What can you do? - Tango ‘n rotten mango

I was haunted by the fact that I only portrait the problem statement of the Dhaka Airport in “Tango ‘n rotten Mango”; I should have provided my opinion on solving the stated problem.

Here is what I think the problem is: Lack of “Intention”.

How can you solve it?  Proper training and Routine management.

Can you solve it?  YES, in 6 months! (Provided I can fire anyone ;). I will be bored after 1 year.

How much money do you need?  No additional budget; (Will fire bad apples; reward the good apples)

What has “intention” has to do with “serving” the visitors, foreign investors, scholars or returning “remittances earner poor hard working Bangladeshis”?  I will tell you in a minute; just bear with me.

First and foremost, people who are doing the job need to know why they are doing this job.

What type of job is this?

What are they supposed to do?

Why do they do the way they are doing? Is there a better way?

Who are paying for it?  Government?  His BOSS that he/she reports to?

Is there any actionable consequence if they are not doing it the way they supposed to do?

Is this a job "until death does us apart" thing?

Now these people probably go through training. The trainer probable trained them what books says like, “সদা সত্য কথা বলিবে” The truth is, most of us don’t do that and we have our reasons :)

 It was “এক কান দিয়া ডুকে অন্য কান দিয়া বের হয়”।

I am not biting the trainer and I am not here to make a lot of enemies. I have to live here (here is my reason!). This is what I think probably make it little bit better.

“Glass Jar Delivery” my concept of delivering education:

Trainer need to believe in what he is training. If I deliver you a glass jar, I have to be very careful with my steps. I have to hand it over to you such a way that you carefully receive it and secure it. Then I take of my hand. Thereby I ensure the delivery. Hence you receive the glass jar as I “intended”.

An undamaged, unbroken, complete glass jar is handed over from one person to another. Task completed. This is what I call “Glass Jar delivery: my concept of communication”

Once the trainer is on board with right “Intention”; then he need the precise material that he supposed to delivery. The “intention” will guide to the right content.


There are 51 lacs people in Singapore for the area of 710 sqkm; their airport is bigger than Dhaka. Except law enforcement people, very few other airport officials are wondering around. I know our airport is small, lot more people to manage it; however if those people were managed efficiently, they could do lot better J

One has to study the service time, estimate the number of passengers arriving at certain time, and allocate the desks with capable personal to meet the demand. For non-rush time use them for different task.

  

To prepare the training material or work plan the question we should be asking:

What are we trying to do? 

We are trying to make you happy.

How do I make you happy?

By doing what you are supposed to do in a courteous, generous, genuine manner and you feel happy about doing it; it is in your job contract that you are serving a person who eventually pays your monthly salary.

They pay it in the form of ticketing, travel tax, airport tax and so on. It is not your “BOSS” that you are getting your salary from; the airport employees salary comes from these” very illiterate wage earners” who are using this airport.

So respect these “wired” dressed young men, say thank you to them for your job. Make them happy and invite them to come more often to make your airport earn more.

Because of them you are providing food to your table at home. They are your real BOSS. By the way don’t show me your “irritated” face; be thankful and smile! J

This massage need to be delivered like the “Glass Jar” method to the immigration officers and all the people working in the airport.

To accept this lesson; they need to have “intention”. To serve they need to have “intention”.

I have been frequently traveling for the last 6 months and I see some positive changes happening in the Airport. Cleanliness, better appearances are some to acknowledge. There are less people wondering around; however still a long way to go.

Tango 'n rotten Mango

“Tango, please come”, the immigration officer on the right side of the immigration box under the “SAARC/Foreign Passport” said to his radio. I am standing in the line, waiting for my turn next. Tango is relatively younger than the immigration officer at that desk. While Tango at his desk, the officer told him, “This is not working”. This event took place in Dhaka International Airport arrival counter procceding to immigration in March 2012.

Tango told him, “Go back to previous page”. Man said, “It is not working”.

Then Tango lean over and hit the key. Man accepted the help unwillingly. Tango left to other counter.

After a minute, the man, I mean the officer, screamed, “Tango, Over, Tango, Over”. The officer shouted to his boss (someone seems like in-charge), “why he left, this things does not work. Ask him to come immediately, ask him to keep standing here”.

Tango came, said: “get out from this page and go to the main page”. “This does not go to main page, where is main page?” said the officer. Tango said, “You are not doing it right, do this way”. 

Tango leaned over the cubicle. “Are you teaching me computer?” the officer shouted. 

“Did you see this, did you see”, the officer looking over the other counters, trying to get attention of other immigration officers. “See sir, you have to do something, this “ সেদিনের পোলা আমার এ কম্পুতার শিখাএ (young man teaching me computer)”. “You have to do the judgment”, officer trying to get his boss’s agreement. 

“You stay here and make this thing work”, said the officer to Tango assertively. This is becoming a show and the poor customer at his counter is trying grasp what is happening.

Anyway, this drama end and the poor customer get his passport back. I am next. I am not sure what I am heading into.

I handed over my passport. The officer took it. It appeared to me that he is typing something, one key at a time and probably end up in the same situation like while serving previous customer. “Tango come-in, Tango come-in” and the saga continue ….

