After moving to Bangalore in October, 2006 from New Delhi, I applied for a broadband connection from Tata Indicom (big mistake).

After applying, I was told that the connection will be provided to me within a week, but I got the broadband connection after 4 of those “so called” one week.

Even after paying the advance rental for 4 months to avoid paying the installation charges, I was charged the installation charges. Took some shouting and abusing from me for them to return the installation charges, which took around 2 months to get processed.

Now the real horror started, which I can term as a big pain in ass and waste of time. The connection used to be down most of the time of the month and the major chunk of my mobile phone bill was going on calls complaining and abusing people at the customer service of tata indicom broadband.

This did not happen on one occasion but numerous occasions throughout my broadband service term with tata indicom. I have even forgot counts of the problems which I had.

I will let you guys know the most recent problem which frustrated me so much that I decided to end the service from tata indicom as I prefer staying without a internet connection rather than availing the service from these worthless people who do not know how to serve the customer.

1. I was on leave for Diwali holidays and was in my hometown. I came back on 7^th of November and found out that my internet connection was not working (nothing unusual). Being a weekend, I decide to call them on Monday.

2. On Monday 10^th of November, I gave then a formal call and logged a complain request with them to fix the interconnection. I was given an assurance of 24 hours for the internet connection to be fixed.

3. After 2 of those 24 hours passed with no response from their backend team or any contact from their customer service, I felt I should call them and throw in some abuses to get the connection fixed. I did that religiously and was again given an assurance that the complain will be forwarded to the backend team and will be attended on urgent basis. I knew very well that I will end up abusing them again after 24 hours as I had prior experience of this on the numerous occasions when my connection was down.

4. After another 3 of those 24 hours passed, I thought I would call those idiots at the customer service desk of tata indicom and show my undying love for them. After showing a little of my love to them, my call was escalated to a so called supervisor (another worthless guy with low self esteem). After listening to his explanation, I felt like showing my love to him but restrained myself as I though this guy might be able to do something for me (big big mistake).

5. Another 2 of the promised 24 hours passed but I got no response either from their backend team or from the lovely people at tata indicom customer service (I hope u get my sarcasm here), I had to give them a call to show my love to them which had grown deeper and deeper in due time. I was dying for them to send a backend support person at my doorstep so that I could strangulate that guy and hang him from my ceiling fan to cool down my frustration. Again I ended up being transferred to a supervisor. This time I was not able to hide my love for the people of tata indicom and gave him some abuses. Again I got a promise for 24 hours from that particular supervisor. Poor guys got blasted by me for giving that promise. I felt like putting my hand through the phone and strangulating him there and then, but I guess the technology has not developed so much to teleport me to him like in the movie “Matrix” (how would I have loved this; I cant even explain to you people).

6. Another 4 of those 24 hours passed. I have fed up now I cant bear even the voice of those bunch of jokers telling me about what they are doing for the connection. Still I had to give them a call as that was the only thing I could I have done. This time god blessed those people with some information and I was informed that the local service had some technical issues. Here I was unable to understand, what was taking a company like tata indicom to fix a local server even after the problem being reported 12 days back. SHEER INCOMPETENCE!!!

7. Days Passed by and I was loosing my nerves. I called twice more and got the same pathetic reply that the work is in progress and they will forward it on an “urgent” basis (at this point of time I had by hearted their entire call scripts).

8. On 28^th Of November I sent an email to their Appelate Authority in Mumbai as well as the Nodal Officer of Bangalore. The email is given below:

This is to inform you that my internet connection is not working since approximately 20 days since 7^th-8^th of November. The complaint number XXXXXXXXX was logged with you people on 10^th of November and even after numerous calls to your customer care number, the connection is still not working. I have not even received one call back from your customer department to update me on the status or the connection has not been working for long.

Any valid explanation for this would be very helpful as well as expediting the repairs on my connection.

I have been told by your customer care representatives and a supervisor that the issue is with the local server. If that’s the case then may I know what can take a company like Tata Indicom to take so long to repair or replace a server??? I expect that you have ample infrastructure to replace the same or have you lost money in the current economic recession that you cannot afford to repair or replace a small server.

Any response to this will be greatly appreciated. I would also request Ms. Priya (Nodal Officer for Bangalore) to give me a callback as her number is never reachable when I try to contact.

