I've taken up a new habit: ranting about nation-building in service places and government offices. It doesn't feel as cathartic as cussing. But post-Dana Seetahal's assassination, it's a sign I still have hope.For such a prosperous economy, it's amazing how deeply underdeveloped we are when it comes to how we do business and how our institutions function. In a World Economic Forum report on tourism, we ranked sixth-to-last of 140 economies for "degree of customer orientation."
Some of this is about weak systems that haven't grown to manage modernity. Sometimes people hold fast to ineffective, bureaucratic, colonial routines for doing things because it gives them importance or control; they also guarantee full employment and sloth because one task involves seven people.
But most of it is simply attitude. We're simply not invested in making things work for others, or in anything larger than ourselves or our own. We don't care about finding solutions. When you find someone who does, like a certain Ms Merritt at bmobile in West Mall, it's rare. We accept frustration, inefficiency and indignity as the way things are, and once we escape the worst of these, we good.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members