Top Ups

When we hear the word 'Top Up', it gives us a sense of enjoyment in our mind. We feel, we got bit more than we expected.

In current times, we hear the wordTop Up from telecom companies, while recharging. But here, we are talking about different Top Up than that of telecoms. These days we hear lots and lots of incidents on bribe given / taken which is nothing but Top Up of money over and above what is earned by oneself.

The Top Up, which is talked over here is smaller in nature which is commited in day to day activties. These are not the big ones, or else it can be emphasised as "RECHARGES" also  widely known as 'Scams'.

We have heard many stories in our childhood days about king getting pleased by the work done by his disciple and in return he gives something in favor, irrespective of being monetary or non-monetary. The king will sense a feeling of satisfaction of being the king by giving the favor. But the intention of the king in giving an additional favor was different. The favor was not asked by the disciple but given by the king. Hence it cannot be termed as Top Up.

Similar example in the modern age is of the tip given to the waiter working in restaurant. Tip is not asked by the waiter but given by the customer. In this case, customer will sense a satisfaction of being pleased by the service of the waiter. But this analogy has been changed lately, the customer gives tip to the waiter not because he is pleased but to impress others who have joined them for the food. In one of my personal experience, while discussing about the tip to the waiter, one of my friend commented that "In corporate world, generally tip is given @ 5% of the bill value". This comment didn't satisfied by thinking / reasoning. But again, this depends on own's perspective.

In the current world, 'Top Up' can be precisely described as an additional favor asked for getting work completed, even though it is a part of the job. In case of Top Up, giver is more guilty than the taker. It is simply because it is due to the giver, from whom taker gets confidence to ask for additional favor.

Here, I would like to quote an real life experience, which was experienced by one of my friend. My friend's house documents were with government authorties and he had to release those documents by paying stamp duty plus interest on the same for several years. I was helping him to get it done. While looking out for the procedure to release those documents, we came across one of the government person, who told us that he will release the paper if he is being given certain amount of money. The amount he asked for, was half the amount what my friend had to pay. Instead paying him, we understood the whole procedure and went according to the procedure. While understanding the procedure, we learnt that there was a scheme floated by government where interest was waived off. And guess what, according to scheme floated, my friend end up paying only the stamp duty, which was 20% of the initial amount which he was thinking of. However, it took one and half months to get the papers.

The bottom line of the above example is that the government person who asked him half the amount; wanted the Top Up, even though it was within the purview of the job. May be he would have taken the lesser time but "I would strongly suggest, not to go for Top Ups", as one cannot get the benefit, if there is any. But, most importantly, it will help to get rid of the 'Top Up'.

We, as individual, should avoid giving additional favor just to get things done without slogging for it. In the above examples, we were not hurting feelings of anybody but there are several situations, where due to Top Ups, we would hurt somebody else.