I am in Dumaguete now and it used to be a very laid back provincial town. And I am in a branded internet cafe with very irritating advertising on the bottom of the screen.

So I’m just going to leave.

And I did and I think it was kind of offensive to the staff, against Philippine culture. And I’m not sure if the staff got the point as I just kind of ran past them mumbling something about being annoyed with the advertizing.

But apparently Infinite Intelligence had something else, something good for me, even though I was quite stunned the person who I have been talking with for a few hours right now just left after I went to the bathroom. And I didn’t even get his name and was not able to give him my business card, my contact details. So yes, weird, but that’s how Infinite Intelligence often works, in ways you don’t understand, but that in the end serve some purpose.

So I left Robinsons mall very quickly after my being annoyed with the advertising on the screen in Netopia, which is actually a famous brand and yes, the type of professional business I want to have. And this whole thing made me think more about being successful as described by Napoleon Hill and the way that is being implemented by many companies at the moment doesn’t seem the way as intended, like serving customers, serving people.

So what I see around me are all big brands, big companies having all kinds of procedures and policies in place and having employees who are supposed to work like robots implementing and following all those procedures and policies and having little room for ‘person-to-person’ interaction. And maybe The Philippines is worse in this respect than e.g. The Netherlands, the country where I was born, but I also have noticed this more and more in The Netherlands and surrounding countries, that there are mainly procedures and policies and laws being implemented and that there is no more room for making decisions by people, basically making any business type communication and negotiation impossible.

And that’s what I don’t like, being treated like, well like a part of the system, like a request being handled, maybe even like a problem being dealt with. And I’m not sure what the ‘handling’ staff think about it, but when I ask most of the staff of those organizations implementing those procedures and policies while servicing clients also don’t like it. As also at HSBC where a few days ago I couldn’t deposit a check for a bank-to-bank transfer from my account at RCBC Savings Bank to my account at HSBC. And yes, their reason was very valid based on preventing of white washing practices. But from a human point of view it was very weird as I was there in person with a check in my name from an account to my name with a Philippine drivers license in my name. So any reasonable thinking employee would know that this transfer was just a transfer from my own account to another of my accounts in another bank. And yes, theoretically it probably could be a transaction in a money laundering scheme, but taking that the check just had an amount that would add my balance to my minimum balance and I even explained to the staff that that was the reason and that I didn’t want to have so much cash with me, which is also understandable. And no, I don’t carry my passport with my visa stamp in it all the time, as normally I wouldn’t need it and try to avoid the risk of losing it. So yes, I do bring my drivers license that fits in my wallet and also confirms I’m a Philippine resident as you can only have a Philippine drivers license if you are a resident.

Anyhow, I’m still not sure how to improve the system, as my mistake in the check was a real mistake that should be filtered out by a procedure. Although even there, as stated in my earlier post, who would care about one peso in the end if it is an obvious mistake (or wasn’t it?).

But while writing this, again, I feel like in all this consumer type business has become too anonymous, too much about presuming people have bad intentions instead of just serving customers in a human, person-to-person, personal way.

And it seems that organizations, the large organizations that have proceduralized everything, seem to forget that people have the ability to think and have the ability to make good decisions. And the people, the employees, seem to have forgotten also that they can think and make decisions, and oppose to the procedures that are just too much, or maybe more oppose to the too strict implementation of those procedures.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this, or maybe you can at least talk about it, as we are all involved in this, as an employee, customer or otherwise.

 

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