We too nice not to be nice, my arse.

When did Trinis become so damned obnoxious? One of my supervisors said we were always so but I seem to remember a time when I could expect a salutation to be reciprocated instead of the blank, bovine stares I now receive.

Someone recently told me that with our booming economy, Trinis have become more sophisticated because of the opportunity to travel and thus we have become more demanding. That’s all well and good, but why did we lose our sense of politesse? Why is it that more and more I’m coming into contact with people the majority of whom think that they are entitled to better treatment because of who they are or the thicknesses of their financial portfolios, and act as such?

Customer Service is the new buzz phrase for our business community and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon with various horror stories of the horrendous “customer service” meted out by whoever at whatever establishment they had the unfortunate experience of patronizing. Now I can sympathise since I also have had quite a few less than stellar episodes involving the local service industry, but I will say that customers and management should shoulder some responsibility for the sad state of affairs. Innumerable times have I seen employees put up with disrespectful, offensive, insufferable patrons without going berserk. And their children – their goddam, spoilt, unruly children. Last Christmas I ended up in a toy store looking for something with which I could bestow upon the former larger half’s nephews and thus ingratiate myself into the good graces of their grandmother. A rug rat leading his mother entered the store. Replying to the clerk’s offer of assistance with a condescending “No dear, he knows what he wants”, mama proceeds to look on lovingly while her grubby-handed fuck-trophy played Hurricane Gustav with shelf after shelf of stuffed animals, puzzles and action figures. Upon locating his item of choice, junior skipped happily to the cashier with mom in tow who breezily told the shell-shocked clerk “Take care of that won’t you dear?”, waving her manicured hand in the general direction of ground zero. Minimum wage ain’t worth that shit.

And that’s another thing. Remember when a former Minister of Finance declared that he couldn’t live on $2000.00 a week? And remember when all dem business people and dem Chamber of Commerce and Industry persons get dam vex cause de govament raise minimum wage from $7.00 to $10.00 a hour? The argument was that if the basic rate of pay was increased, as a sort of ripple effect, everything else (food, transportation etc.) would follow suit; as if prices weren’t already rising even without the help of increased salaries. Realistically speaking though, how do they expect minimum wage workers to survive on a paltry $7.00 per hour? How in good conscience can expect people to buy food, pay rent and provide for children with the minimum wage? I once knew a girl who worked in a clothing store where her weekly salary was less than the cost of a pair of jeans sold at the same store. That’s tough.

I think the problem is that too many Trinidadians equate good customer service with ass-kissing. They don’t feel fulfilled unless they get a virtual colonic irrigation courtesy the hapless employee who has to deal with them: “Can you believe that bank teller had the nerve to ask for my ID?! Everyone knows who I am! Well of course you know I let the manager know about it and that kind of thing isn’t going to happen again.” How more unfuckingreasonable can a person be? Believe me shit like this happens all the time here, it's just not publicised.

I work in a customer service environment. At every meeting we minions are constantly reminded that the customers pay our salaries and therefore it is in our best interest to provide the best customer service. We are also reminded that surveys show we have the #1 rating for service in our field, so to keep our salaries we must ‘wow’ the customers by offering the best goshdarn service EVAH! That’s great. In response, we suggested to management that they find a way to educate the bloody customers on the attitudes and behaviours with which they should visit the company to do business. Head office sent us a DVD on how to deal with difficult people in the workplace.

Recently the local media has been running advertisements from the Ministry of Tourism, presumably with the intent of increasing the ‘niceness’ of us Trinis. If memory serves me correctly, one of the ads is seemingly a 30 second crash course on simple etiquette: “Good morning!” “Thank you!” “Have a nice day!” Ummm…shouldn’t we have already learned manners from our parents and the elementary school system? And isn’t it embarrassing that a government has to spend money to teach its population basic manners? Even so, the ads are geared towards us being nice to tourists. So it’s ok to be hognoxious bitches to each other, once we smile and bob our heads and tip our hats to the tourists. Well put me out in the plantation and whip me silly ’cause those ads will change nothing.

Until we, as a people make a conscious effort to return to our (now defunct) value system where we did not measure each other by the size of our bank accounts but by the worth of our actions and our principles, then excellent customer service will be like Vision 2020 – nought but a pipe dream.