Diss-service TT style

“I had my car painted when I went on vacation.” Must I really justify balancing my tyres? No one seems disgusted to serve you in any of the places I visited while on vacation.

Good service prevailed and everyone employees and customers seemed happier for it.

There’s nothing like the feeling you get from observing people who take pride in their jobs and go out of their way to make customers happy.

One morning I walked into a Nashville bank to buy a roll of quarters for the Xerox machine in the library and the bank teller called out, “Hey, pretty lady in pink!” I turned around. No one was in the bank but me, and I was wearing a pink t shirt.

That small gesture made me feel like the queen of Nashville that day.

On my first day back in Trinidad, I faced one rude encounter after the other. At one business place a woman shot me a disgusting look and turned up her nose like she was in a sewer after I asked, “Do you take TTARP cards?” “Huh?” she scowled.

“TTARP.” “Tap?” she barked over and over again. Disheartened and not in the mood to argue, I merely absorbed her rudeness.

By the time I got home though, I was fuming. I called the businessplace and made it clear I wouldn’t be shopping in that store again. It disgusts me to pay high prices for merchandise plus VAT and feel abused in the process.

How can people be so hateful, so angry, so uncaring and so uncreative in their jobs? I just don’t understand the negativity.

It takes the smallest gestures to make someone happy, and those memories of good service are lasting ones. I will never forget my experiences in a Nashville hotel dining room.

I felt so cold I wore a wrap and ordered a cup of tea. After that night, whichever waiter saw me first, brought a cup of tea without me ever asking. To me, that pot of tea felt like a pot of gold.

When I walked out the door of my hotel in the morning, the employee manning the front desk often called out to me.

“Oh, you look like you’re walking to the library, Ms Jacob.” People noticed; people cared and those small gestures, studies show, make people feel better about their jobs. Here, people are contented to feel miserable and angry with their jobs. Every day, I seek out stories about acts of kindness to make me feel better about what I must put up with here.

Recently, I came across a story about a McDonald’s employee in Chicago who took the time to listen to an old, man in a wheelchair who mumbled, “Help me please.” The man wanted help cutting his food.

Kenny the McDonald’s employee shut down his cash register, washed his hands, put on gloves and cut the old man’s food. I’m sure Kenny went home feeling a sense of accomplishment that day and Kenny made that old man’s day. Why can’t people here understand the importance of good service?