El cliente tiene siempre la razón

El cliente tiene siempre la razón is Satyasundar Bose’s blunt rule for dealing with guests: the customer is always right, and any error is the employee’s responsibility. In the narrator’s encounter with Dr. Sutherland, the maxim becomes more than a workplace formula; it exposes how vulnerable a newly employed worker can be when a guest’s displeasure threatens his livelihood.

The Rule and Its Burden

Satyasundar Bose regularly reminded the narrator that responsibility for a guest’s dissatisfaction would fall on the staff, not the customer. The rule offers no corresponding assurance that the employee will be heard or protected. Its second half makes the imbalance explicit: even if a mistake has occurred, the employee is expected to accept the blame. The maxim thus functions both as practical instruction and as a measure of the narrator’s limited power within the hotel’s hierarchy.

The Encounter with Dr. Sutherland

After Dr. Sutherland brusquely told the narrator to leave him alone, the narrator felt tears rising. He feared that the doctor’s whims could cost him the job he had worked so hard to obtain, and imagined that a complaint to the manager or a letter of protest would end his employment. Remembering Satyasundar Bose’s rule, he had neither the composure nor the confidence to object.

The narrator and Dr. Sutherland rode back in silence. The narrator left the taxi without waiting for thanks and returned to Satyasundar Bose at the counter. Dr. Sutherland departed for London early the next morning; the narrator did not see him before he left and never saw him again. The maxim’s force lies in this contrast: the guest could leave, while the employee remained with the fear and consequences of the encounter.