A frustrated Customer of a worst  service from Tata Indicom Broadband.

Rahul R Verma

Account email: xxxxxxxx@vsnl.net

Complain number: XXXXXXX

Billing Complain Number: XXXXXXX

9. After 4 good days, I got this reply from the nodal officer. I have added my feeling to the email in brackets and in red bolds.

Dear Mr.Rahul,

Greetings from Tata Communications. (Screw you and your greetings)

This is to inform you that as confirmed from our technical team the broadband connection is not restorable  due to technical issues. (And it took you one month to figure that out? Btw.. how was it working for nearly 2 years before this??? Height of incompetency)

Hence kindly confirm for further action in this regard. (Other Action : Shove the Internet connection with the ADSL modem up your ASS)

We sincerely regret for the delay and inconvenience caused. (Only the ADSL modem in your ass will make me truly accept your apologies)

Regards

Nodal officer South3

10. Now I ended up calling their customer service number again to know how to get rid of their worthless internet services. I was informed that I will have to send an email to their customer service email to get it disconnection. I showed my last love (I think u got what I meant here) to them on the phone call and disconnected.

11. I have sent the email religiously and now I am waiting for the connection to be removed. Though I would love to see a person from tata indicom broadband at my doorstep to strangulate him.

Inner peace has dawned upon me and I am now a much happier person.

So people who are willing to take an broadband connection from tata indicom, think a hundred times. You will be better without one rather that getting one from tata indicom.

And for people who are using tata indicom without any problems, I have sympathies for you as problem is on your way soon. Maybe you are lucky as those idiots have not taken a look at your connection. Keep your connection hidden, as if they notice you.. you will get jinxed too.

Three Cheers for the worst ISP on the planet… they take bad service to a whole new level!!!

PS: Try a search in google with the keywords tata indicom broadband. You will come up with lot of interesting experience like mine.

I would suggest you to view this video posted on You Tube which shows an TV report on Tata Indicom Broadband carried on by CNN-IBN.

Now I will keep you all updated if I have any thing else to share regarding Tata Indicom Broadband.

All hail tata indicom broadband.. which sucks to the core.

Article by K. Stone. Information about the author is given below the blog.

Why We Like to Be Busy

Have you ever noticed that most of us are constantly on a chase? We chase after many things, usually seeking the high that comes from a new object, a new feeling, a new emotion. If it’s shiny and new, we want it whether it’s a new gadget, a new buzz, a new love interest, or a new discovery. Ok, so what’s wrong with seeking out new things? Isn’t that fun? Shouldn’t we be able to have a little fun? Yes, of course. The problem is when you seek out new things compulsively in ways that actually keep you from living the life you really want.

The Chase – Good and Bad

Desiring “The Chase” is a good thing that naturally drives us forward in life. It compels us towards our goals, meeting a spouse, having a family, starting a business, creating things, and more. It becomes detrimental when we don’t apply forethought to our actions. Examples are overspending on things we don’t need, getting involved in affairs, abusing drugs, and wasting time seeking out new and complex methods or tools when we already have ones that are simple and that work. On the last example, I think it is important to explore new ideas, but we must constantly check ourselves to keep this in balance. “Am I procrastinating, or do am I truly in need of a new idea, method, tool?”

How to Free Yourself from Compulsive Chasing and Live Your Dream Life

Compulsive chasing can often be a result of not knowing what to do next. Our goals are unclear, unprioritized. Our life is full of physical and mental clutter so we try to escape this chaos through chasing the shiny and new. To stop this cycle I’ve put together a process to get you on track to clear out the clutter and obtain focus. To do this, I suggest taking 1-2 days off to organize your life. You may be thinking,”I can’t do that!!” Ah, but you can! Think back to times when you’ve been sick and couldn’t perform home and work duties. The world goes on without us. So take some time for yourself now. You work hard and deserve to clear out mental and physical clutter so you can live the life of your dreams!

The “Organize Your Life” Process

The goal of this process is to declutter your world and mind, and then organize things, ideas, and goals so that you can live a purposeful life, one in which you are not just merely “busy” but engaged, excited, and living out your dreams. This process is meant to be modified by you so that it works best for you. These are just guidelines.

1. Pre-work: Here is a Pocket Mod GTD cheatsheet to use as a guide. Another great place to learn a similar approach is Zen To Done over at ZenHabits.net.

