Tuesday, May 15, 2007

My Tryst with Air Sahara 2

Now I had those credit notes, but they were issued in the name of passengers (jimmy and his wife) and not me. I asked them to change it to my name... the conversation went like:

Me: If you would have returned the money, whom would you have returned it?
The Guy: Credit Card used for booking.
Me: That means not to the passenger.
The Guy: To whoever owns that card, the guy may not be the actual passenger.
Me: Exactly, now the tickets were booked by me. The Card details you have show my name... then y can not you give the note in my name.
The Guy: Company Policy sir.

Frustrated i took the credit note, and at that very moment asked them to book me a flight for Delhi on that credit note. But....

The Guy: Sir, only the person in whose name the credit note is can travel on it.
Me: What??? Can you tell me what does this note means... as far as I understand, it means that the holder of this note has the above mentioned credit with Air Sahara and can book tickets for it. Now that tickets can be in any name...
The Guy: Yes Sir, But for that we will need written letter from the owner of the note, authorising you to travel on this.
Me: My friends are in US...
The Guy: But we still need that letter.
Me: In whose name is the credit note.
The Guy: Mr. Gaurav Sharma and Ms Neha.
Me: Have you seen them, do you have any photo ID to identify them?
The Guy: No Sir.
Me: Do you have any specimen signature or anything else to identify them?
The Guy: No Sir.
Me: Do you know who booked the tickets?
The Guy: (looks at his computer) Mr Sameer Gandhi.
Me: Who filled for lost tickets refund?
The Guy: (looks at the application i had given) Mr Sameer Gandhi did... I mean you did.
Me: Who collected the Credit note?
The Guy: You did, just now.
Me: (highly frustrated) So you want an authorisation from someone, you have no way of identifying, for me who is the one who has booked, cancelled and collected refunds for the tickets.
The Guy: Yes sir, its the company policy.
Me: So the authorisation is necessary....
They Guy: Absolutely necessary.
Me: Since you do not have specimen signatures of the "owners" of the credit note, If i write the authorisation letter myself and sign it as the "owners" you will have to book tickets in my name....
The Guy: Yes Sir, if you get a letter, we will book the tickets.
Me: You will take a false letter but not understand a true problem.
The Guy: Sorry Sir... Company policy...

and the only thing i could do after that is to never travel air sahara again.

Monday, May 14, 2007

My tryst with Air Sahara-1

As luck would have it, I had the misfortune of dealing with Air Sahara. My best friend was getting married. Now he lives in US and therefore he asked me to get him 2 tickets from Delhi to Jammu. Now Air Sahara was the only one available, I booked him and his would be wife on it.

But I guess there is something b/w Air Sahara and me. Just when the wedding was happening the airline people called me up (well this time they did call b4 the flight) and told me that the flight has been cancelled and I need not worry as I will get a full refund on it. Full refund…. Did I hear full refund…. A guy is getting married and has plans to leave next day morning for his honeymoon… now How I am supposed to tell him that his honeymoon is cancelled and he need not worry as his money will be refunded.

I told the caller from sahara my problem and asked if those tickets can be transferred to any other flight or air line…. He refused… irritated I asked him for my money back immediately…. The guy says that the process has been initiated and I will get my money back in the credit card used for booking in 45 days. I don’t need to worry about it. What 45 days…. Y will sahara use my money for 45 days….”Company policy sir”… The guy gives me a reference no to trace the status of my money. I asked the guy do I need to do anything else… “nothing sir” came the reply.

The guy went back to US without his honeymoon and I came back to Bangalore. Days past and even after 60 days I did not get my money back. I called up customer care and they told me that I have not returned the tickets and therefore the refund has been stopped..

I told them that I do not have the tickets, as I was never told that I need to submit them. They told me that there is nothing they can do to help me out now and that my money is gone.

I then went personally to sahara’s office. I gave them the reference number and told my problem. The guy says that unless I have the tickets they can not help me. The conversation goes like:

Me: You can check with this reference nbr that you cancelled the flight.
The Guy: Yes I can see that, but I need the tickets that I gave you back.
Me: I don’t have them.
The Guy: So you can not have your money back.
Me: So what should I do.
The Guy: give an application that your have lost your tickets and we will issue new ones. Will charge Rs 500 per ticket and give you the rest of your money back as credit note.
Me: What… Y you will deduct Rs 500 per ticket and y the credit note.
Guy: 500 is ticket re-issue charge and in such cases we give back credit notes…..

By this time I have lost all my mind and just do what he says…so after canceling the flight themselves and keeping me waiting for 2 months all they gave me was a credit note… that too of a lesser value…

But hey how I got to use that is another story….for another post

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Experiences of a Software Engineer

Now that i am living my last days (hope fully) of my career as a software engineer, i thought i should reflect on this part of my career. Software industry is a different world all together... its very bad and its damn good...
So the story goes like this... Even after fucking up real bad in IIT, I somehow got my degree (that too ontime :-) ) and got a job at infy.... Ye sab dekh kar mere andar ka acha insaan jaga... socha ki bahut hui life main bakc*$$% from now i will be serious abt my life and career. Aur main ho bhi gya... Infy ki training main saarey assignments karna... project banana and all the stupid stuff... man i could never believe i was doing all that stuff.. but i was... But then the training ended and the big truth of software industry was thrown on my face.. I was on bench. Koi Na i thought ye sab 4-6 din ki baat hai.. apan ek dum ishtud hain.. sab aata hai.. 4-6 din main koi na koi to kaam de hi dega...par din mahiney ban gaye par koi nahi aaya...and after 4-6 months on bench I finally said good bye to infy and joined qwest.

Qwest wale bhaiya bole ki bada fodu kaam hai... badi strict deadlines hain... ye karna padega wo karna padega... and I was happy that finally i will get some work... my career will progress and more than happy i was intimidated... "will i be able to do this high techno stuff"..." will i be able to live upto their expectations"..."will they fire me"... yeah their made it sound like they were some super studs in techno or whatever... But then reality struck.... i got a project that never had any work... and never got finished... well at least has not got finished till now....

But apart from all these things its a great job... for one it pays real well... a lot many people may disagree with me but dude... who pays you so much for working 5-7 hrs a week... plus provides you with a computer with free Internet connection... AC and a comfy chair to do whatever you wanna do... you have all the time in the world to make prepare for CAT, GMAT. GRE or whatever.... you can sit in cafeteria all day and crib abt your manager and company still pays you for that.... what else would you want...