Insuring Promptness

By Ramesh Akkineni

from an article by A G Krishnamurthy in Business Standard

What I’ve Learned
The fine art of ‘insuring promptness’
TIP, I am told could be an acronym whose expansion we seem to have forgotten with time. It apparently stands for ‘To Insure Promptness’ and traces its origins to the eighteenth century English coffee houses, though etymologists have debated the source of this little word for years.

But there is one thing that most seem to agree on-it’s definitely a hangover from the British class system. I wouldn’t know how true all this is but what I do know is that it would benefit us hugely if we remembered its expansion every time we belatedly dole out some TIP.

My tutor in this fine art was a remarkable gentleman called Manubhai Seth who was Reliance’s first employee. In the early days of my career, I used to be extremely impressed by the way the staff at all the hotels we used to stay in rushed to his bidding. He just had to flick his fingers and they would respond as if he were a very, very important ‘Someone’! Curiosity got the better of me and I finally asked him how he managed it, to which he laughed and replied, ‘Simple. By tipping of course.’

‘But I tip them too’, I protested puzzled at why I wasn’t given the same service for the same tip! ‘Ah, that depends on when you tip, not how much’, he replied. ‘You must be tipping them after they did the job. By which time, they’ve already given you mediocre service. Your tip is a “thank-you tip” and mine is a “please-get-the-job-done” tip. That is the difference’ he told me with all the wisdom of a self-made man.

Little lessons no doubt, but yes, we do need tutoring in them. Manubhai’s lessons have guided every tipping routine of mine to this day and I have to admit it works every single time.

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