The Pigeon and The Statue

"It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody"

Meta AI - generated image of a pigeon taking a dump on a statue

Thanks to Internet banking and the privilege of having a Relationship Manager designated to me by my primary banker, I rarely need to visit any brick-and-mortar branch of the bank. The other day was one such rare occasion, when I needed to transact a certain kind of business that needed me to be present in person at the branch of a different bank.

It took me a while to navigate to the desk of the customer service officer to whom I was directed, and I got there only to find her seat vacant. I looked around for a bit and everybody around seemed extremely busy. At another desk nearby an important-looking officer was going through a whole bunch of important-looking documents. She didn't have any customers seated opposite her and I could tell that she was aware of my presence, but she did her best to avoid eye-contact. Lest I should bring her more work, I guess. Anyway, since I was not in a tearing hurry I decided to hang around and look helpless, hoping someone would notice. I was relieved when at last the officer I was waiting for showed up. However, she scarcely registered my presence, and instead immediately started talking to the aforementioned important-looking officer - who suddenly found time to chitchat with her, between shuffling her important-looking documents - across her carrel partition. Yet another reminder that I have neither a commanding enough presence nor a charming enough personality, to draw someone’s attention.

As I was waiting for her to turn her attention to me, I couldn't help overhearing her complaining to aforementioned colleague about the poor service she got from her mobile provider’s customer support staff when she visited their retail outlet. My patience was rewarded when she finally turned to me, still in an unpleasant mood. No smile, no warm friendly greeting, no “Hello, how can I help you?”. Instead, just a “Yes?” that barely managed to be polite. Before I could complete my first sentence the telephone at her desk rang and she answered it with a shudder of exasperation. By the time she was done with that call and turned to me again, an apparently junior colleague of hers came to her desk with some papers in her hand, seeking advice on some other customer’s request. Long story short, it took me all of 30 minutes to complete my transaction, which according to me should have taken not more than 5. Or maybe 10 minutes, at most.

As I was leaving I remarked to her, with a smile - “When we complain about poor service, as customers, it’s a good idea to introspect a bit about the quality of service we provide to our own customers, when the roles are switched and we act as service providers. After all, we all play both those roles, don’t we?” She was smart enough to get my reference to her complaining about the poor service she got from her telecom provider, and only then apologized. And even so, showing herself to be an efficient but helpless cog-in-the-wheel of a large, chaotic system. I wanted to quote a line from the song “Gotta serve somebody” by Bob Dylan as a parting shot. But somehow it didn't seem appropriate. For one thing I didn’t think she’d know who Bob Dylan was, and who knows, she might have even found it egregious. Instead I settled for a quote from Claude Chabrol: “You have to accept the fact that sometimes you are the pigeon, and sometimes you are the statue.”

We’d all do well to remember the message from this little anecdote... as much when we’re the pigeon dumping on the statue, as when we’re the statue taking crap from the pigeon. Because we’ve all gotta serve somebody.