Customer Service does not exist. It died when we stopped raising humans to care — when we allowed them to fill a position, clock in right at the start of the hour, clock out not a second past their shift because that’s all they got paid for. Nine to five and not a second more.

Customer Service is a title only. The onus is on the client to come up with as much information as possible and basically hand them more than they need wrap it up in a big red bow and then we are put on hold — where we wait, becuase no one can answer a question right away. Not even a simple one. The customer asks the question, the question is repeated, the customer says yes and then is put on hold to listen to music that is pretty much shared by multiple cooperations.

I am not one to get irrate or swear when I am trying to get service assistance. In fact, I am quite the opposite. Shit happens and it’s no one’s fault most of the time, so I think it is ponly right to politely call, state the problem and work with someone to have the problem solved. However, lately, I find staying calm and polite (yet I somehow do) really tough to do.

I was recently charged twice, six times by a money transfer company. I used the company to send money from Canada to my son who is studying in the US and for the most part it was easy. But one day I received an email asking if I had sent the transfer to my son and I confirmed that I had. And then I received another email the next time I sent him money and so I decided to give the transfer company a call.

Of course I had to find the correct number first and when I finally got a hold of someone, I was told, everything was fine, my son had received the money and I was to ignore the emails that were apparently sent in error. So, whenever I got these emails, I ignored them — that is until I noticed that on six occasions my account was debited twice for every transaction.

I called the company again and I spoke to service rep after service rep and this went on for a month. I called my home bank — a Canadian bank to see if they could perhaps reach out and have the extra debits reversed and they sent the transfer company an email requesting that each of the six transactions be reversed. A week later my bank forwarded me the email they got back from the transfer company that said they only got money once from me and that I should call their customer service and provide proof that I was indeed debited twice (which I had already done) and they would help me.

After a month of acknowledging that they did see that I was debited twice, I was told that I had to “let the issue go” because they can’t find where the money went and as far as they knew they received the money only once for each transaction. And so, after sending them statements from my son’s account to show that he only received money once and sending statements from my account showing duplicate debits that had the company’s name in the description, I called my bank again.

That’s where I learned that my bank’s customer service was no better. I was treated quite nicely in the beginning and was told because I was a prestige client (which I didn’t know I was) I was going to be transferred to another representative. After getting disconnected three times I finally spoke to a rude person who told me that they were about to close and after reviewing the details, there was nothing they could do to help me and I have to just realize that and move on.

WOW!

Insulted the same way by two different companies over the same issue. Isn’t that just the pinnacle of top notch client care.

Having worked in banking for years I know that when money is received and it is not certain where it is to be placed, the client is to be contacted and in the meantime the money goes into a suspense account until further information is received and then the last solution is to return the money to the originating bank.

Unless money is stolen, it doesn’t just disappear especially today where technology makes financial transactions easier than they have ever been.

I was angry and frustrated but I was not about to give up. I was missing over two thousand dollars and I wanted it back.

I knew I was right.

I had the proof.

And, I was frigging done being patient and polite. I had been patient and polite for a month and I got nowhere because one department just wouldn’t talk to another. No one did anything beyond their capabilities to help me.

No one at the transfer company. No one at my bank.

After calling in repeatedly and following up and speaking to different representative after different representative and re-iterating myself and speaking slowly and as simply as possible because I never got a person who was fluent in any of the three languages I speak…I decided I was going to call the Better Business Bureau.

I sent in all the documentation with my complaint and wouldn’t you know in just two business days I saw the refund of each of the duplicate six transactionsdeposited into my account to the total of two thousand plus dollars.

There was no apology from the transfer company but I didn’t care at that point. I was just amazed that in just two days I got my money back because I went to the Better Business Bureau.

Maybe some people give up and go away but I am here to tell you don’t do it. Don’t go away and make it easy for them. If you are right and you hve proof, fight back. Big companies think people will grow weary and drop the issue. But I don’t tire easily. I just get bloody angry and I will keep going until I get the justice I deserve. I wasn’t in the wrong here, they were and they needed to know that I wasn’t letting them get away with keeping my money.

Of course the transfer company and my bank had the audacity to ask me to complete a survey on how my service was and I was honest. I took the time to fill out the surveys and tell them they were a big bag of crap. And of course they could not stop there, they wanted to schedule a phone call to talk about what they could do better and I declined because I had already spent what was already a very trying month, trying to get them to help me only to be told to basically “EFF-OFF”.

But here is what I will do —

I am going to tell everyone I know not to use the transfer company in question even though they have a five-star rating.

