A Play in One Act
The following is a true story...
"I want to change from Telenor to VIP."
"Can I have your licna karta?"
I give my ID card.
"Wait just a moment," he said, and he went to the back of the shop.
15 minutes later.
"You can switch, but you cannot use our phones," he declared.
"I did not ask for one," I said.
"Because you are a foreigner you cannot have any of our phones."
"I don't want I phone."
"You cannot have one."
"Why?"
"Because you are a foreigner."
"Did you look at my licna karta? I have been here for 10 years, I have owned two companies here, I have a JMBG. Why can't I have a phone?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Is that an explanation?" I asked, getting steamed up.
"Let me talk to the manager," I said.
"He's not here."
"Who did you go talk to in the back?"
"A colleague."
"Let me talk to him."
"He does not decide on this."
"Then why should I care what he told you?"
More shrugging.
"Where is the manager then?" I asked.
"He's not here."
"Call him."
He pretends to call someone. We wait. He does not look at me.
"He does not answer."
"Tell him he lost a customer today."
"Ok."
"Make sure he knows about this - or I will."
EPILOGUE
With a final shrug of his shoulders, he indicated to me and everyone standing in line behind me that he could not care less that he just turned away a potential client. Moreover, he lost me as a client for exactly the WRONG reasons - I never wanted a 1 dinar phone from him or a two year contract, or anything. But he insisted so much on the fact that I could NOT have it that I could not, in good conscience, do further business with him.
Tonight he will go home and never think about this. In six months when VIP lays him off because the number of clients starts to decline, he will not wonder what his part in this story was.
He will just shrug his shoulders.