2. Tools you may need: Files, Filing Drawer/Container, In-Basket, Notebook, Calendar, and Tickler/Reminder File/Tool. You probably have most of these already. Don’t feel like you need to get fancy. Simple is best when it comes to tools. These tools can be physical and/or electronic. Whatever system is easiest and most intuitive for you, use that.

3. First plan the Big Things you want to accomplish during your time. Examples might be:

• Clear out clutter in office (2 hours)
• Create places to put things to be donated, sold, or trashed (10 minutes)
• Organize papers, files, and reference items (2 hours)
• Create plan to de-clutter whole house over next 6 six weeks (15 minutes)
• Work on Goal Setting and Goal Implementation Planning and/or Goal Simplification (1-2 hours)
• Take action on first steps of my top 1-3 goals ( 2 hours)
• Plan my next steps -schedule it into calendar, tickler file or to-do reminder system(5 minutes)
• Plan when I will do my weekly review (5 minutes)

4. I suggest De-Clutter as a first physical action step. Here is a guide on how to De-Clutter. When in doubt throw it out. But don’t get too carried away and throw out things that you really might need especially if they are expensive. Simply find a “home” for those things. Don’t aim for perfection, just aim for Big Progress. Don’t let the little things bog you down. If you get stuck making a decision on an item, put it into your “review in 6 months pile” and move on to the next thing. Keep moving to make the most of your time.

5. Put stuff into piles:

• Trash
• To be sold (schedule in how/when you will sell this stuff so you ensure you’ll do it. If you don’t have a lot of time for this, then either delegate that task to a local ebay seller or donate it)
• To be Donated (load this stuff right into your car, or put near the front door if you’re having it picked up)
• To be Reviewed in 6 months (for things you can’t decide on)

6. Organize your papers, files, books, things, and other reference materials. If items are associated with actions, write it down in your capture notebook and put the item in it’s place or trash if not needed. If items are reference, then file them or put them in their “home.” If you need to be reminded of a reference item, put that on your capture list too and put the item away.

7. Process your In-Box of papers and your Capture list. Assign tasks to projects, your next-action list (I still call it a To-Do List), and into reminder tools like calendar, reminder programs, or tickler files.

8. Goal Setting, Goal Planning, and Goal Simplifying. This will get you focused onto how to live out your dream life. Check out these three guides for Goal Management. I suggest doing them in this order. If time is short, just do #2.

1. Ultimate Goal Setting Guide + Free Download
2. Wrestling with Your Goals? (Goal Planning & Management)
3. Simplifying Your Goals

This exercise will take anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hours depending on how detailed you want to get. It will give you direction and focus. You’ll know what to do next. The clutter in your mind will be gone. You’ll no longer be “busy” chasing new things for the sake of chasing, but rather you’ll be journeying towards your dreams. This journey is the most useful way to channel the primal desire to chase. And eventually I would suggest cultivating a shift in your perception from “chasing dreams” to “living my dreams.”

9. Take action on at least one step you’ve identified in your goal planning to get the ball rolling. And plan the next few as well. This will make you feel great!

10. Commit to daily and weekly planning and periodic De-Cluttering.

• Daily planning: Plan your day realistically by assigning the amount of time it takes to complete a task. Then work your way down from hardest task to easiest!
• Weekly Planning: Capture ideas onto paper, Process In-Box, Review Goals, project lists, to-do lists, upcoming calendar, previous calendar week for missed items, and generally tidy up desk and other major areas.
• Periodic De-Cluttering. Choose a frequency that works for you and set reminders into your calendar. And then do it!

K. Stone is author of Life Learning Today, a blog about daily life improvements. A few of her most popular articles are How to Stop Being “Busy” and Live Your Dream Life, Creativity Blocks? Bash Through in 15 Steps, How to Nap at Work – or Anyplace You Need a Rest, and The Cure for Overworked, Overtired YOU!.

Article written by Adrian Savage. Information regarding the writer is given at the end of the Article. This article is really useful.

If you want to look back on a life that fills you with joy, conventional rules for success are not the place to start

1. Don’t chase money, power, or status.
If they come to you, that’s fine. But most conventional ideas about success go wrong because they focus on outcomes instead of on the processes of living. Outcomes come around from time to time, but life itself—the process of living, acting, thinking, and being—happens all the time. No outcome is going to make a lousy, miserable process feel worthwhile.

