• Insights

I have concluded that entrepreneurs in India are a badly brought up species. Before you are all up-in-arms against me, let me explain why I think so.

Many of you mail me, asking me to mentor you. I reply by giving you my phone number and a good time to call. As many as 99.9% of you never call at the time I ask you to. Two days later you call me, saying you were either too busy or did not check your mail! How can you breach the code of conduct twice, once by not calling when you were supposed to and then by calling without even checking first via a text message whether or not it’s a good time to call!

And, when we manage to get on call, some of you ask me what I do! Let’s say someone gave you my reference, shouldn’t you first be doing your homework before shooting out a mail to me?

A few times it has so happened that I fix up a time to speak with you and mark it on my calendar. When I call you at the designated time, you don’t pick up. I sms, saying I called as I was supposed to so please call back. You don’t. Several weeks later I get a mail or text saying: “Oh I forgot about the call, it was set up so long ago.” Duh? Your phone has a calendar! Many of you mail me with my name spelt wrong. How hard is it to google or simply look at my mail id to get it right?

Some of you address me as Mr. I can understand if you are not an Indian and, therefore, are not familiar with the gender of Indian names. But when you are one, and especially when I have don’t have a unisex name (Gurpreet for instance), I find your slackness unforgiveable.

Before hitting the send button, shouldn’t you go over the matter once to make sure there are no typos? Bad enough English has never been our strong point, but do you need to add insult to injury by saying “lust” when you actually mean “list”?

My biggest grievance is that you don’t reply to mails in a timely manner! In today’s day and age, do you really think saying, “I haven’t checked my inbox for days” is an excuse that will wash? It is particularly distasteful to someone like me who hits the reply button the same time you have hit the send button!

Let’s say we crossed all hurdles and fixed a time to meet—tomorrow, 11 a.m., in my office, the address is on our website. You can’t call me at 11 a.m. and say you have fever and hence want to cancel the meeting. Nor can you ask, “I am just leaving home, what is your address ma’am.” Okay, you did neither, and wonder of wonders, ended up in my office at 11 a.m. You want to meet me because you want to present your idea. But I see you are not carrying your laptop. Then you shove a pen drive in my hand and say, “Can you plug it into your laptop please.” Tell me, am I unjustified in asking you, are you out of your mind? I don’t know you from Adam, I don’t know where all that pen drive has been, you think I will plug it into my laptop?

Let’s say you brought your laptop, showed up on time, and took me through the presentation. Will you blame me if I say I couldn’t focus on your presentation as you stank up my room—either by being extra generous with your deo or so miserly with it that I am busy running my fumigation agency’s contact numbers in my head? Whilst I don’t expect you to be suited and booted, am I being unreasonable when I don’t like your tee which has “I love sucking” printed on it? I don’t like your dirty jeans with torn strands and I definitely don’t like you taking me through your presentation chewing gum. Believe me, this is just the tip
of an iceberg!

NandiniVaidyanathan teaches entrepreneurship in several ivy-league business schools across the world. The company she founded, CARMa (www.carmaconnect.in), mentors startups, family businesses and mature enterprises from across domains and geographies. She is also the author of the bestseller, Entrepedia—A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Entrepreneur in India.

©Entrepreneur October 2011

Tags:
Communication, etiquette, mentor, Nandini Vaidyanathan