Last week was an eventful week for me professionally and personally. A professional task which i had assigned was delayed to the point of disgust and frustration by the agency handling it. It culminated with me showing insane outrage at the concerned person. My frustration was vented out by a crazy and irresponsible action.
My knowledge of tax and taxation is not good ,rather nil. Hence i have hired a CA (charted accountant) to look into the tax matters of my company, advise me on the tax matters, file IT returns and other statutory tax papers of the company on time.And also file my personal income tax on time.
I had submitted all papers, bills and bank statements to the CA on 16 of April 2011 to complete the tax filing, issue share certificates to the stake holders and complete the VAT and service tax formalities by the end of May 2011. He agreed to finish everything. I also instructed him to file my personal income tax on time.
I normally do not follow up with any agency or person after i assign a task to them. I only go back on the committed day and take acknowledgement of the tasks completed. I make 100% payment in advance and expect the work to be completed on time professionally. It was the same procedure with the CA. I made him 100% payment and also paid the tax amounts that needs to be paid.
But it turned out to be a bad decision. This was my second year of business with the CA. This year he turned out to be extremely unprofessional and awfully unethical. Not only were the tasks incomplete but the CA did not have the courtesy to inform me that the tasks were not completed. He was not receiving my calls and never responded to my e-mails.
He dragged on for three months. Thankfully he filed the IT (income tax) returns of the company on time after my repeated follow up calls and E-mails. But he missed the last date for my personal income tax return and i finally had to pay 3 months interest on the income tax. So by the end of November 2011, only company IT and personal IT filings were complete and all other tasks pending
I was already disgusted with the CA. This was by far the most un-professional attitude i have ever seen .(hopefully will never see it again).
I can understand if someone is busy with lot of professional assignments and more important work. But keeping the client/customer in dark is not the right thing to do for any professional. So our CA not only delayed the work much beyond any conceivable level of acceptance but also did not bother to at least receive the phone call from the customer. 30 September was the last day to file my income tax but my CA had not done it and he did not even bother to inform me. .
So the story by the end of November 2011 was "Pending". So our CA was sitting on all our papers for almost 6 months. My anger and frustration was just growing and i had to give him a mouthful one day. In response to that, he asked me to come and collect the share certificates. This was sometime in the middle of December. When i reached his office, he was not there and as usual did not answer my phone call. It repeated the next day and when i finally got him a week later, i was told that it was not ready. He asked me to come a week later. When i went there after a week, the story was no different. Only change this time was instead of not receiving the call, he had switched off his phone.
So by the end of year 2011, the status was "No progress" but for filing IT returns.
I had given up on this man and did not bother following up in January. On his part , he was at his un-professional best by not making any suo-mottu attempt to inform me about the status.
By mid February i was driven to the tipping point. Either i take back my papers and forget my money or use some other tactics to get my work done. There was no way i could use bad language on anyone. I can shout at people but cannot bad mouth them. So i wrote a strongly worded e-mail. To my surprise, there was a reply by him saying he would complete the work by 22 February (The first committed date was 30 May 2011).
So it was 22 February and i gave him a call in the morning to ask what was the status of my work. As usual he did not answer my call. So that day evening i gave a call from my landline and shouted at him. He told me that that only VAT (Sales tax) work is pending and everything else is complete and that he would give my papers on the 1 of March. I had no choice and i banged the phone.
So it was 1 March 2012, almost a year of delay. My CA called me in the morning and asked me what time i was planning to see him. I told him that i will be there at his office by 10:45 AM. He told that he has some urgent work and he will see me at 6 PM. I said fine and showed up at his office at 6 PM. But he messaged me that he would be half an hour late. So i went to the nearby Raghavendra swamy mutt and returned at 6 :30 PM. He was still not be seen. I called him at 6:45PM and he did not receive my phone call. I called him a few more times but he did not receive the call. I called him 10 minutes later and he had Shamelessly switched off his cell phone. I was frustrated and disgusted. Here is someone who accepts a work, delays it for almost an year, shows horribly disgusting attitude and shamelessly and cowardly switches off his phone unable to meet his commitment. I was waiting for him for almost two hours and was outraged by his action of switching off his phone. Out of sheer anger, i banged the main door of his office with all my strength that one glass pane broke.
One small glass piece flew and made a small scratch on my left palm. Within a fraction of a second, my anger cooled down and attention shifted on the bleeding palm. I walked to the nearby medical store, brought some cotton, one vial of tetanus and a syringe and got the tetanus shot from the doctor.
I was very ashamed of myself and regretted my behaviour. I went to the stationary store, brought some card board and fixed it to the broken pane. To his luck, the CA called. After giving him a mouthful, i apologized for my action. I dropped a 2000 rupees check (though the CA pleaded not to) in his office and left the place.
The VAT papers of the company is still not ready and the story is just going on.
There are some important lessons for entrepreneurs in this sequence of events.
First and foremost is to be professional. We have to own our words and we have to keep up our time. In other words, we have to be punctual. There may be situations where things are beyond your control. In such situations, it is very important to keep the customer informed and updated with the progress. Keeping the customer in dark is sure to earn you some fury.
Secondly, own up your faults. Its cowardly to escape if you are at fault. Never be like our CA who does not receive phone calls or switches off the cell phone unable to answer the client. Explain your problems to the customer. If your concerns are genuine and if your problems are reasonable, customers will understand and empathize with you. But if you try to take the customer for a ride, be ready to get a few glasses in your office shattered (do not take it literally) .
Always value people's money. Like it or not, Money is the most important thing in business. When someone pays you for a service, it means you are entrusted with a responsibility of meeting the customer's expectations. Be it one rupee or 10 rupees or 1 crore rupees or 1000 crore rupees, respect and value what one pays you for a service you render.
Most importantly, have control over your anger. My action was very spontaneous. I regret it ,but what i did was a big mistake. I had to pay a price for it. I was ashamed in my own eyes.
We have to devise ways of diplomatically handle situations. Venting out anger in foolish ways like how i did is not going to achieve anything and does not convey the right message. Even after all this drama my work is incomplete.
"Never get Angry". It is only going to make things worse and not help anybody. Anger causes collateral damage and worsens your case. Its going to have negative effects on your mind and body.
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