A typical day in India …
Here’s what happened today, and this was a typical day in India.
I stopped at my friend/my company’s director’s office today so that we could go to our bank together (I have my company’s bank account there); I had to do a couple of things. He couldn’t go with me today because he had other obligations; I didn’t have any problem with that because I knew that he actually had many things to take care of. So, I went to the bank alone.
I had to get a certain certificate from the bank, but because of a couple of administrative problems, I had to speak to the branch manager directly and ask him about it. I couldn’t find his at his desk, so I asked for him. After I spoke to three different people working there, I found out that he was in the meeting today and he would not be back in the bank until tomorrow. I also had to open a personal bank account, so I spoke to a lady who opened my company’s bank account. She told me that she would not open personal bank accounts (Why…???) and she asked me to speak to a different banker to open a personal bank account. I spoke to four different people up to this point.
I waited for about 10 minutes and then I finally spoke to a banker who opened personal bank accounts. He asked me what my purpose was, so I told him that I’d like to open a personal bank account. He asked me a couple of questions and he found out that I was not an Indian citizen, nor did I have any resident status; I was still in the process of taking care of all administrative tasks for my Indian company after all. I could only establish a legitimate resident status after that. He then told me that he could not open a personal bank account for me because I did not have any resident status in India. Then, I told him that I spoke to the branch manager a couple of weeks ago and the branch manager told me that I could open a personal bank account; I actually heard this directly from the mouth of the branch manager. The banker then tried to contact the branch manager, but he was unable to get to the branch manager because the branch manager was in the meeting (What a surprise …). He told me that the branch manager would contact me directly regarding this, so I just asked casually “So, you’re asking me to wait, right?”. He started talking about the branch manager’s being in the meeting, so I asked again, “So, I need to wait?” He, to my surprise, started explaining while he didn’t answer “Yes” or “No”. I asked once again, “I need to wait, right?” He finally said yes. I thanked him for his time and left. Oh, by the way, he didn’t apologize, say “sorry” or say anything else until I thanked him for his time.
I went to this bank quite a few times over the past couple of months, and I’d say that 4 out of 5 times, I accomplished absolutely nothing. Today happened to be one of those typical days that I accomplished nothing. *** sigh *** (I’m a bit tired this week …)