If you hate what you do, no amount of power or money will make up for that. If your life is constantly stressful, boring, unhappy, or frustrating, how can achieving some high status once in a while make up for all the miserable days and weeks you spent getting there? It’s tempting to feel that the end will more than make up for the means; that you’ll forget the misery in the blaze of achievement. And you will—for a few moments. Then you’ll be back on the treadmill, with only the distant hope of some fresh achievement or monetary gain to console you. That’s like being a laboratory rat conditioned to unnatural behavior by occasional pellets of food.

2. Take whatever time you need to discover what matters to you most
Success isn’t simply a matter of money, power, or prestige. You could gain all of those and still feel that you have fallen short of what you wanted; or you could gain none of them and be blissfully happy and fulfilled. What constitutes personal success is mostly in your mind. It has much less to do with finding the best career in other peoples’ eyes, creating a killer business, or holding down a fancy job with a big salary than with achieving what really matters to you. Many people find this out too late. They struggle for years to get where other people said they should go, only to find it does little or nothing for them. Sad;y, it’s often too late by then to do anything else.

3. Don’t base your choices on others’ approval. We all want to please those we care about, so it’s natural to try to do what they approve. Natural, but rarely a good idea as the basis for life’s choices. I don’t say that you should deliberately ignore sound advice, or reject a career path simply because other people suggest it. But even the most loving parent or friend can’t always see what is going to make your heart sing. Listen to others. Value their input and their support. But go your own way. It’s better to be committed to doing what you truly love than accept something lesser for the sake of being approved by someone else.

4. Stay authentic. That means always doing what truly matters to you and is part of who you are. The simplest definition of a hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another: like a person who says that he or she wants to work at something that benefits society, then forgets that at the first sight of a fistful of dollar bills. Somewhere inside of you is a part that recalls what truly matters and will never quite let you forget it. Over the years, that inner voice is only going to get louder.

5. Go for meaning over money every time. It’s perfectly possible to do something meaningless to you and earn a great deal of cash while doing so. Some people do, especially in parts of the media world. It just requires a stronger stomach and more cynicism that most people possess, plus a huge tolerance for boredom.

Is it worth it? If money is truly all that matters to you—and you can make lots of it quickly and get out—it might be. Few areas of work will allow you to do that, aside from criminal ones. Meaningless days corrode most peoples’ minds and destroy their happiness. Doing something that means a great deal to you almost always makes you feel energized and alive. It’s your choice.

6. Be endlessly greedy—for learning. You can never learn too much or overfill your mind with new ideas. Nothing is more useful in life than a well-developed, well-stocked mind, especially one that has been broadened and enlarged in the process. It’s hard to name a single famously successful person who was narrow-minded, bigoted, or stupid. The list of notable successes who are recognized for the power of their minds is long. And you don’t have to have had an expensive education to be able to develop a great mind. There have been plenty of near geniuses whose education was almost entirely self-produced.

7. Make a friend of failure. You are certain to fail sometimes, and the higher your aspirations, the more frequent and significant that failure will be. People who don’t strive for anything glorious rarely fail; they take no risks and never aim beyond what is easily attainable. But if you treat failure as an enemy, it’s going to lead only to discouragement and even the abandoning of your hopes and dreams. Failure can be a friend, pointing out what isn’t right yet and showing you the way to do better. The more proficient you become at accepting the lessons of failure, the quicker you will succeed.

8. Make sure that every time you make a mistake, it’s a new one. Making the same mistake several times shows that you haven’t learned what it can teach you. Making new mistakes proves that you’re trying something different. The best definition of a loser is someone who makes the same mistakes over and over again, never managing to learn anything in the process. Such a person is doomed.

9. Choose to spend your time with the right people. I don’t mean that in the sense of the rich and the powerful, the movers and shakers of society. Whether they’re powerful or not, the best people to spend time with are those from whom you can learn most: the ones whose own lives have brought them joy and endless fulfillment. That means people who do what they love and love what they do. People who have become experts in life, thinking people, people with wide-open minds and wide-open hearts.

Seek them out wherever you can. Listen to them. Never mind if they are no longer living. Read their books and emulate their largeness of spirit. Learn from them all, but don’t simply copy what they did in this world. What they did was right for them, but may not be right for you. What you need to use as models are their ways of thinking and responding to the challenges of the world; the process of their lives, not what it happened to contain.

