And Vijay Says…

First the back story

My mother in law flew from Kochi to Phoenix last week . Her original route was COK-AUH-LAX on Etihad and then LAX-PHX in American . It’s her favorite routing since the airports are familiar to her, and she can finish customs and immigration in AUH and her bags will hence come straight to PHX .

She missed her connection in AUH and they rerouted her through JFK to PHX . When we picked her up at PHX , we found out that her bags didn’t make it with her . That’s not unusual – so we filed a claim with AA and came back home . We were given the link in AA website to track the bags .

She had two weeks worth of prescription medicines in her carry on , and a few months worth in the checkin bag . Rest was clothes and gifts and such .

The weekend from hell

Next morning, we go online to check the status and it said “no scan data available” and I thought I will just check back later.

Literally nothing changed throughout the day. Digital channel proved to be a non starter for customer service

Switching to Voice channel

So my wife started calling American’s toll free number . Thank god for the call back feature – she found humans on the other side soon enough . No luck – they also didn’t know what happened to the two bags . We went through the calls a few times with similar results

Trying digital again – this time via twitter

Since I have some presence on twitter, and American usually responds quickly on twitter – I tried pinging both AA and Etihad on twitter . Both responded – with AA saying they are still working on it, and Etihad saying “you should work with AA on this and not us” . AA promised to come back with updates – which obviously never happened .

We have no records , says American Air

Finally my wife is told by someone in AA that they just got word that TSA released the bags in JFK and it should reach us soon . Except – when she calls back few hours later to confirm – AA cannot find any record of anyone giving that response . Was it a rogue AI system that assumed human characteristics for one call ?

Ok let’s try Etihad next

Since AA doesn’t have any info – my mother in law called Etihad in Kochi . They confirmed it went to AUH. So next she called AUH and got a super helpful agent who confirmed that the bag is definitely in JFK , but he has no visibility on where it is once it has left Etihad . We feel better – clearly the bag exists somewhere and we may still get it back !

There is no one version of truth

My wife called AA to confirm, now that Etihad has found the bag has landed in JFK . No luck – AA still has no idea .

Call logging is alive and well

By now, we had made several tens of calls and AA agents who pick up the call would read back all the past conversations 🙂 . Good to know some part of the support system are still alive and well – except for the record of the one call where they told us they found the bag in NY 🙂

Finally there is light at the end of the tunnel – at least a flicker

On Sunday evening, finally we get word from another AA agent that the bags have been found in JFK and they will be delivered by the first flight to PHX on Monday . I wonder if I should keep champagne in the fridge and decide against it .

Of course they didn’t send it by that flight – which took another call to find out . By this time the digital channel went from bad to worse ( yes that is possible ) and started erroring out when we searched for the baggage tag.

Good things come for those who wait

Finally the bags landed in Phoenix later on Monday and we even got a link to track the delivery car in real time . Glad to see another piece of technology actually doing a fine job . Eventually by late evening , my mother in law and her bags were reunited !

Post Script

I am a million miler and have lost bags several times in my life . My bags have been to more countries than I have . And yet – American did a fine job stressing me out this time .

Both the process and tech seems broken in airline customer service . However they have amazingly talented people working the phone channels and I am very grateful that they were totally pleasant and tried to help us as much as they can with all their obvious constraints .

Now that the customer in me is calm again , the technologist and consultant in me is thinking about the tech and process improvements that can save much of the grief – and cost – in servicing customers .

I really wish American will redesign the digital experience for customer service . The delay was not what caused us grief – it’s the conflicting information , and the absolute lack of proactive communication that drove us nuts . It’s an eminently fixable problem . And since my line of work will need me to do more millions of miles , and American being our local airline in PHX – I hope and pray you will get this right quickly !

Till then, I will try my best to stick with my policy to pack lightly and not checkin bags 🙂

I woke up at 4AM PST today to watch the first innings of Eng vs Pak in the cricket World cup. And at 5AM , I saw an email pop up from someone I mentor – who wanted some help in thinking through whether he should stay in his current job, or move to a new opportunity that came up recently. Some variant of this has been a common theme for such conversations I have had for the last few years thanks to the talent war in the world of tech.

I have used a very simple framework to evaluate jobs for myself and we talked through it over phone . Since it might be useful for others too, I thought I will share it here. Its just four questions. If I could answer any 3 of the 4 in favor of the job I had – I passed on new opportunities. Any lower and I went go through the process with the new opportunity and rechecked which way the 4 point scale was tilting.

1.  Is the job paying you well overall ?

The “overall” part is important here to make fair comparisons. Its the easiest comparison on the planet given the tangible nature of the dimension. If the current job does not make you depressed every time you look at your bank statement or paycheck , it will take a lot more convincing to leave the current gig. Money is a rather weird motivator for both you and your employer. Early in your career – it is perhaps the biggest differentiator between jobs. But at some point along the way – if you are good at what you do, you will figure out that most employers won’t let money be the big reason to not hire you or retain you.

2. Does the current job continue to inspire you ?

If the job does not satisfy your soul, money alone will not keep you there very long. Are you solving problems that you feel are important ? Are you learning things that you did not know before ? Are you able to apply things you are good at in your job ? If so – you most probably will stay even if pay is a little bit low.

3. Do you really like your boss ?

Your direct boss represents the company to you more than anything else. In a matrix organization where you have multiple bosses – this becomes a bit of an issue since you could get conflicting views from different senior folks. Though not as straight forward as money – this one is also a fairly easy judgement when it is about the current bosses . Most bosses are not that great in reality – a problem that matrix organizations can make better or worse quickly. The trick is judging correctly the new bosses who have all the incentive to be on their best behavior to try and get you to join them.