I will tell everyone I know about the rudeness I faced at my bank where I have been banking longer than my adult children have been alive and I will urge people working on the front line of service to give a shit about what they do and put themselves in the shoes of the customer. If you work in a predominantly English speaking country and you choose to work in Customer Service, learn to speak and comprehend English. If you are serving a Spanish-speaking or French-speaking community, be able to speak and comprehend Spanish or French or Dutch or German or the language of whomever you are providing service to and lastly… just care for crying out loud. Care about the job you do. Maybe you’ll like it a little more and if not, quit and get another job that you’re more suited to.

Just two days after my situation was resolved, my friend had a discrepancy over a vacation booking where one department kept refunding his internet package charge and another kept telling him he could lose his booking because he hadn’t settled the account on his vacation. It took two weeks before he was able to speak to someome who was able to rectify the situation and secure his booking and provide him with a letter he could show before boarding as a “just in case” he needed to proove that hehad indeed paid his fare in full.

As I write this, my husband is trying to speak to someone at his auto insurance company for the seventh time in two weeks to make arrangements to have his winshield replaced because it has a rock chip on his winshield that has become a huge crack. The poor mand has not been able to get anyone at the insurance company to understand that his policy clearly states that he pays the deductible and the cost of the winshield and labour is covered. He has been on the phone for two hours and forty eight minutes after speaking to six different representatives.

Ah, he has just given me the thumbs up. It sems that he has succeeded in getting a person who understands the problem because they speak and iunderstand English. And no, I am not being biased or racist here. I am simply sayoing that if you are in service providing client care to people who speak English, speak English well. If you are providing client care for people speaking German, speak and understand German.

Yes!

I am happy to report that the agent helping my husband has completely understood that while my husband would pay the total cost upon repair, the insurance company would refund him everything except the five hundred dollar deductible.

The appointment has been made to get the winshield replaced.

The phone call has ended

Two hours and forty minutes later.

Do you agree there is a problem?

Do you agree that something needs to be done?

Meanwhile, since we are clearly on a roll, our new coffee machine (three months old) has stopped working. and my husband has to call their customer service hotline that deals with appliances that are under warranty because their department closes early on Fridays.

I wish him luck, I really do because he needs it as Customer Service is dead.

Just before the pandemic, I was watching a Canadian national news morning show on television and a wonderful story about a group of parents of children with autism who were starting a support group for Black parents. I listened to the interview and being from the Caribbean, and my face lit up when I heard their accents because it felt like home.

I am from the Caribbean.

I have the accent.

I am connected to my culture, and I so miss the tropical sun.

I have an adult autistic son.

I even had a charity in my community that I ran for parents for children with autism to help us get the things our kids need to live their daily lives — things like tablets to help them communicate, weighted blankets and vests etc. I had since passed the charity along to some younger mothers so that I could focus on the difficult task of raising my then teenaged autistic son.

I had something to contribute. I could share my experiences.

This could be a group for me.

When I saw the news story and heard what they wanted to achieve, I understood where they were coming from. Having a cultural connection and having the immigrant experience certainly helps if you are also a parent of a child with special needs.

Having a group that understands you makes it a little easier.

I decided to reach out to them via their Facebook page as they suggested in the news story, excited to be a part of a group again now that my son was older and living independently. I was looking forward to learning new things and listening to their stories and sharing my experience with my son. I had been through a lot with him, and I might have useful ideas for others looking for answers.

Not a fan of Facebook, I put aside my reservations about the platform and logged into my hardly used account and looked them up. I found them easily and I sent them a private message asking for information on how I could be part of the group even though they were stationed in Toronto and was two hours outside of the city.

In about an hour I received a lovely welcome message from the founder and was told that I could come to meetings whenever I happened to be in the city but could certainly connect regularly on Facebook.

I was thrilled. I was going to be part of something that I could be connected to by more than just autism — I would be a part of a distinct group that would understand my cultural idioms — a group where I could be myself and talk about my son’s autism open and honestly without having to be mindful of how much I moved my hands, or the nuances in my tone that were usually mistaken for anger or upset whenever I spoke before Canadians.

Twenty minutes after I was rejoicing about my inclusion in this group, I received another message from another person — another administrator connected to the group who wrote,

“We just were discussing your membership and we wanted to impress upon you that this is a group for Black and Caribbean parents and their children only. Your son has curly hair, but he looks very fair and you look more South Asian than Caribbean. We are not denying that you are from the Caribbean, but we do not see you as Black or Caribbean and we do not feel that your presence in the group will make other members darker than you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps there is another group you can join. Maybe one for South Asian people or maybe start your own.”

I read the message and shared it with my husband, sister and cousins who were irate. Try telling Caribbean people they are not Caribbean when we are quite distinct.

There are all colours and creeds living in the Caribbean and it is a hell of a feeling being told that it does not matter that your autistic son’s hair is curly; it doesn’t matter that you sound the way you do or that you can really offer good ideas to parents of a similar cultural background to you with younger children with autism and really make a difference in their lives — you not dark enough and your eyes are too slanted. We haven’t met you. We don’t know you, but we know WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE.

