Category: Pakistan

Pakistan

Over-Promised and Under-Delivered

Sohaib Athar3 Comments

It is better to promise little and deliver more, instead of the other way round – this is a valuable lesson that we shouldn't have to learn – it should be painfully obvious. And yet, when we enter the 'real world' with infinite energy and little experience but enough ambition to conquer the world, we hastily agree to overly optimistic deadlines. Most often, we end up revising the same deadlines that seemed easily manageable a month ago, apologizing to the boss/client all the time, and putting in all-nighters and watching in desperation as two new bugs surface after one is fixed. Then we grow up, and learn to multiply both time and cost by a number much greater than 1.0 before estimating anything. We still miss deadlines… but we feel less stupid about them, and can charge more in some cases… but I digress…

What I wanted to say is, PTCL botched it.

PTCL announced that they will double the bandwidth on the 1st of March. They failed to deliver on that promise, the reason: "it's a weekend, our staff is not available, we will do it on monday".

The bandwidth was still not upgraded the next week – the reason: "We need to upgrade the ports from Islamabad, so it will happen in a single transaction for ALL the Pakistani users".

Yesterday (14th of March, half the month gone), I got an SMS from PTCL when I woke up at noon, telling me that my package has been upgraded to 512kbps 'according to my request' – so I turned on my machine, but the router was still showing 256kbps. After 4 hours, I called their helpline and asked them why had they sent me the SMS when I was still getting the same old speed? The lady (who sounded overwhelmed) asked me for my phone number, and then told me that my upgrade was in its final stage, I asked her how many stages do they have, she said "four". She said it should be complete "any time now", so I said thank you and hung up.

24 hours later (almost 9AM, 15th of March, 2008), I still have the same speed. After looking at the time and realizing that it is morning already, I just called their helpline again (yes, you can call this live blogging too) and told the PTCL rep that I was getting the same old speed despite their SMS – the girl at the other end took my number, checked her system and told me "Sir, our systems are still showing 256kbps". I swallowed the compulsory "No shit!" retort (I am beginning to understand why they prefer female customer relations employees), and asked her why, with their promise of 1st March, have they been unable to upgrade the bandwidth after two weeks. Her response: "Sir, we had till the 15th of March to upgrade. You can call in one hour and check again".

Now this is not right! I can see that they had to rush their price-cuts to meet the competition, and I realize that the 1st of the month is when most of the customers would consider switching, so PTCL had to try to retain that segment of their customer base by promising them the shiny new deal – but why did they have to promise the exact date if they were unsure that they could handle the upgrade workload, why the hell are they still considering 15th of March as their deadline (which is from PTA), and more importantly, why can't they apologize about it, as they have basically swindled me out of 653.50 Rs.

After the prescribed one hour wait, I called 1236 again – this time their support gal simplified it for me and told me in no uncertain terms that "Many customers have already had their account upgraded, yours will be done soon too, perhaps in a day or two. PTCL has promised the upgrades so you will get the upgrade soon". I asked the same 'why promise…' question, and she gave me the same 'please wait for a couple of days…' response.

I would have been perfectly okay with waiting for a few weeks while PTCL upgraded, but the above situation has converted me into an irked customer (note: not a completely 'unsatisfied' customer, their actual wares are good, even though their customer 'service' is lacking) when they could have used the chance to convert me into a super-satisfied customer. I can survive with my current 256kbps, but I hate being manipulated like this. PTCL should fire its marketing department and hire a few more techs – to get things done.

Time to sleep.

School Closed Due To Bomb Threats

Sohaib Athar

My son will not go to school today, or tomorrow. When we discussed this in front of him today, he immediately said, "Coz there is a bomb".

The school administration have received specific bomb threats and have decided to keep the school closed for the next two days. Of course, the topic must have been discussed in front of him at school, which is how he knows 'there is a bomb'.

I don't see how closing the school for two days will help, they might as well close the school for two months, or better yet, two years. There have been threats before the elections, and I am sure there will be lots of threats in the future as well. 

I don't blame the school for being paranoid, as it is one of the better schools of Lahore, and so, a lot of my son's classfellows are sons and grandsons of active politicians and police officers. All I (or the other parents) can do is to blame our government, which, in turn, blames the usual suspects , who blame the USA and so on… I'm sure that if my son could, he would blame me for making him live in a country where kids become 'collateral damage', and have to sacrifice their lives and education for some one else's war.

Congratulations my terrorist 'brothers', you have succeeded.

Startup Insiders Lahore Videos

Sohaib Athar

I went to the Vahzay office last week to meet Athar Osama (after 4 years) on his short visit to Lahore, and had my portable hard disk with me, so Imran Zia was nice enough to copy the full Starup Insiders videos for me – and this is how I ended up with the videos for SI3 (4GB – the one I attended) and SI6 (5GB – the one I missed) on my hard disk, waiting to be sliced and uploaded to youtube or GoogleVideo. I'll probably compress/clip/upload them during some free timeslot this weekend (I still need to find a decent software to do that – I'm a youtube uploading n00b – suggestions are welcome), so stay tuned and if you missed the sessions (which were very interesting) and I will upload the videos whenever I can.

I Condemn the Lahore Bomb Blast

Sohaib Athar1 Comment

While searching for updates regarding the bomb blast in Lahore today, I couldn't help noticing the top two links on Google News were from the Associated Press of Pakistan, a 4 hour difference between the two releases. The titles are linked to the APP pages – I'm just copy pasting the two 'releases' one after the other.

Minister Petroleum condemns Lahore blast ISLAMABAD, Mar 4 (APP): Caretaker Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ehsanullah Khan Tuesday strongly condemned bomb blast in Lahore, which caused loss of precious lives. In his message he said it was the heinous act of terrorism reflects inhuman nature of the perpetrators. He said anti Islam and anti state elements wanted to derail the ongoing democratic process in the country but they will not succeed in their nefarious designs. The Minister prayed for the deceased, that may Allah Almighty rest the departed souls in eternal peace and grant the bereaved families the courage to bear the loss. He expressed his condolence and sympathy with the families of killed and the injured.

and… 

NA Speaker condemns Lahore blast ISLAMABAD, Mar 4 (APP): Speaker National Assembly, Ch. Amir Hussain on Tuesday strongly condemned bomb blast in Lahore, which caused loss of precious lives. In a statement, the Speaker said it was a barbaric act of terrorism, which reflected inhuman and callous nature of the perpetrators. He said a few misguided people were trying to disrupt peace in the country and derail the peaceful democratic process but they will not succeed in their nefarious design. He said the criminals were playing with the lives of innocent people. Praying for the deceased, the Speaker said that may Allah Almighty rest the souls of the victims in eternal peace and grant the bereaved families the courage to bear the loss. He also sympathized with the injured and their families and prayed for their speedy recovery.

I was really moved by their straight-from-the-heart honest sentiments, it did not know our government cared that deeply about the deceased. I'm also surprised at how similar their thought process is, its almost as if they were speaking from the same slimy tongue. I am sure that with such caring rulers who are thinking about the nation all the time and are dedicated to the democratic process, Pakistan will soon be back on the way towards progress.

So, to follow in their footsteps, I strongly condemn the bomb blast in Lahore, which caused loss of precious lives…

APP, can I have a press release page please?