Telephone bill

I had to pay 2 bills today - the landline and my mobile bill. Yeah yeah, when you have an office where work day starts at 11 am , you get all the time in the world to do chores like this.
Anyways, I reached BSNL and saw a long queue at the cash counter, so I walked over to the Cheque Payment counter with a "Credit/Debit card Payment" board hidden behind it . There wasn't a queue and scarily no one manning the counter either.
A guy in the next counter looks up at me. Now this dude has that typical government official look. He's got his glasses perched at the tip of his nose, hanging to his ears by their last edge. And he was looking up at me trying to fit me through those rectangles. He says "Cheques have to be taken to Counter 1" .
"Cheque alla, Card ide" (Not cheque, I want to pay by card)
He asked me to take a seat and I did and was looking around.
A couple of people came with cheques, he had to send most away.He finally finished with the customer at his desk and came to my counter and as he bent to take the seat, current damar ..... He did not even sit down, he just went back to his seat with a sigh .
I was confused. The whole room turned dark. Power cuts in an office !!! Something that never crossed my mind , no computer UPS either !! shucks !!
after 3 minutes, the generator kicked in. Lights flickered back on. and all systems re-started together , the melee of Windows start-up 'music' filled my ears. The guy came back and patiently restarted the service, the printer and was so composed and slow-moving about it that it struck me, if a colleague at work was to face a system-restart in the middle of work, there would be so much impatience about them, shaking the living day lights out of the mouse (like that will start it faster ! ) , tapping the monitor, stretching, tapping their feet, making all sorts of noises - anything to will it turn on faster or use the phone to not waste even that 1 minute that the system takes to boot !
We try to fill our lives with all we can that I wonder if we have lost the habit of slowing down.
And veering back to course.
The system started. He used my card. I signed the receipt. I was about to leave when I realised he was waiting for something. The BILL !!
I settled back into the chair. And the lights switched off again.
He calmly went back to the ledger he was working on earlier like nothing had happened.
I did not know if I could leave or .....
"Payment has been done right? I'll ...... " (was about to say I'll leave )
"I have to give you the bill ma'am"
It had already been 20 mins since I walked in. Comparison was inevitable. I never faced these glitches at Vodafone . Hmm
Anyways, I finally got my receipt and walked out .
I reached the Vodafone store at 10.45 and wonder of wonders ! The store itself was closed. So much for comparison.Thank God, it wasn't the last date ..
And , talking of comparisons. I have always noticed that while most people complain about government offices(the only one I have been to is BSNL) , I find the people a refreshing change. They are polite or not polite. Take it or leave it types. There's no in-betweens. Oh , there are in-betweens possible . Walk into GK Vale in Malleswaram. You get to experience a weird politeness. The tone of the voice and the expression of the face says "Get out of my place you filth" while the words say "Thank you ma'am" . Its like they are forced to use those words by rote but don't mean a single thing.
When I said "Thanks" for the bill today morning, the BSNL guy gave me a smile. A genuine one. I miss that in other "Hospitality" areas.