Not a happy Ritual

Okay folks, so it's one of my biggest sources of frustration living in Trinidad: poor or non-existent customer service. I don't really suffer with road rage, but boy does an arrogant waitress drive me crazy! (I can even visualise my hand zinging towards the head of whomever has wronged me and slapping them on the forehead with a loud pax!) Or a server who will look you straight in the eye and tell you that full cream milk is cream, and then point the word 'cream' out to you on the label. (I kid you not - buy a bananaberry frost from that concession stand in the Movietowne food hall and although the sign clearly says bananas, strawberries and CREAM, what you'll get is bananas, strawberries and milk, and a really bad attitude when you ask, once you've watched the drink being prepared, "Where's the cream?"

To me, the worst example of shite customer service - I mean the kind that can have me seething with rage or reduced to tears (depending on my mood prior to entering the establishment) is the coffee chain Rituals. Here's the thing - I love a lil' cappucino or cafe latte and those fried apple fritter things. So there are times when I'll got to a Rituals once a day - especially if I've run out of my house in the morning sans coffee. I reckon I've been to maybe five or six different outlets of Rituals, and although the coffee is okay, the experience of being served there can ruin even the freshest apple fritter. I don't know - at times I try to be patient and find excuses for the junk and often belligerent service I get: these people just don't receive enough training; poor management; crappy salaries. But then I think this is just complete crap that there are no excuses for... because it's always the same, no matter what outlet of Rituals I go into. Perhaps the bosses and them just don't care to ensure their customers have a pleasurable experience.

Suggestion: train the staff to understand that their job is to SERVE customers, not steups at customers, ignore customers, roll their eyes when customers order, stroll to the coffee machine, stroll back to the customer, quarrel with other staffers when there are customers around, talk on their cellphones while customers are waiting to order, respond to customers with their backs turned. I mean!! Make it a happy Ritual nuh!

Oh - and on another note: why can't they serve some local coffee in Rituals? In Jamaica it's a source of pride (and too a higher price) that they can say at coffee shops, "Blue Mountain Coffee". I'd like to be able to buy some local coffee at Rituals. And some regular cakes that are made in Trinidad: sponge cake, for example, would be lovely. Really good coconut drops - hey, why not? A little rum cake. It doesn't ALL have to be foreign, does it?