people have always said that the north east is extremely beautiful... i got the full force of that in aizawl... beautiful beautiful place... nice and green and high atop hills, it aint too high so ur not feeling too cold, the mornings are slightly nippy, but the rest of the day is quite pleasant...
aizawl for those who need a geography refresher is the capital of mizoram... and the lietracy rate exceeds kerala, a mindboggling 90% sorts... all english medium (mizo is written in english script)...
oh and the most interesting part is to come... you see more women on the streets than men, it is the women who are shopkeepers and thery converse in english...
for most fmcg companies it is a almost virgin territory, nobody has explored it to the full and im guessing im the first management trainee to ever set foot there... loadsa work to do and a brilliant place to do it...
oh, and did i say it, money aint the last of worries, the economy aint particularly down, the rich are extremely rich and you have showrooms of every major brand there...
so the crux is getting the goods down to the right guy...
but its not as if there are no problems... the catches include problems similar to a lot of the north east... bandhs and strikes and the rest... and the terrain isnt exactly the most suited for travel... distributors hav to at times go to places, stay overnight and then move back... issues galore...
Thursday 9 August 2007
Monday 6 August 2007
a flight to aizawl...
this tour seemed totally jinxed but i stayed on it... the next morning got up bloody early to go to the airport... turns out the aizawl flight is delayed too... 2 hrs...
01.00 pm
speak to adi and wish her a very happy budday, the girl is extremely surprised that i called from exotic places... :)
01.30 pm
tech snag discovered on the flight, engineering team called in from cal to fix it... cal will take 2 hrs to gather people up and then sned them here through a flight gingto jorhat which will land at guwahati just to drop these guys off ... (yeah right... i wud have even believed airdropped them, but special focus on customer needs - no way, not with indian in North East)...
03.30 pm
discover that if the team fixes everything by 3.45 pm the flight can take off, after it is discovered that it cannot be fixed in 15 mins after para dropping the engineers and materials (for which the inspection will happen at 4.00pm ??? ) a message will be sent to cal asking permission to cancel the flight... then once the chai pakoda at the calcutta canteen gets exhausted (its raining people - chai pakoda has the highest priority)... then the flight will be cancelled...
05.30pm
get tickets cancelled and get back to hotel...
07.30 pm
go out for pizza!!! aaah!!!
next morning 07.30 am.. get up and run...
and by the way, i misplace my tickets to aizawl and the flight i know is totally full from the passengers of 2 days...
09.30 am
my colleague smooth talks the airport manager into accepting that i am indeed me and am not carrying false copies of driving license, passport, pan card and atm card with my photos on... i then but a frsh ticket costing rs 2000 for the same seat on teh same name on the same flight... grrr :( but at least im going to aizawl...
01.00 pm
speak to adi and wish her a very happy budday, the girl is extremely surprised that i called from exotic places... :)
01.30 pm
tech snag discovered on the flight, engineering team called in from cal to fix it... cal will take 2 hrs to gather people up and then sned them here through a flight gingto jorhat which will land at guwahati just to drop these guys off ... (yeah right... i wud have even believed airdropped them, but special focus on customer needs - no way, not with indian in North East)...
03.30 pm
discover that if the team fixes everything by 3.45 pm the flight can take off, after it is discovered that it cannot be fixed in 15 mins after para dropping the engineers and materials (for which the inspection will happen at 4.00pm ??? ) a message will be sent to cal asking permission to cancel the flight... then once the chai pakoda at the calcutta canteen gets exhausted (its raining people - chai pakoda has the highest priority)... then the flight will be cancelled...
05.30pm
get tickets cancelled and get back to hotel...
07.30 pm
go out for pizza!!! aaah!!!
next morning 07.30 am.. get up and run...
and by the way, i misplace my tickets to aizawl and the flight i know is totally full from the passengers of 2 days...
09.30 am
my colleague smooth talks the airport manager into accepting that i am indeed me and am not carrying false copies of driving license, passport, pan card and atm card with my photos on... i then but a frsh ticket costing rs 2000 for the same seat on teh same name on the same flight... grrr :( but at least im going to aizawl...
a flight to catch at agartala
ok, this has taken a long time coming.....
life has moved a lot since that smelly day at agartala. I am currently in Silchar, posted here as he sales officer covering south assam, north tripura and mizoram (quite a huge territory size wise).
let me take this in chronological order since the last post...
I finished off a rather useful assisted sales officer stint in agartala and was to go to guwahati for my monthly meeting... was booked on the 5 pm flight from agartala to guwahati... at about 2, the helpful (at least thats what i tht abt them then) people from Indian called to say the flight had been delayed by 2 hrs sorts... hmmm ok.... so we reach the airport at 6 (my sales officer - trainer and yours truly) and find out that the flight has been delayed further to 8... well, now im sure something off is going to happen...
7.15 pm
the boarding happens and we're all in the flight when the pilot informs us (at least thats whom i think gives out the info about impending crashes and delays and all that) that the flight is delayed due to the presence of thunderclouds over guwahati... ok.. waiting for them to clear off...
8.15 pm
the announcer (im using the word since i havent ascertained who he/she really is) announced that the flight cant go to guwahati because of some union issue about working overtime on a rainy night... i mean what the heck, here we are all waiting to get to guwahati and the union decides to go on a sudden strike or whatevr protesting long working hours on monsoon nights... brilliant, absolutely brilliant...
