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As it is with me, I travel a great deal and was on one of those trips last week from Abuja to Lagos. My preferred flight is usually the first one. This is because my family does not own an airline and more often than not, the delays on our domestic routes can be insane. Routine checks done, I was at that point where they check your boarding pass and bus you to the aircraft. There was a final security check with that long intrusive instrument that looks like a bat. I noticed that the queue was gender neutral and the checker was a man. I generally hate anything invasive or intrusive and was neither about to be frisked by a man nor bat checked by him.
I watched as three young ladies allowed him bat check them. They seemed helpless. When it got to my turn, I asked him where the women were. It was not the fact that I chose not to be checked by a man that intrigued the congregation of fellow travellers. It was the reply of the scallywag trusted with our collective security.
“If you do not want me to check you,” he said, “you can step aside”. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard. Please people, should such a person be speaking to customers? Since he is so self-entitled, why could he not just opt to be MD of the airline? I was gobsmacked. It was 6am in the morning and we were off to board a flight. Whoever gave this guy a job did not checked his foul manners.
Everyone agreed with me that a security woman be produced including the said ladies ahead of me. But they had not said a word when the character was giddily checking them. Those of us with voices should help young people amplify theirs in a decent, non-confrontational, non-threatening manner. They were all smiles to see someone stand up for them and they learnt.
In the end, a woman checked me. And I got Mr round head to apologise because he has no one’s permission to speak to a customer like that. He dropped a cold sorry which did neither him nor me any good.
When a big beverage company, the biggest in the world invests in a two-week customer service training for whoever joins their company, they know what they are doing. Go ahead and hire your brother, cousin’s sister, girlfriend’s etcetera but ensure as an organisation that your customer service is great. From the security man to the CEO. The customer is King. We pay many charges at the airport which contributes to the nation’s economy. No airport staff should ever be rude.
Just when I thought I had had enough from last week’s incidence then I run into a traffic officer who chose to pick on me. Driving oneself can be frustrating on our roads especially because of mad driving, bad driving, motorcycles, tricycles and people who believe that pedestrians should practice “Harakiri” when a car is coming because as we have now discovered through native intelligence, cars no longer kill Nigerians, so they are now free to wander before an oncoming car with much confidence. Anyways, driving for me except at weekends is stressful and annoying because generally we have no road manners.
So, I am in traffic and I am suddenly jumped by two traffic officers from one of our agencies. They made a sign that I should open my door so one of them can join me. They had no name tags on them. With recent cases of kidnappings, I was weary of letting a stranger in my car so I brought my glass down. And tried to reason with them.
The most senior of the two told me he had caught me using my phone and therefore I was guilty. I explained that it was on speaker and advised that we go across the road for this conversation so we do not block other traffic users. He then proceeded to tell me how he could deflate my tyre and have his patrol car chase me if I chose to run away. It was an unbelievable language from – I presume – a trained officer. I told him I would park ahead but I took exception to being treated like an armed robber.
He was incensed and repeatedly told me after I parked that I am a woman and he was unhappy with the way I had addressed him. I reminded him that I am a citizen and gender was irrelevant to the issue at hand and that I had deferred to their authority. When I became exasperated, I urged him to take me wherever we needed to go as I had a patient in hospital and the Doctors required my urgent attention. That also offended him and he took my papers and sat in his patrol car urging me to do whatever I liked. In fact, he was angrier now and ordered the other guy to join me in my car.
To cut a long story short, our men on our roads ought to have some discretion, decent language is important and this gun totting, aggressive behaviour towards traffic users is not the right way to treat citizens. I would expect that there would be levels of customer service and a taxi driver permanently evading the law would be treated differently from a simple citizen driving on our roads.
At some point I tried to introduce myself to let him understand that I was not a tout. He was even angrier. He made all kinds of allusions including “I saw you, are you going to deny?” I had already explained that I had an emergency but the phone was on speaker. He swore by his faith, made all kinds of comments and was proud of himself when he finally let me go. By this time the Doctors had called me five times. This did not matter to him. I am a public figure so I try to live by rules and regulations wherever I go. But this fellow had plans to drive me over board.
Where was his name tag? Why was he not wearing one? He wanted me to stop in the middle of traffic, did that make sense? He was offended that as a woman, I ought not to have a reply when he was talking to me. Perhaps, I should have said Yes sir and all would have been done. All I am asking is decency, decorum and language. The British police arrests you and addresses you as “Sir/Madam” while handcuffing you. Lessons? All these persons who interface with the public should receive customer service training. We will all be better for it.
EUGENIA ABU