Well, I just passed on my charity to two other moms, and I did not live in a very ethnically diverse community so that wasn’t an option. I am extremely mixed race. I am not South Asian, and I if I tried to join such a group as the message suggested, I wouldn’t have anything in common with the members.

But okay, Black and Caribbean Autism Parent Group — message received.

I thought about what I should say to this person.

How did I really feel about this?

I wasn’t really angry.

I wasn’t very upset.

Perhaps I was feeling…I don’t know, numb from the shock of the message?

I do know I felt misled and flabbergasted. I was under the impression the group was for Black and Caribbean parents, so I reached out.

I took some time to process what I was going to say and after a couple hours, I sent a message back to the gate keeper that simply said,

“I received your message. Best of luck to you and your members and I wish you much love and success with your unique and beautiful children.”

My cousins told me I should do something loud about it. Call the network that aired the story, they said. Write something in paper. Blast them on social media — but for what? To get back at them? What good would that do? Why should I jeopardize the other families in the group or the progress they were making with their children because they were able to gather.

To those who loved me , it might have looked like it, but I wasn’t walking away with my tail between my legs. I was walking away because a group l that opens it’s doors on national television and says Caribbean and Black people welcome, who then turns around and says something else to Caribbean people wanting to join; telling them that their skin, and their child’s skin aren’t dark enough, is not something I want to be a part of.

Sure, I was taken aback and yeah, perhaps a little angry by the message but I wasn’t devastated.

At the end of the day, the main focus for me was the children with autism and the obstacles that not only the children face, but their families too. There was no need to make a scene.

So, I bowed out gracefully. I’m in my fifties and my explosive days are over. My power lies in what I do and not in how loud I can bellow. Perhaps this is why it has taken this long for me to write about this experience. For me, this rejection sparked self-reflection — it was a time to make decisions about the topic of support groups and if I really needed to be in one.

As the situation occupied my mind that week, I concluded that the group needed to just be branded as a group for Black parents of children with autism. Black parents and Black children from anywhere — Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, South America — Black with an autistic child.

Done.

No blurry lines that inadvertently extend invitations to other people they do not want sitting among them or sharing space with them on Social Media.

I also realized that I was no longer all about autism.

In fact, I always strived not to be even while raising my children. Having a typical child as well, I ran a 50/50 ship where we tried to see things from our autistic son’s perspective as best as we could, and we helped him come into our world and help him cope with all the sights, sounds, and smells that could be so hard for him to endure.

We encouraged him without forcing him, but we always had high expectations of him, because we knew he was in there, he just needed outlets to bring out who he was.

So, we all got to work to make it happen.

At one time there were four jobs between me and my husband just to make sure our kids had what they needed to get out in the community to participate in the things that would enrich their lives and we worked damn hard to pay for all the extra things our autistic son needed to give him an outlet for his voice, his emotions, and his creativity.

I thought about my autistic son the week I received the rejection message and I realized I didn’t need a group.

My son was an adult living on his own with a support staff to keep him on track. He could cook, wash his clothes, and run his day to day life. He graduated high school and decided against taking part in the specialized College Program at the local campus and instead went straight to work in our community. He was involved in two Special Olympics sports that kept his physically training for both the summer and the winter games, which kept him in the Division 1–3 athlete, which meant he was super fast and competitive. My son can read and write and spells impeccably because I’d been teaching him since I got him to look at me when he was three years old — eye contact — a skill that is so difficult for persons with autism to master. If they don’t look, they don’t learn, and I got him to look at me by thinking outside the box.

My son is a singer, a drummer, and an artist. He took up kayaking five years ago because he could, and he loves it. He is trying to improve his social skills by attending co-ed gatherings and dances. He still has his struggles, but he’s doing okay. You can’t really tell he has autism until you’ve spent about half an hour with him.

My son is happy and so is my family.

We’ve gotten through some very tough times that only the four of us know about and perhaps, I don’t want to share our journey with a group. Maybe it’s best if I kept what we did to help him to myself. Or maybe I can share what we did in other ways. I’m not sure.

As I reflected, I asked myself if I really wanted to give other parents advice. No one ever really advised me. I read a lot, researched everything and I made plans on how to teach him everything he knows, and I made plans on how to get him over the hurdles he faced so many times.

Autism isn’t a one size fits all condition. Every child with autism is different and it is up to parents to look at their child and find those outside the box ways to enhance their lives just like my husband and I did.

Who am I to tell parents what they should and shouldn’t try?

I’m nobody. I’m just my son’s mother and I know him. I don’t know their child.

I also realized, I no longer wanted to sit in what was often a dismal atmosphere. Autism is hard and I guess, the more I thought about being in a group, the more I realized that maybe hearing other people’s difficulties would drag me back to a time I’d rather not think about.