4. Do you see growth in your future ?

This is perhaps the hardest dimension since after the first few rungs of the corporate ladder, you are mostly going to operate in gray areas. And to make it even more complex – growth might come in terms of lateral moves instead of promotions and those are harder to evaluate. In many cases – the leadership forgets to clarify the elementary things like “do people actually know what it takes to grow from their current role?” or “are the standards we currently have for promotions still valid for the market we operate in?”. Given it is hard to base this decision purely on facts – It is more a question of perception of whether you are going to get stuck where you are vs the ability to start fresh elsewhere and grow from there. All the more important why you need open lines of communication with your boss and other mentors to make a determination on this one.

Parting thoughts

It does not make sense to ask these 4 questions just once and make a decision based on that. Good bosses have off days. Some years, the bonus and raise might be pathetic. You may see an unqualified person get promoted some times. You may have to earn the right to be in the best projects. So it is important to ask these questions of yourself over a period of time and think about the trends more than discrete point in time answers, especially after someone has made you an offer.

It is also important to have a view on your future – what inspired you in the past might not be what gets you off your bed today and tomorrow. You may have an awesome boss, but he maybe retiring next year. Maybe your team is doing great but the larger business it is part of might not have relevance in future and you don’t see a path to fix it.

Once you have evaluated the past, the present and future through these four questions – I think you have higher odds of making a good decision.

I am an eternal optimist. I published my wish list for the first Modi government when they took office 5 years ago . As you can see for yourself, none of those things happened in any significant manner. And yet, here I am with a new list – and I will append the original wish list under it, since I still think they are all things that are absolutely worth tackling.

Photo from : https://www.abplive.in/election/lok-sabha-elections-pm-modis-majority-is-minority-speech-in-wardha-not-a-poll-code-violation-ec-978420

Convince Muslims and Christians that they are first class citizens of India

I can’t think of anything else as more important for this term of Modi government. Modi has already made statements to this effect , but it remains to be seen if he and his party will walk the talk.  Election rhetoric from his party was clearly anti Muslim. BJP does not have a single muslim MP this time – despite Muslim population being about 190M in India. The specific trouble here is that Modi himself usually says (more or less) the right things on India’s secular nature – but when the extreme sections of his fan base resorts to atrocities against minorities, he usually chooses to keep quiet. That is NOT what the leader of the largest democracy should do – he should condemn it loudly, repeatedly and immediately !

Revive the economy, and fix the regulatory framework  

The jobs he promised did not materialize. The note ban did not yield the results he thought it will. And GST rollout – a much needed reform – left a lot to be desired in how it was implemented.

I would expect lowering of income tax will happen in short term (may be in the first budget itself) , in the hopes that the common man will improve consumption (as opposed to save the cash), and that increased spending will result in more jobs (as opposed to corporates just conserving cash or treating it as profit alone).

Tourism is easy money. With its rich history and beautiful natural attractions, its fairly easy to attract tourists to India. But there are many issues that stand in the way – including inconsistent last mile connectivity from airports to the touristy places.

But the larger problem that no government so far seemed to have the stomach to fix is the totally fragmented nature of regulatory structure. There are just too many overlapping regulatory bodies – and that is neither helping common consumers nor companies.

The RBI is governed by law passed in 1934  . RBI’s independence – at least the way I understand it – seems to be a factor of who holds that office at a given point in time. RBI controls the banks – but what about the rest of the financial markets ? Look at the pension type schemes – there is EPF and NPS without clear guidelines on portability.

Income tax is governed by law passed in 1961 . I remember listening to lectures in my Business school days about why this does not fit the times we live in. That was more than 20 years ago, and it has not been modernized. When will we get around to it ? India needs more fairness, consistency and more transparency to be a leading economy.

Prepare India for the long term

National security and Hindutva messaging worked great in Modi’s favor for the elections. I am fairly sure governance will return to more of a middle of the road mode though.

I am not a fan of everything Nehru did in his three terms – but one thing he deserves credit for is about putting in place a vision for the future. He did not just work on problems that were material for any given five year term. Later Rao did the same in his term – and a lot of the goodness we see today are due to governments who looked far into future. Now it is Modi’s turn to aim for long term greatness of the country, and balance it with the goals for next five years he is in office. Given the terrible state that INC is in – he might well have ten years and not five . But all of it will be a huge waste if the seeds are not sown for the future.

What is India’s strategy as automation picks up speed ? Computers will replace some forms of labor – and computers won’t care if those jobs are Hindu jobs, Muslim jobs or Christian jobs. An arms race with Pakistan won’t matter in how we solve this problem. Now is a good time to figure out what our strategy is.

Look at the composition of India’s GDP. More than 50% is services , about 30% is Industrial and Agriculture type stuff makes up the remaining 20%. We are a country with more than a billion people. Is this the mix that is sustainable for the future, or even the present for that matter ? The irony is that even today we refer to services as “tertiary” in this classification !

I am very grateful for the solid education that the Indian system gave me when I grew up there. But the public education system that caters to hundreds of millions of students are in urgent need of modernization. And it needs to be done keeping in mind that the future generations might actually hold several different jobs unlike what the present one does.

All of this will take time – but with the clear majority that Modi has, including the potential to win Rajyasabha majority as well in future, I hope it is used in the most constructive way possible and not wasted in arguing about religious superiority and other low value items.