Friday, August 06, 2004
Phone Card
Jef is an officer working in another division of our organisation. Well, Jef had been constantly whinging about the high cost of making overseas calls. Obviously, he referred to his home telephone calls to his relatives overseas. I have personally heard Jef telling this sad tale him on many occasions. Well, Jef must be suffering badly from constantly receiving high telephone bills.
So one day, I introduced Jef to the wonderful world of prepaid telephone cards. Well, Jef used to pay around $2 per minute for his phone call to India. With the prepaid phone card, which had a local access telephone number and a password, the cost was a mere 5 cents per minute. This worked out to be about 2.5% of what he previously paid. There were so many brands of phone cards being sold at that Newsagency and Jef a considerable amount of time looking at the features of each card. Even that, it took a lot of explanation from the shopkeeper to convince Jef to buy a $10 prepaid phone card. The shopkeeper also handed him a brochure explaining the use of the card.
Three weeks later, I asked Jef about the phone card trying to find out whether the quality of the sound transmission was satisfactory. It was not uncommon to find sound interference during telephone conversation when using a certain type of cards. To my surprise, Jef said that he was yet to use the card as he was still reading the brochure to ascertain the exact meanings of the terms and conditions. He said that it appeared to him the charges would be higher than the 5 cents per minute if used during peak hours but the period designated for peak hours was not very clear from the brochure. In addition, there was really no urgent issue that he needed to talk to his relatives overseas.
I felt sorry for the man. It took him three weeks to deliberate on the best way to get the best value out of an item worth $10. How much times would he need to deliberate on buying a car or a house? I am doubtful as to how a man who is unable to make up his mind on simple issue can contribute to his organisation effectively. How he managed his everyday life would be a greater mystery to me. Well, Jef was lucky that he had worked for the last 30 years in an organisation which a no-forced-redundancy policy, where union was playing a crucial role. He retires next month and remains a bachelor.
So one day, I introduced Jef to the wonderful world of prepaid telephone cards. Well, Jef used to pay around $2 per minute for his phone call to India. With the prepaid phone card, which had a local access telephone number and a password, the cost was a mere 5 cents per minute. This worked out to be about 2.5% of what he previously paid. There were so many brands of phone cards being sold at that Newsagency and Jef a considerable amount of time looking at the features of each card. Even that, it took a lot of explanation from the shopkeeper to convince Jef to buy a $10 prepaid phone card. The shopkeeper also handed him a brochure explaining the use of the card.
Three weeks later, I asked Jef about the phone card trying to find out whether the quality of the sound transmission was satisfactory. It was not uncommon to find sound interference during telephone conversation when using a certain type of cards. To my surprise, Jef said that he was yet to use the card as he was still reading the brochure to ascertain the exact meanings of the terms and conditions. He said that it appeared to him the charges would be higher than the 5 cents per minute if used during peak hours but the period designated for peak hours was not very clear from the brochure. In addition, there was really no urgent issue that he needed to talk to his relatives overseas.
I felt sorry for the man. It took him three weeks to deliberate on the best way to get the best value out of an item worth $10. How much times would he need to deliberate on buying a car or a house? I am doubtful as to how a man who is unable to make up his mind on simple issue can contribute to his organisation effectively. How he managed his everyday life would be a greater mystery to me. Well, Jef was lucky that he had worked for the last 30 years in an organisation which a no-forced-redundancy policy, where union was playing a crucial role. He retires next month and remains a bachelor.