8.45 pm
some arrangements have been made with union about the late nights work that they have to put in on the rainy night instead of sipping hot tea and eating garam pakodas, but however, agartala has soem electricity problems now and all the lights in the airport complex go out, im sitting in a plane in pitch darkness about 100 m from the bangladesh border... grrrr.....
9.15 pm
send us all back to the terminal and sent the baggae back.. unfortunaltely the official communication to the airport staff hasnt happened and although we're all deboarded and sitting in the lounge but cant leave the airport since the flight hasnt been cancelled officially and the staff wont cancel the tickets... brilliant...
9.45 pm
now the cal authorities who had gone to get their cup of chai and pakodas are back and are kind enough to inform the agartala airport that the flight indeed has been cancelled and will now take off at 5 pm 2 days later
what!!! i lost my head, i might as well not go since im only going to completely miss the meeting...
10.00 pm
after some franctic haggling with the airport staff, wiggle out the fact that the flight will now go to cal (remember all along that this is an ATR - not those huge boeings or airbuses most of u r accustomed to) and passengers can go to cal on a first come first serve basis (whatver happened to te good old days when airlines considered caring for you)
10.15 pm
get an sms from my asm that his flight from cal to guwahati has been cancelled and he the meeting will hopefully start the enxt afternoon...
10.20pm
get on board the cal flight
12.20 am
reach cal airport but am seriously confused if its the airport or howrah station, the ac is obviously not working and people are asleep all over the floor on blankets, newspapers, whatever...
01.00 am
wiggle out a room at the cal airport that is reserved for some god knows who at a princely sum of rs 800 per head (the god part about cal is that it doesnt cost too much to get around hings)...
07.30 am
get to the security line, waiting to get boarding passes...
07.45 am
see asm coming in to the queue and pass on his ticket to my colleague whos standing way ahead in the line - its one of those long railway station lines types, about 30 people on it... find out that although my colleague and i will get boarding passes, my asm has no room on the flight.... grrrr..... so long meeting...
07.50 am
asm gets upgraded to business class (hey i wanted that).... and we get on to guwahati for the meeting....
but wait, thats only one part of the story.. next part in the next post...
life has moved a lot since that smelly day at agartala. I am currently in Silchar, posted here as he sales officer covering south assam, north tripura and mizoram (quite a huge territory size wise).
let me take this in chronological order since the last post...
I finished off a rather useful assisted sales officer stint in agartala and was to go to guwahati for my monthly meeting... was booked on the 5 pm flight from agartala to guwahati... at about 2, the helpful (at least thats what i tht abt them then) people from Indian called to say the flight had been delayed by 2 hrs sorts... hmmm ok.... so we reach the airport at 6 (my sales officer - trainer and yours truly) and find out that the flight has been delayed further to 8... well, now im sure something off is going to happen...
7.15 pm
the boarding happens and we're all in the flight when the pilot informs us (at least thats whom i think gives out the info about impending crashes and delays and all that) that the flight is delayed due to the presence of thunderclouds over guwahati... ok.. waiting for them to clear off...
8.15 pm
the announcer (im using the word since i havent ascertained who he/she really is) announced that the flight cant go to guwahati because of some union issue about working overtime on a rainy night... i mean what the heck, here we are all waiting to get to guwahati and the union decides to go on a sudden strike or whatevr protesting long working hours on monsoon nights... brilliant, absolutely brilliant...
8.45 pm
some arrangements have been made with union about the late nights work that they have to put in on the rainy night instead of sipping hot tea and eating garam pakodas, but however, agartala has soem electricity problems now and all the lights in the airport complex go out, im sitting in a plane in pitch darkness about 100 m from the bangladesh border... grrrr.....
9.15 pm
send us all back to the terminal and sent the baggae back.. unfortunaltely the official communication to the airport staff hasnt happened and although we're all deboarded and sitting in the lounge but cant leave the airport since the flight hasnt been cancelled officially and the staff wont cancel the tickets... brilliant...
9.45 pm
now the cal authorities who had gone to get their cup of chai and pakodas are back and are kind enough to inform the agartala airport that the flight indeed has been cancelled and will now take off at 5 pm 2 days later
what!!! i lost my head, i might as well not go since im only going to completely miss the meeting...
10.00 pm
after some franctic haggling with the airport staff, wiggle out the fact that the flight will now go to cal (remember all along that this is an ATR - not those huge boeings or airbuses most of u r accustomed to) and passengers can go to cal on a first come first serve basis (whatver happened to te good old days when airlines considered caring for you)
10.15 pm
get an sms from my asm that his flight from cal to guwahati has been cancelled and he the meeting will hopefully start the enxt afternoon...
10.20pm
get on board the cal flight
12.20 am
reach cal airport but am seriously confused if its the airport or howrah station, the ac is obviously not working and people are asleep all over the floor on blankets, newspapers, whatever...
01.00 am
wiggle out a room at the cal airport that is reserved for some god knows who at a princely sum of rs 800 per head (the god part about cal is that it doesnt cost too much to get around hings)...
07.30 am
get to the security line, waiting to get boarding passes...
07.45 am
see asm coming in to the queue and pass on his ticket to my colleague whos standing way ahead in the line - its one of those long railway station lines types, about 30 people on it... find out that although my colleague and i will get boarding passes, my asm has no room on the flight.... grrrr..... so long meeting...
07.50 am
asm gets upgraded to business class (hey i wanted that).... and we get on to guwahati for the meeting....
but wait, thats only one part of the story.. next part in the next post...
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