Paradigm Shift

I had a not-so-good opinion/experience of salesmen, credit card sellers etc. I usually consider most of what they say to be untrue, said just so they can make the sale. I had one experience years ago which I can say resulted into a "Paradigm Shift" (to quote from 7 habits book). Paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the way we see things, a fundamental shift in our perception of the world around us or the people we interact with.


This happened when I bought my car from Maruti's Mandovi Motors Lavelle road. After almost a month and a half from the time I took delivery of the car, I got a call from the car salesman @ Mandovi who processed my papers.

I think his name is Sachin. After exchanging the usual greetings, he said "Sir, I have a surprise for you. Can I come to your place and meet you?". I asked him what it is. But he insisted on meeting me in person. So I called him home.

He came home and handed me a cheque of 10,000 Rs. I asked in surprise what it is for. He said that I being a Wipro employee am eligible for a corporate discount while buying a car from Maruti. I didn't avail it while buying the car. When he realized this while filing my papers to be sent to Maruti, (I had given my Wipro ID card for Id proof), he spoke to his boss and arranged for the money to be returned to me.

Now, I am not sure if this was an initiative in honesty from his side or it is a part of Maruti's process. Maybe when my documents were being sent to Maruti, there must have been a check-list or something to be filled up. And one of the items might have been whether the customer has been given the corporate discount. And if not maybe Maruti will penalize the dealer for it.

Whatever the case, this experience made me realize that I was judging all salesmen alike based on my "image" of them based on my past experience. I also remembered this same guy had driven my car to my house on the evening of the delivery since I didn't know driving then. And he even refused to take a tip from my dad. I was unexpectedly impressed.

I engaged him in a conversation to get to know him better. He turned out to be a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from RV college of Engineering, Bangalore. I was stunned. "You are a B.E Mechanical from RV?? Why the hell are you wasting your career selling cars?". He mentioned that he is a fresher, didn't get a job in campus, is looking for a better job and will quit once he gets it. He is as qualified as I was when I finished Engg. And here I was treating him like a not-so-educated, not-so-honest salesman !!

So much for my preconceived ideas about people.