Lawi Joel, 7th November 2009 @ 22:00, Total Comments: 0, Hits: 837
SHOPPING around in the country’s commercial capital of Dar es Salaam could be both a leisure and pleasure.
But when recently I met with shocking ignorance about the merchandise and plain professionalism for it, I was not shopping around. I wanted to install a TV satellite dish for which I had to get a replacement part.
The technician we had called to do the installation told us that a unit of the dish known as Single Solution LNB was faulty and should to be replaced. The receiver which, one of my daughters, accompanied by her younger sister, had bought the previous day was also faulty and must be replaced.
I therefore had to go downtown to buy the unit. I studied the unit, wrote down its technical name on a piece of paper and left for town. In my profession of journalism I have gained some experience worth sharing with others.
If you must write down the name of an item, a person or a place on a piece of paper, memorise it at the same time. That was what I did, shoved the piece of paper into my pocket then walked out to downtown, my younger daughter by my side.
The shop for electronic items we were going to was located along Uhuru Road slightly opposite Uhuru Girls’ School Primary School. The question of the decoder or receiver as some people call it, was soon settled.
I then went to an adjacent shop to buy the unit –LNB Single Solution because the shop we had come to did not have it. The young shop attendant, around 30 years, looked up at me from a radio he was apparently fixing and I told him I wanted a
single solution LNB.
I shoved in his face the piece of paper with the name of the unit on it. “What?” he asked, surprised at the name of the unit. I repeated the name of the unit at which, in a vain attempt to hide his ignorance, he said:
“Oh, that one! Here it is,” he said as he reached for a TV remote control on the shelf next to him, and proffered it to me. I had never come across such naked ignorance, utter dumbness.
The young man should be at a rubbish dump, foraging for cans and spent cartridge shells. “That is not a single solution LNB!” I barked, enraged. “It is a TV commander.
What I want is a part of a satellite dish.” And I walked out of the shop. The owner of the next shop listened to me attentively or pretended to. Then he told me he did not have the unit. But stuck between other items on the shelf, was the unit.
I pointed it out to him upon which he cried: “Oh, you mean that?” A faint voice whispered in my mind: ‘Nincompoop!’ Unfortunately, the unit was not of the make I wanted. I went to the next shop.
And there, even after the shopkeeper read the name of the unit on the piece of paper, he still did not know what I wanted. “Do you have its sample?” he asked when he could see well that I had nothing more with me. Such dumbness in business was outright shocking to me.
Just where did all these young men doing business along Uhuru Road opposite Uhuru Girls’ Primary school in the heart of Dar es Salaam get the idea of doing business of electronic gadgets? Still, I had come to buy a replacement unit and I must get if before I returned to the house.
As we walked to another shop, my daughter giggled to herself. I knew she was thinking of the common TV comedians of Pwagu na Pwaguzi, imposters who always posed as skilled technicians but bungled every piece of work they were given.
There were many Pwagu na Pwaguzi in the business of selling electronic items in the city of Dar es Salaam. The owner of the shopkeeper we visited said plainly that he did not have the item.
Since I could not see it anywhere in his shop, I believed him and went to another shop, which actually made me decide not to look any further for the unit.
I told the shopkeeper what I wanted. Then I gave him the piece of paper with the unit’s name. He took the paper but stared at it for so many long minutes that maybe I had given him a scorpion instead.
I was enraged. “Give me that piece of paper,” I said. He looked up from the piece of paper, rather shocked and gave it to me. I grabbed it and walked out. Ignoramuses make me sick. I got the unit from a shop in Mnazi Mmoja, distances away.
However, it was a different story when the technician tried the unit on the dish. It malfunctioned. I returned it the next day. Its replacement also turned out to be too small, the technician said. I fired the technician and engaged another one. As it turned out, every part of the system worked well. In fact, I did not need to buy anything new.
However, in furniture shops where I love to window shop such lack of knowledge of the merchandise the business person is selling is unknown. Window shopping is both irresistible and rewards you with fun.
I was passing by one furniture shop – City Furniture – opposite the ‘Sunday News’ office along Samora Avenue in the city when I spotted a writing saying they were on clearing sale.
Since what I have for furniture looks like something from the Stone Age, I walked into City Furniture to look for a possible ‘buy’. An attendant there whose name I latter came to know as Issa Bontus, a man of a light complexion and the build of Zulu warrior, explained to me how a computer table I was interested in worked and differed from any other.
The shop whose façade looked bland had such beautiful pieces of furniture as I had never seen and Issa Bontus had all the necessary information at his finger tips. My curiosity satisfied, I walked away, my heart soothed with the elegance of the furniture, my eyes well pleased with its grandeur.
They did not need to say much to sell anything. “We don’t sell, we help you buy,” a part of their brochure said. Kariakoo ‘electronA satellite dish.Any idea how it works? ic boys’ do the opposite.
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