Now let me tell you something about the T&T office of Bayezid Bostami. Not to mention, like most of the government offices in Bangladesh it is huge in size with shabby out look, dirty staircases, doors with broken lockers, windows with broken glass, walls with bad plaster and inside there are age-old documents piled up in giant sized shelves.
We went inside the building. I told you before that the building is huge and certainly lot bigger than it was necessary. In the first floor’s corridor there are enough doors to baffle you easily. You will have to wonder which door to enter first. And it gets harder to find the right room when you find that there is no one around there to help you. But it was easy for us on that Tuesday because out of those 13 doors only one was open. It is named, “Test Room”. And surprisingly there was only a woman inside that room. Her name is Rabeya.
Palash Bhai asked her to show the complaint book to see if there was any complaint from our part. He discovered that there were complaints on 23rd, 18th, 13th, 10th and 3rd of August. I made these complaints coming to the office. I don’t know if they bother to notice the complaints made by over the phone. Palash Bhai then asked the woman to tell him who the head of the office is, so that we could go to him. But she didn’t have any idea about that. She is a mere complaint writer (Yes, there is such a post in T&T office. Then there are other posts as complaint reader, complaint book carrier…etc. etc.). It is not surprising if she doesn’t know her boss’s name.
Then a man came into the room who seemed to have a good position in the office. Palash Bhai asked him the same question to know the head official’s name. And surprise, surprise… He doesn’t know either. He was asking Rabeya to help him. Then he said, “You know he is a new officer. So….”
Hmm….that indeed was a good answer, similar answers I often hear in different government offices.
We then went to the 3rd floor where the officers sit. And on this floor there are 16 doors on the corridor and most of them were closed that day. We went in the second room. The first room was locked with a big locker. But on the second room there was neither Mr. Molla nor Mr. Bhuiya. There was only a man who seemed to me to be a minor employee. And he told us that they have gone home.
Gone Home??? At 3pm? I know that the working hour is till 5pm. It means they are reluctant of working after noon. But couple of days ago when I went to the office to have my complaint written at 9:30am, I couldn’t find them then either. I was told to come again at 10am because 9:30 was too early. My relative said, “Isn’t it funny Zahir!!! But when you will find them at the office they will be on lunch break.”
We found only one room that was not locked but it was closed. To my embarrassment Palash bhai pushed the door open and went inside. After entering the air-conditioned room we peeped through a curtain and found a fat man with a very loose pants sat in front of a computer smoking. Next to him was another man who was standing and helping the fat man to do his work on the computer. They didn’t notice us. He was checking the e-mails slowly smoking the cigarette and the other man was helping him to do that. At one time the standing man said, “Sir, to open the letter you will have to double click on the mail ad. Like me, quickly” We understood that this fat man is the head of the office.
You cannot blame the other employees when the boss is like this.
Then we talked with him about the problems with our phone connection.
He said, “Why have you bothered so much? You could have simply written a complaint to Mr. Molla’s room. The problem would have been solved soon after”. “Is it the first room on the left of this floor?” I asked. He said, “No, it’s on the 3rd floor.”. That’s amazing because we were on the 3rd floor then. After getting out of the boss’s room Palash bhai told me “ How ridiculous! The employees don’t know their boss’s name and the boss doesn’t know where his employees sit. Hahahaha…..”
On the 30th August workers from T&T office came to fix our telephone line. I hearing their arrival news went to them to see what the problem was. I found that there were four men working there. One with a spade had dug the soil; another (Nuru) was fixing the cable problem, and their supervisor (Nabi), sitting on a chair was watching them do the work. And the fourth man who is a guard at the T&T office was wondering what had happened.
When Nabi saw me he said, “There was problem in the cable. But there was no spare cable at the office. I have reconnected your telephone line to a different connection coming from that area. It is illegal according to government law. But as you are my known person and your uncle is my friend, I’ve done this work on my own accord and with my own expense. For the digging and changing of the cable it took us 700tk., tell your mom to give us 1000taka for the repairmen. In other places we would have taken at least 3000tk for this…”
Really, every government employee works for the people with their own pocket money. Unfortunately they don’t get any material from the government.
I didn’t say anything to them then. After this they came to our house and we gave them tea and snacks. When they had finished and demanded the money, I bargained for some time with them. It was necessary to pay them as little as possible because if we had paid them a big amount they would have made that the required amount. And not only that they would disconnect our phone line willingly every few months later to get more money.
At first I gave Nuru 300Taka but he wasn’t satisfied. Then after bargaining for a while he wanted to have at least 600Taka. I told him with disgust, “Ok, take this 600Taka.” “Are you hurt?” he said. “If giving me this money hurts you then I won’t take it.” Bringing a big phony smile on my face I said, “Oh no. I’m not hurt at all. I’m rather very glad to be able to give you this money.” He then said, “Ok, I will take it then.” They then departed taking 600Taka.
I think my conversations with the government employees have some literary value that’s why I’ve put them here. Sometimes when I talk with them I can hardly help laughing.
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