THE EDITOR: When will our citizens be treated like human beings by public servants? Everywhere we turn we see poor customer service, but nowhere more so than in the public service. It is time that public servants realise that their job is to serve the people and not frustrate them. It is to provide a level of service that would exceed the expectations of the public.

My recent experiences with various arms of the public service have forced me to put pen to paper. It is high time that the managers actually manage or go and plant peas in their gardens.

I visited the Licensing Office at Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, to conduct a vehicle transfer. Both the vendor and purchaser arrived just before 1 pm and were ninth in position. The wait was 90 minutes.

I drove up to the inspection shed as instructed. The vehicle chassis number was verified and the documents taken and viewed by the clerk on the outside. We were told to go inside to see another clerk.

The documents were again inspected. The purchaser's driver's permit had the married hyphenated name and the identification card had only the maiden name. We were advised that they must match exactly. We then produced a foreign driver’s licence that matched.

It seems that the public servant is there not to serve you, not to be helpful, but to waste your time. The clerk advised that you cannot use two driver's licences. The purchaser did not have her physical passport but had a photograph on her phone. The clerk again said that only an original was acceptable.

At that point, after frustration had set in and it was getting close to 3 pm, I just had to ask, "Can the purchaser just come in the morning and bring the passport to conclude the transaction?"

The clerk responded that we would have to repeat the process of joining the vehicle line the next morning. It was only when the purchaser protested loudly did the clerk say the purchaser alone could return the following morning to complete the transaction. That took another two hours.

I feel certain that the staff at Licensing must obtain a degree in obstruction before they can get a job there.

Bad customer service is when a customer feels their expectations are not met. This happens everywhere in TT. We see it at food establishments, we see it in the TTPS, at insurance companies, at supermarkets and restaurants, but we see it especially in the public service. The workers there believe they are doing customers a favour as they deal with long wait times, an automated system that makes it hard to reach a real human being to explain your problem, and having to repeat information multiple times.

Poor customer service examples are: lack of understanding your problem; rude customer service; difficult to reach a person; keeping the customer waiting; poorly trained person with attitude; lack of willingness to resolve an issue; lack of human understanding or contact.

Who remembers the insensitive response to the victim of a house break-in by a woman police constable (WPC) attached to the St Joseph Police Station i