- There was work in the society. There we were doing wood finish work and generally when we do that we spray on the walls.
- So the client’s house was getting made and even his door was not done, so his main door would mostly be open. Due to which the smell would also go in the neighbours house.
- There was an old woman in the house who was having a problem with it. 2-3 times they told us that there is a lot of smell coming from the client’s house so I told the client to get the door fixed so that we can close the door while working and the smell doesn’t go out.
- 90% of the work was completed and, in the end, the main door was also a wooden door and we had to paint/spray that too, so we couldn’t close anything that time, but still we created a separating sheet which blocked it from affecting the neighbours side.
- So maybe the old lady was already ill or something, but her family claimed that she fell severely ill because of the painting work that was happening next door. She was already an asthma patient, and they raised a complaint directly to the higher authorities like Regional Manager (RM) stating that at AP people work in a careless manner, there was no proper masking, if the work is happening in one house, then why should the other house suffer.
- The society called for a meeting and stalled our work due to this. So whatever 5-10% work was remaining did not get completed and we had to stop the work. When the SSO and TSO had visited, they decided to reimburse the family for the medical expense that they had incurred for treating the old lady, which was around 50-60K. It did not make sense to do this but for the company’s goodwill, we had to do this.
- Everyone knew that the old lady did not fell ill due to our work but still they got an excuse to put the blame on us. From our end whatever we could do we did that to protect the smell from going out like we would close the door, put curtains, sheets on the doors, but if the other person’s intention is to somehow find fault and blame us.
- Some customers have this thing in their nature that if the company is doing the work, then it should bear all the expenses, I (customer) should not face any problem. We are also humans, we are not gods, we cannot control the air, we cannot say that okay air should not flow only in that direction, and the smell will not reach others.
- Now especially while working in societies we have started using sheets to even cover the main door, so post that no complaint has been lodged against us.
Scenario- how to reduce inconvenience to neighbours. Part of the Basic SPS promise