10. Drop whatever is inconsistent with these principles. That means all activities that don’t move you forward towards what you value most; things that get in the way of learning; pursuits that waste time and dull your senses; and people who hold you back. You may sometimes have to be ruthless. Each of us has only one life. If you waste it, you don’t get another chance. Besides, if you have chosen your dreams and aspirations wisely, what you must leave behind by dropping what’s inconsistent with those dreams will not be worth worrying about anyway. Those who make bad choices find, too late, that they have abandoned things and people that meant more to them than whatever they gained in exchange. If that happens, you have truly reached one of life’s lowest points.

Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired business executive, in that order. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. You can read his other articles at Slow Leadership, the site for everyone who wants to build a civilized place to work and bring back the taste, zest and satisfaction to leadership and life. Recent posts there on similar topics include How to work less and accomplish more and What are you busy doing?. His latest book, Slow Leadership: Civilizing The Organization, is now available at all good bookstores.

Ask yourself: Do people like me?

You get promoted in this world because people like you, not because you get work done. There’s always more than one person who can get a job done. But everyone’s personality is different, so when you want to differentiate yourself at work, focus on your personality.

Showing the True You

In fact, a 2005 study published in the Harvard Business Review shows that people would rather work with someone they like who’s incompetent than someone who’s competent but not likable.

Keep in mind that “likable” is not as subjective as it seems. Most people in the office agree on who’s likable and who’s not. For example, most people like Bill Clinton — he just has a likable personality. Even the Bush family members, Clinton’s political polar opposites, say they like his personality.

So, if you want to get ahead at the office, you need to figure out how to make yourself likable. Usually, it’s not a matter of changing your personality, but rather making sure that your true personality shows through.

Ten Ways to Blow It

Then again, most people think they’re more likable than they really are, and therefore don’t try hard enough. There are many things that keep people from being likable — here’s a list of 10 of them:

• Using sarcasm as a defense mechanism

You probably don’t know if you’re using sarcasm as a defense mechanism, but if you use it a lot, it’s a safe bet that it’s in a defensive way.

• Being quiet because you’re insecure

People are inherently social animals. If you have nothing that you want to say, then you’re probably not likable because you have nothing to offer.

But if you do have things to say but don’t say them, then you’re not likable only because you’re so insecure that you believe you’ll sound stupid when you talk.

• Not revealing emotions at work

Keeping to yourself emotionally makes you seem one-dimensional, and it’s hard to convey likeability with no depth. Most people who talk but don’t reveal emotions are out of touch with their emotions. You have to know them yourself to share them with other people.

Reaching Others by Reaching Out

• Being too smug — as in not asking for help or not revealing that you’ve had help along the way

To show no gratitude or no need for others is to alienate yourself. You might think that you make yourself look like Superman, able to do anything in a single bound. But super-heroes don’t really exist, and real people need real help. So let them know you understand this by asking for help and expressing appreciation.

• Not seeing people for who they are

If you treat people who are powerful well and people who have no power poorly then you aren’t seeing the whole person. Power structures don’t define a person; they define a person’s clout. Treat everyone with respect or you won’t deserve it yourself.

• Being bored by others

If you’re not curious about other people, they won’t be interested in you. The most likable people make other people feel interesting by genuinely caring about them.

Me, Me, Me

• Being obsessed with your workload

If you think work matters more than people, then that’ll be true — for you. And people will expect you to be a workhorse but won’t want to get to know you. And they need to know you to like you.

• Not taking responsibility

If people don’t like you, it’s your own fault. Likable people are liked in all circumstances. If you blame people for your problems, people aren’t going to like you — even if they’re not among the people you blame.

• Hiding from objective feedback

You can get it from therapists, co-workers, teachers, and coaches, but you have to seek it out. And if you don’t, then you probably don’t have a good sense of your least likable qualities. So you don’t have the knowledge to make yourself likable.

• Not trying to change

All the knowledge in the world can’t overcome an inability to change. The ego is very strong and can rationalize anything. Don’t let yours do that. Take criticism to heart, and address it no matter how likable you think you are to begin with.

You’ll be more likable right away, because listening to others and trying to change are both inherently likable qualities.