Missing Something?

To my mind, to miss something is to long for that thing; from what is gone before.

If that's the case, then I miss very few things indeed.  I don't even miss my happy childhood for I have no urge to be a child again; nor do I want my childhood to catch up with me today. Now that's quite an interesting thought. Never quite thought of it this way till now.

I guess if I long for anything, it must be what could have been; and as what could have been never was, I couldn't possibly be missing it. So suppose I was ... am, "missing" something, that thing must be, could be, should be (in) the future. Alas to reach it!

Adultery and the Question of Gender Equality

So a member of Ghana’s Parliament, Mr Nelson Baani is reported to have suggested the inclusion of a punishment for women who cheat on their husbands in an intestate succession bill being considered by Parliament. In his estimation this would force women to remain faithful to their husbands and ensure that the law when passed would not become a disincentive for people such as himself. Disincentive? Anyway, nothing would make him less apprehensive than to know that an "erring" wife would be stoned or hanged!

Gladly a number of people have condemned the MP’s utterances. I had a few choice words for him myself; my disgust stemming not simply from the remarks made but that they were made by an MP; “Honourable” I should add. That the persons who are elected or appointed into government must come with a reasonable threshold of intelligence is a point I have made many times. My apologies to the extraordinary ones, if any.

My expectations are basic – a little self-respect and some sense of the sensibilities of the general electorate that vote such persons into power (a keen appreciation and exploitation of which brings them into power no doubt). Both of these guarantee that even retrogrades will be smart enough not to subject their backwardness together with their disdain and disrespect for the general populace to public ridicule.  I had always imagined (and been a few times disappointed) that the average Ghanaian politician if nothing at all could do that. 

Interesting that the Baani suggestion was made during deliberations on a law that is essentially aimed at securing better outcomes for widows and their children who often lose their homes and share in marital property once the husbands die intestate, particularly within the customary law marriage system. On the other hand is it surprising that such sentiments would be voiced by a representative of a people who continue to hold on to regressive so-called traditions? 

I am not altogether sure that the condemnation of the MP was in relation to the nature of the punishment he suggests or (in my case) the very idea of a “punishment” and the incredulity of the whole thought when viewed against the custom whereby men are legally allowed to have several significant others. I have a feeling that if “Stone Man” had suggested perhaps a few whips of the cane or a fine of sorts, the public would have paid him no attention. Why, when Bishop Duncan suggested that women “behave” in their marriages or rot otherwise because the ratio of women to men was 7:1, a faithful servant of the church feeling the need to justify the comment, referred me to the "unacceptable" example of the Bishops ex-wife who after 20 years of marriage, still wanted sex.  

If Article 17 clauses 1, 2 and 3 of Ghana’s constitution have any practical value at all, then it’s about time the true effect of Article 26 (1) subject to clause (2) of the same constitution was brought to bear on the laws and practices which continue to perpetuate gender inequality. Until then, the likes of “Stone Man” are probably entitled to special and differential treatment.

Ghana’s Constitution 1992

17.

(1) All persons shall be equal before the law.

(2) A person shall not be discriminated against on grounds of gender, race, colour, ethnic origin, religion, creed or social or economic status.

(3) For the purposes of this article, "discriminate" means to give different treatment to different persons attributable only or mainly to their respective descriptions by race, place of origin, political opinions, colour, gender, occupation, religion or creed, whereby persons of one description are subjected to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of another description are not made subject or are granted privileges or advantages which are not granted to persons of another description.

26.

(1) Every person is entitled to enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote any culture, language, tradition or religion subject to the provisions of this Constitution.

(2) All customary practices which dehumanize or are injurious to the physical and mental wellbeing of a person are prohibited.

Customer Service Is An Issue, Still

A lot of ink and talk has gone into the nonexistence of the culture of customer service in Ghana but it persists at all levels and in the majority of institutions. I am personally tired of complaining and particularly disenchanted with those who silently accommodate incompetence and mediocrity. I am also tired of those who complain but are coy about calling out bad nuts for fear of being labelled.

I don’t think we can get any better if we let things be as they shouldn’t be unless we don’t know or expect any better. When we do speak out, at least it gets the conversation going even if we are wrong… and so I could be even now. The truth is customer service is the easy label for so many things that are being done wrong in organizations. So when a friend provided me with the personal email address of the CEO of a major telecom company with which I had some beef, I did not hesitate to do what I had to do.  

This post is the letter I sent to the CEO (which was also copied to the NationalCommunications Authority) and the follow ups. I must add that after many phone calls from different officers of the company to apologize and pick up the pieces so to speak- clearly motivated by the CEO - 3 senior officials from the company paid me a visit at home yesterday. They wanted to review the experience I had complained about and use is as a test case to improve their service. So we had an interesting and frank conversation.  

Here goes. Understandably I have edited out identities;

Dear Mr. (CEO),

I consider myself one of the luckier disgruntled customers of your company to have direct access to you by email; I consider you fortunate to be receiving feedback from a very unimpressed customer of (company). I am not even sure if calling myself a customer is accurate since the service I have paid for and expected to be enjoying is yet to materialize. Not to mention the fact that I have already had to deal with as many as about 6 individuals in the course of an uncoordinated and illogical process who by the way are clueless as to what their combined and central objective is. And it is this; to provide me with the broadband internet service I requested. Simple. How tough is that for a communications giant like (company)?

