I was just returning from seeing a show of the works of Sreshta and others at GallerySKE. I got into an auto at the corner of Vittal Mallya Road to go to Malleswaram when the auto driver asked me a question that I was not sure I understood. So I leaned across and asked him to repeat it. He wanted to know what my profession was! (He actually used the word ‘profession’ although his question was in Kannada.) As I paused to digest the question, he went on to ask me if I was an artist and followed it up with an explanation that artists normally wear pyjama and kurta (my dress at that time). I replied to him in Hindi that I was a teacher.
Clearly the auto driver was in a chatty mood and not willing to give up easily. About 10 minutes into the ride, he wanted to know at which school I was a teacher. I replied that the school was in Madras. ‘Ah’, he continued. ‘A drawing teacher?’ I decided to put him out of his misery and said, ‘Yes.’ He was certainly pleased that I seemed to conform his stereotype.
I decided to keep a watch and see how many people wore pyjama jurta in Bangalore. Not many, really. There were quite a few around the mosques but not otherwise. I wondered why the dress had been relegated to the art community; perhaps they need the freedom of movement to produce good art.
My classmate Surendra, who teaches at three colleges locally as a part-time instructor told me that when he retired and took up a career as an adjunct professor, he decided that he would wear a tie to class. He just thought it made a difference. It certainly did when he wanted to visit the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore with his nephew, an architect from Kerala, who wanted to take some pictures of the buildings and classrooms. (He was working on a project designing a business school.) They were stopped at the gates of IIMB and asked if they had an appointment and who they were going to see. Surendra says he replied, ‘Director’and was waved in without further ado. He attributes it to his wearing a tie!
Prem was rather upset at the inefficiencies of bank managers and lower executives who always give him the run-around when he is trying to make a deposit or arrange a withdrawal. But his recent experience at Corporation Bank was rather pleasant. The young ‘Personal Investments’ Officer was quite helpful and offered to come all the way to the Valley School (from Malleswaram, about 30 kms) to discuss deposit options. But Prem was concerned with his attire. Apparently the young man wore jeans, a casual shirt, and a jeans jacket, with a chain around his neck that was quite prominent. Next to him was a young woman, staring at the same computer screen (‘an intern or trainee’ thought Prem) who seemed to be dressed as though she was headed to a party (with make-up to boot). Prem wondered about the bank that seemed to allow such casual dress habits.
What do you make out of these vignettes?
தாய் மண்ணே வணக்கம்
6 years ago
2 comments:
having worked in an industry (management consulting) where they really cared about what you wore as well as one (internet tech) where they don't at all, i appreciate the latter. to a point. it should be about how competent you are, whether you're able to get the job done, and your overall professionalism. granted, you can make the case that some attire can take away from this last point, but i think within reason there is no harm.
in prem periappa's case, i would think that he would focus on their customer service and willingness to go out of their way vs. what they looked like.
I guess the use of pattern recognition isn’t too surprising. We all make our initial assumptions and adjust based on new information. But for that adjustment to take place, the new information needs to be passed along. In the case of the driver, he wasn’t corrected and so he has further validated the algorithm in his head. In the case of the lender, the underdressed associate is probably unaware of the impression he is making and at the same time, is unlikely to be alerted to the real reason he does not get more business. Most people are a little hesitant about sharing their impressions, especially when negative. The potential for downside, or at least absence of upside, is a big obstacle. In more structured environments like the workplace, equally seems hard to create good systems that encourage open feedback and the improvement opportunities it would allow...
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