Fast forward 6 months from March 2012 to September 2012. We are at the arrival hall of the Dhaka International Airport. The Arrival Hall is full. I had an opportunity to go through the busiest International arrival halls in world like, LAX, JFK, SFO, John Wayne, O’Hare, Heathrow, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and so on for the last 20 years. They are bigger and lots more people arriving at the same time in the arrival halls.

However, in Dhaka airport we are standing in the arrival hall, one hour goes, two hour goes, someone vomit on the line. We are standing next to the vomit, waiting for the mercy of the immigration officers to give us the privileges to let us into their beloved country.

In front of me, there is a group of 11 high schoolers from Australia. I was chit chatting with them to pass the boring time. I was tired of watching people in the line, I was tired of watching people in uniform (custom or immigration or people with badges) wondering around in front of the counters, back of the counters, by our sides;  they act busy; however I don’t see them doing anything. They don’t bother noticing the vomit in the floor.

I asked the Australian High school students, how many days they will be staying, what places they are going. They told me that they will be staying in Bangladesh for 16 days and has an open schedule to visit places. 

They seems like came from a Christian school and most likely will try to do missionary work, I thought. I noticed that they dressed appropriately to blend the local culture and tradition as well as to adjust the weather. I advised them to drink plenty of water to hydrate and try to stock good source of clean drinking water.

In the line next to mine, there was an old man of sixty or so. I notice him exhausted. He is saying to himself, “This is unacceptable”. He was in the “Foreign Investor/Businessmen” line. “Business is good here, that’s why I have been coming here, but this is outrageous, I am willing to pay more for faster service”. 

I asked him, “What do you do”. He said, “I am in pharmaceuticals, I teach pharmaceuticals companies”. I am exploring business here and I am also interested in pharmaceuticals so I asked him which company.

He said with a look of a professor, “All of them, Incepta, Beximco, Square, you name it”. “Business is good, but I cannot take it anymore. I think this is my last one, that’s it”.

I told him, “You got to excuse these people, you should not deprive the country or the companies because of this”.

“I am going to ruin my whole day, I could have done lot more with these three hours” he murmured.  Later I found someone waiting for him with a placard, “Mike Castle”. “This is my last, never gonna come again.”

I am not expert on how to do immigration task. As I said I have been through a lot of immigrations. Just yesterday I came from Singapore, it took less than 60 second, I repeat less than 60 second to do the immigration. Not to mention JFK or LAX where thousands of flights arrive and take off every day.

My common sense tells me that an immigration officer looks at the passport and visa, record it and let you go. Of course there are people that they screen, list of unwanted people that needs to pattern match. Those are all done in the back ground by the software program.

But for the people who already in the system, all they have to do is to enter the passport number or the name. All previous record comes and you just match the passport photo with the person in front of you. It is less than a minute job. Of course if you have “one finger typer” it will take 20 second for 10 digits and still you may be done with in a minute. I wonder why it takes that long time, what in in that screen?

I should not confuse you by only focusing in one event and that event is not the sole responsible for the slowness in the processing counters of the immigration desks. Rush hour management, study and understand the flight schedule and allocate resources accordingly may be some of the bottlenecks.

Let me finish the blog with a good one.

As I said I was in Singapore last week, I had an incident at the Dhaka Airport. I checked in, passed through the immigration. I sit in the lobby and filling up the arrival cards for my destination. I try to keep up to date with my tasks. 

I had a passport cover or wallet, where I keep my passport, USD and some credit cards. I pull out my passport and filled up the forms at hand. I put my passport in my pocket and walk to the boarding gate 5. I entered in to the boarding lounge and sit there in the waiting area in front of the TV. I want to put the things where it supposed to be, so I reached out to my wallet or passport cover, alas, it is not in my pocket.

A shock waves flow through my spine! Where it might be? I rushed to the boarding counter and wanted the other part of the boarding pass and go out; however instead of giving me the other part, now they asked me to give my part to them and go out to find my staff without any boarding passes at all.

Anyway, I have no time for this, so I left my part and walking and running to the place where I was filling up the forms.

I see a person next to where I seat, probably a construction worker going abroad. He is holding similar but little bigger cover. I asked him if he noticed any passport cover with black leather. He said no.

Then I noticed there are three people seating on the chairs that I was seating while filling up the forms. They are holding something similar to my passport cover. “It is mine”, I said. “Look here is my name in the passport and here is the name in the AMEX credit card” I added.

The men said, “We are planning to announce a lost and found. This sweeper lady found it and give it to us” (they are with airport badges and yellow vest). I looked at the passport cover, my USD were there, my hotel reservation letter and AMEX card all in there. I thanked the sweeper and reward her handsomely and went back to my flight.

I was not expecting that I would get back to my USD or the AMEX card. At best I could have found the black leather cover lying in the floor; so I was contemplating to call the AMEX and freeze the account while I was rushing through the walkways.

There are people in Bangladesh who still has the moral values and does the right thing; however we are getting it where least expected. 

We expect that our immigration officers are the brand managers of Bangladesh. They are the first encounter to a foreign investor, a tourist or a foreign businessman. The service they provide can make or break the country.

On top of that they need to understand that they are not doing any favor to anyone; they are paid to do the job right and make the customer happy who paid for the service via travel tax, airport tax etc.

They ought to ask this question to them if they are offered a “rotten mango” for USD$1.00, will they buy it?