I requested a broadband service for my home on August 22, received a notice of the request a few days later and made payment for installation and a month’s subscription on August 28. Interestingly I had wanted to pay many more months ahead to save trouble but was told it was not allowed until the service was installed and stable. That should have alerted me but I figured well it makes sense. I was told I would get mail about an account number which I never got. What I got was a text message on September 2 (5 days after the payment had been done) asking me to go and make the payment.

A couple of days later (name) calls. Because I asked, he told me he was just scheduling my installation; he did not know (name) with whom I had been dealing with and by his tone, couldn’t be bothered really. So anyway, we settled on Saturday 6th by 9am. This was after I had indicated that the time frame he gave; that is between 9am and 1pm was not practicable. I believe it’s reasonable to have other things doing on a Saturday than to sit and wait for someone to appear anytime within a 4hour window?

Come Saturday, I get a call around 8am asking directions to my home. I had given this already and the surveyor (officer number 3) had been there already but I simply gave the directions once more and was told, once more that the location was known. Oh did I say this makes it the fourth (company) person? In any case I was thinking this was a good sign, a call this early means your people will keep their time right? 11. 15am and there was no sign of the installation person(s). I called the number on which (name) the scheduler phoned me on. Guess what, (name) started calling out a number for me to call and enquire myself what was going on. I stopped him right in his tracks and let him know (since he did not) that it was his job to get whoever was to appear at my house for the installation to do just that. He does not stop there, (name) asks me who it was who called because he could not say who was scheduled for my installation. Okay, he called me on (number); that should help. Mr. (CEO), seriously as a customer what would you make of this? You schedule a person to do work and you turn around and expect the customer to go fish for your charge?    

Finally, the much awaited installation guy appears. He looks displeasingly at me. Clearly he is not enthused by the call from (name) to get to the woman who just told him off. He told me the phone line on which he was to make the installation had not been made available. Someone had not done something. He also did not feel able to string his cable through the already installed phone cables in the building so as to end them neatly and invisibly in the phone socket built purposely for that. This socket by the way held a (company) line until (company) failed to repair the damaged feed from their pole but that’s another story. The alarming thing this man said also was that the internet service from (company) in my area was not so stable and strong so it was better for him to string a direct line to the split system. Frankly I found that mildly insulting that he would expect me to take such a lame excuse for not doing a more professional job. So there’s a cable running along my walls and through a hole drilled in the wall which only an amateurish worker would be pleased with.  

And yet all this was not enough. The installation person announces that the router that was to be installed and which was provided when payment for the service was done was faulty. I am no technical person and even if I was, I would have thought that the (company) person who was in my house to install the device would go back with it, report on the technical fault and return with a better devise to complete the installation. To my surprise, the installation person tells me that I have to take the device back to the (company) retail shop and ask them to change it. I tried to reason with him that it did not make sense because I could not even tell what was wrong with it. In any case how was I to get them to return to the unfinished business of the installation? Well, he told me that the people at retail shop would show me how to do it and that it was easy! Really? I get a faulty device and I am asked to get a better one within a month and install my damn internet?

On Monday 8^th, another officer all together calls in to ask about the installation that was done in my house. I asked if he had received no information about the “installation” and he said not exactly. All he knew was that the installation was reported successful and he was calling in, I suppose to get the “I am thrilled thank you” from me. Mr. (CEO) I am ordinarily a person who prefers to speak in measured tones and give people as much room for manoeuver as possible but honestly I don’t think I have any worse enough words to describe this level of incompetence and sheer disrespect from (company).

Today the 12^th of September, my I.T. colleague spent half the day going between my home and the (company) offices in (location). Even so, he made some progress only because he spoke to some friends at your head office.  He had spent time at the (company) offices a couple of days back to get a new device and have it configured. Today he went to install it in my house and guess what, the phone line that had in the meantime been activated in my home was someone else’s line. Suffice it to say, I still have no internet service and he tells me “the guys” say they will work on the line tomorrow but he will have to call and give them a nudge.

If the experience I have just narrated sounds surreal to you then perhaps you need to wake up to the reality that you are presiding over it. If it doesn’t then clearly this piece might as well make its way to my blog.

Please enjoy your weekend.

 (from CEO)

 Dear Mrs Osei, thank you for your mail and feedback.

I will personally take care of it hoping to restore the situation and be more efficient in delivering better customer  experience in the future.

Best, (CEO)

Sent from my smartphone powered by (company).

(From Director at NCA)

Hello Wilma,

This is to acknowledge that the NCA has received a copy of the complaint you forwarded to the CEO of (company).

We will be contacting (company) on your complaint and please do not hesitate to contact us again if need be.

Our Complaints Unit can be reached on:

Tel:         030-701-1419

E-mail:        complaints@nca.org.gh

(from Assistant Manager Consumer Affairs, NCA)

Dear Vilma,

Feedback from Vodafone, indicates that your complaint has been resolved.

Kindly verify and confirm.

Regards,

PS. I did reply to thank these officials for their receptiveness and intervention. I am confident that if they are anything to go by, service in my country will be looking up.