India - Day 22

There’s so many people here, you can hire as many as you’d like. This means anywhere you go there’s five people to do a single person’s job. This load distribution also creates a laziness in getting anything done efficiently.

I walked in to get my beard shaved. I looked like I had been living out of my suitcase for the last two months. I wanted to look like it had been several suitcases and just one week.

As soon as I walked into the store, they were on high alert. Like I opened the light and cockroaches scurried into action. There were maybe 15 of them. Aside from me, there were no customers. They all started to help. I didn’t know which one to look at. The whole thing was comical.

Someone rushed to the back to get a platter of soda options and presented it to me.

“No thanks,” I said.

He scurried away. Another walked up to me with an iPad for my contact info.

“I don’t have an Indian number,” I said.

She too was thrown into confusion and scurried away. Another offered to hang my coat. The other dozen appeared to make themselves look busy. Someone turned on bad American music.

“What would you like today, sir?”

“Just a beard trim.”

“Would you like anything else? We have manicure, pedicure, face massage, head massage.”

They had as many services as they did laborers. I trusted none of them.