Behavioural Class, while standing in the queue to change currency notes.

Thank you Prime Minister Narendar Modi.

Before you get any idea, let me clarify, I am not thanking the prime minister for his fight against black money or his bold decision to suddenly withdraw INR 500 / INR 1000 currency notes from circulation or the way he went about it!

This is a very by-the-way acknowledgement of his contribution to my learning. After-all it all happened because of his actions. .

In last three days, I went to my bank some three times, collectively spending more than 8 hours in the queue to exchange, deposit and withdraw cash. In this period, I got a chance to observe people around me, including the efficient bank staff, managing a tsunami of customers. In today’s scenario of digital interaction, net-banking and mobile apps, banks never expected so many customers to visit normally deserted bank counters.

The bank manager’s inexperience in handling queue and managing chaos was easy to see. The way they went about relaying instructions showed they were not prepared for it. Fortunately, they were fast learners.

At the start, the bank staff were fairly worried. They better managed the crowd within the premises than the customers’ in serpentine spiralling queues spilling on to the roads. Maybe, this is the first time the bank was seeing their true customers. I hope it was a pleasant experience for them.

I am not sure if any bank took advantage of the situation and tried to understand and interact with the customers beyond standard DEW ‘Deposit-Exchange and Withdraw’.

The most heartening part was a well-behaved crowd.

I was not expecting this disciplined approach. Everyone willing to live with some degree of hardship in order to serve a long-term-perspective. It makes me proud of the Indian population. The crowd that I interacted with included daily workers, peons, shopkeeper, students, housewives, professionals and senior citizens.

I witnessed people reprimanding over enthusiastic customers with ‘Customer is the only king’ attitude, who as a habit continued cribbing about the processes. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that the banks were doing a great job. The bank staff has been working late and extra hard. The tone of this message was amply clear.

In one instance, someone commented to the manager. ‘Madam, please be polite and let’s face that you don’t have any idea about queue management and taking care’. The lady calmly replied, ‘I understand; we were never prepared for this role; I am learning from the process. We all have our limitation; I presume none of us is perfect. Give us an opportunity to serve and hope you will co-operate with us’.

Bingo. Surprisingly, the crowd supported her and asked the customer to help by by following instructions.

In another episode, one of the illogical customers did not like the tone of the young executive delivering instruction. I know the person executive had very less time to sleep. His voice was broken as he has been at the job for last three days.

Once again, the lady in front of the irate customer turned around, glared at him and said in very polite terms. ‘Have patience; they are doing their job. Why can’t you see how much efforts they are making’?

The person finding no support from anyone had no further argument.

I realised some simple truths while standing in the queue.

We as a community find it difficult to appreciate efforts of other people. We have been spoilt on the ‘extra service value adds’ and ‘customer is the king’ syndrome. Finding fault is so easy for all of us. The more imperfect we are, more prone we are at finding fault in other person’s working. On a lighter note, I am absolutely convinced that we find it genetically difficult to stand in an orderly queue.

The banks have been extra polite in making arrangements for servicing senior citizens. The public, completely understanding and cooperative. They never objected, when banks allowed senior citizens to take precedence even while the rest stood in the sun.

Once people caught on this positive bias, they started sending senior members of the family for the task at hand. Slowly, the ratio of senior citizens rose alarmingly. Bank was fast to grasp the situation. It forced them to change their service algorithm. They quickly adapted to ‘one senior citizen- after five normal customer’ rule. And they were business again.

In my HDFC home branch at Kandivali East, Mumbai, the team went out of their way to make arrangements for senior citizens to sit. And serving water to everyone in the queue. I am sharing picture of my friend Najeeb, who with few other served water to people in his area, well done.

These are the positives you take and where your belief in goodness increases.

The bank managers and executives patiently and repeatedly answered all questions. They were on their toes, interacting with the crowd outside the bank.

Thank you bankers for helping out the country in this process of the currency switch.

On a lighter note. I was surprised in not finding any enterprising person selling Vada-Pao or tea to people standing in the queue. I did not find anyone was standing as a proxy. However, I do believe that these services are waiting to happen.

I have reasons to believe that the smart phones on hand and neck bent possibly contributed in the disciplined reaction of the crowd.