Traditions of service

So, off we went to Zambia to present at the 6th African Regional Safe Communities Conference. It was a good conference. A lot of people who are invested in doing the painstaking work of attempting to create a safer, more peaceful, kinder and gentler world for all.

Anyway whilst in Livingstone, I went to the ATM to do my bit for the Zambian economy and of course to buy some commodified tradition to make my Zambian experience authentic. As you get to know me, you will learn I get attached to particular machines in foreign countries. My first meeting with that particular ATM had been spectacularly successful the day before. The next day however though this machine greeted me cordially, it could not assist me. So, off I went to the next machine feeling a little rejected and disappointed (well actually a lot disappointed and rejected). A long queue informed me that it was not merely me that the other machine had refused service to. This cheered me up,  no-one after all, likes to be the sole rejectee of their favorite machine.

One of my fellow rejectees however, was rejected again at the new machine and what was more had just been robbed by the new machine. It had taken his money out of his account without giving him any Zambian Kwachas in return. Aw, I commisserated even though I really didn't care about his plight and was convinced that the new machine would never do to special special me what it had done to him.

Well, I'm sure you know ... do I have to say it? Really, I mean, really? So, the new machine took my money out of my account and did not give me Kwachas to buy more things I don't really need but am convinced I do.

I went inside to the bank. The bank incidentally was inside a Shoprite (a South African supermarket chain). I spoke to the woman behind the counter cordially and told her about the new machine. Was I shocked when she said well, there is nothing she can do. I should take my ATM slip and go back to South Africa and have my bank resolve it. Nothing, she wanted to do nothing. She wanted me to meekly go away and not bother her with the theft of my money by her bank's machine.

Can you tell I kicked up a ruckus and refused to enter the bank to take the scene I was creating out of the public eye. No, their bank had robbed me, I said loudly, and they would not do anything and so forth. Give me some proof to take home, I insisted. No, she said she couldn't do anything. Not check the thieving ATM which was sending in a queue of people behind me to complain about the theft of their money. Eventually one of her male colleagues slipped her a form to give to me about twenty minutes, a lot of loud insistence and a good deal of lost faith in the Zambian banking system later. I filled it in, they stamped it, I asked why they could not have just given me the form in the first place. It was only for Zambian customers, foreigners had to go home and fill in their own countries forms or something responsibility-shirking like that.

I don't know how it works in Zambia but in South Africa when you interact with an institution, you have to follow the tradition of providing a paper trail. I went to my bank, exhausted and saddened, my memory of Zambia now clouded by the machines who would not care for me and the bankers who would refuse to right the wrongs of their machines. I took my bank my little form and told my sad story. My bank official was horrified, that I, a citizen of this wondrous land could be so misused in that foreign place. She cared for me. She called the other banking people and made them care about my sad little story and the twenty minutes she spent with me felt like she was making Herculean banking efforts for me.

And there it was, a tradition of service. I didn't care if I got my money back. I cared that I was cared for by an impersonal institution. Institutions who set down policies, dry, standardised boring to read policies about customer service set traditions of caring or uncaring as the case may be. Although I am with my bank for financial reasons, on the day their traditions and policies of care enfolded me, they now have my loyalty. I did get my money back, in two weeks. Not because my bank is caring but because I had insisted on following authorising traditions by demanding a piece of paper as witness to back up my claim. I broke the tradition of silent consumer who has been cheated in Zambia.

So, what do we get out of that. I do not trust the Zambian banking system, their policies are uncaring of me. South Africa is much much better. And all the machines are my friend.