Rude persons

Sometime ago, I met a rude man courtesy of my client. I won't mention names here so that their "face" will be protected. My client had decided that he wanted to take his work away from me. Now you are beginning to think that I am suffering from a case of sour grapes because I am loosing a client. Let me assure you that it was not the case - they were also driving me nuts with their work and "madness".

Anyway my client flew in at the last minute and I had to clear my calendar for him. Then we went to Citibank as he wanted to change the bank signatories. No problem but the client (J) didn't give notice to the banker (L) that he was coming. So that morning, J and I turned up Citibank at Paragon to change the bank signatories and we met with the rude man (M) and his business partner (J).

Since L didn't know about this meeting and had scheduled another meeting in the morning, nobody could attend to us at Citibank. However, there was this wonderful concierge guy named Ben who attended to us and did all he could to assist us.

In the time we were at Citibank at Paragon, M made all sorts of disparaging remarks:

M: why can't another person attend to us?

Ben: L is the person who is taking care of your account, so he is the best person to deal with the matter.

M: you mean there is no other person? Then if L is not around, how does Citibank function?

Ben kept quiet but M started on again -

M: is this the sort of inefficient service that Citibank offers?

M: so if one person is not around, the bank comes to a standstill?

M: how hopeless, do they think we have time to sit around and wait for L to come back?

If you are wondering how I can post this - very simple - I made a recording of his rant!

In the meantime, Ben did manage to get L on the phone and L told Ben what to do and spoke with me about the bank's procedures for changing the bank signatories. I am very accepting of bank standard operating procedures because they want to protect themselves against being sued by customers for some mistake made - so simple!

Hey M - you could have achieved a lot more if you were polite. If you think that being rude to Citibank will impress J, then you are sadly mistaken. Firstly, you didn't make an appointment with L. Secondly, you didn't follow the procedure (that's produce the resolution!!). Then being rude to the bank does not help at all. The amount maintained by the company in the bank does not qualify the company for priviledge banking. Citibank considers the company as SMALL FRY!! Another things you should note - J and his organization think they know everything because they have dealings with the government. They won't tell you anything about what is going on in the company. They will only tell you what they want you to know - this is a case of CAVEAT EMPTOR when you handle their work.

Frankly, I have never had any problems with any bank because I know how to follow their procedures. When you are polite to the bankers, they will actually bend over as much as possible to assist.

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