The Treadmill

People kept telling me that starting my own business would mean a lot of hard work. I was and still am prepared for that. However no one mentioned the extremes of disservice and incompetency I would be confronted with, and that too at practically every step.

One thing I have never really understood is how I, as a customer, have to often chase my fabric suppliers to send me swatches (so I can place new orders), and after placing an order with them I have to keep calling them to follow up and ensure the fabric reaches me on time. Perhaps it’s a question of them being craftsmen first and businessmen next, or perhaps they know they have a bit of a monopoly in the market when it comes to their craft. I’m not sure, but it does take a lot of energy to get what I want and to get it on time!

Recently I’ve had to deal with the Chennai Corporation for a store maintenance issue. A couple of months after I opened my store I saw these damp patches appear on one of my walls. The patches spread to another wall during the monsoon, and then the paint started crumbling off and peeling. Next came a nasty smell and ever since then I’ve been burning aromatherapy oils in my store! My store is in a corporation building, so my landlord is the government. I had written a letter complaining and asking for an engineer to figure out where the leakage is coming from. Nothing much really happened so I had some local waterproofing and re-painting done in my store (which I’ve repeated since then when the patches made a re-appearance two months ago).

Two weeks ago my neighbour, a silver jewellery store owner, showed me his wall and ceiling. Almost the entire wall was damp and you could see beads of water on the wall as well as the ceiling. Next to his store on the other side (my store is on one side) is the stairway up to the next level. It was wet and the stairs were filled with water. I wish I had taken a photograph that day because there were literally buckets of water piling on the floor above and water dripping down from the ceiling. I knew it wouldn't be long before my store was next. It doesn’t take an engineer to figure out that the leak was from some broken pipe from the toilets on the second floor, but which pipe, and more importantly who was going to deal with the problem?

Letters in duplicate were sent off to the AEJE (Assistant Engineer’s Junior Engineer) and phonecalls made to the corporation office. Meanwhile the building had minimal water supply because we had to shut off the tank to prevent further leakage. Finally a team showed up three days ago and since they couldn’t find out the exact location of the pipe, they are demolishing the toilets to build new ones.

So in the end all that badgering and writing and calling did pay off (I’m hoping I didn't just jinx it), but sometimes problems like these make me feel running a business is always going to be an uphill run. And on really bad days I feel like no matter how fast I run I still don’t get anywhere.

This is a photograph of the wall and ceiling at the Silver Moonlight, the store next to Brass Tacks. Below that is a photograph of the ceiling on the floor above. Before they shut off the main tank, this ceiling was dripping with water.