We have moved on from those days as a family. When we reflect on the darker things it’s momentary and often followed up by memories of the more pleasant side of having our special son in our lives. We are truly blessed that he is part of our family.

Being rejected by this group too, was a blessing because encouraged me to take on two very challenging yet rewarding projects in my middle age that I’d put aside for quite some time because I was busy raising my children. With them grown and gone, I suddenly have so much time back to spend doing new things. I speak three languages now and I am busy with my new projects. I don’t need to be in autism central anymore…. not that I ever really was. I think it’s because I saw the difficult times with my son as mere obstacles to what is a beautiful life.

My son has a beautiful life.

He does more in a day than most typically developed people do and he has great purpose and a lot of pride in himself.

I am done.

My boys are independent, kind, generous, respectful, and responsible adults.

We have a beautiful relationship.

They are in a good place, and I have to focus on me now. And I have to focus on the years my husband and I have left together. Our time is important and very valuable to us, and we have to spend it well.

I know who I am, and I know where I’m from and I know how well my son has done under my care, guidance and love.

The rejection of this group based on my an my son’s appearance was good for me. I realized I never needed a group and I certainly don’t need one now to know that the sun does come up after some of the darkest days of living with autism. So, I guess, the rejection was actually a favour — one which I am grateful for because I am in this new phase of my life where I do what I want to do and not what I have to do. I walk in the light everyday because I belong there, and I truly hope the parents in that group will find themselves walking in the light as well.

Since Queen Elizabeth II passed away last week, I find myself taking in some of the ceremony that goes along with the death of a British Monarch. I am not a Royal connoisseur, and do not know all there is to know about the late Queen, but being Trinidadian-Canadian, I am very used to Commonwealth life and I have always admired the demeanor of Queen Elizabeth II, a woman bound to a highly scrutinized public life.

I have been watching the news, taking in the various stages of celebrating the life of a monarch and as I observe British people of all generations, pay their respects to their beloved late Queen and her family, I cannot help but wonder what this monumental appointment of Queen must have been like for this remarkable woman. One can only imagine how she must have felt when she had to compartmentalize her grief for her late father and bravely step into the role of Monarch. The abdication of her uncle King Edward VIII, followed by the death of her father King George VI, catapulted the then Princess from being third in line, to first in line, to assuming the throne at just 26 years of age — a responsibility placed upon her that she accepted and carried out for 70 years with grace, poise and quiet confidence. What were you doing at 26?

Queen Elizabeth II assumed the Crown when the world was predominantly a man’s world. She grew up in an era when princesses did not have a formal education but was tutored at home, perhaps differently from how a prince at that time would have been educated. Upon assuming the Throne at 26, she knew the only way to survive being thrown into the deep waters of the spotlight was to swim. And swim she did, doing whatever had to be done, learning whatever had to be learned to be effective as a Monarch.

The word queen has many meanings to different people in today’s society but the common idea behind the word is confidently owning and showing who you are. At various stages of my life, I have had to step up and own the woman I needed to be and now in my fifties, I’ve realized that I have collected all the women I have been and combined them to establish the woman I am. Little did I know, I have been subliminally influenced by great women over time and the Queen was one of those women. She represents not just what humans, especially women, have had to adapt to and endure in order to carry out ones duties. Sure, she was a woman of privilege, but like so many of us, she juggled being a wife, mother and worker, quite seamlessly under all kinds of pressure that the rest of the world never got to witness. The Queen possessed the ability to cope, which is rather difficult for many people living in our world today. The crosses she has had to bear publicly, may seem to many to be problems of privilege, but they were her crosses to bear forged out of pain, tragedy and occasionally scandal. But bear them she did, with dignity and grace.

As I continue to have the privilege of good health, I find myself deciding how to live the rest of my life while bearing the crosses of my comparatively ordinary life, with dignity and grace. To me, this involves a willingness to forgo the hyper-zealousness of my activist teens, the overbearing ambition of my twenties and the strive for excellence in my thirties during a time of overwhelm. Now I am laying the bricks of knowledge and experience I have gained over the years on a foundation created by the epiphanies of my forties and the stillness I have acquired in my fifties.

While I have not been as polished as Her Late Majesty, I believe I have done my duty as a daughter, sister, spouse and parent, friend and citizen progressively more gracefully and more dignified throughout the years. The late Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II might have not meant to some what she meant to the British people, but she did have an impact on our lives, especially the lives of women. She certainly had an impact on mine long before I realized she had. She played her part in inspiring women worldwide by the way she chose to navigate her way through a seventy-year reign as Sovereign of Britain and as a global monarch. She showed us all that power and strength need not be loud, disruptive, forceful or boisterous but disciplined, kind, dignified and therefore, stronger.

I’ve allowed myself to feel grief and pain about what happened to my son without springing back up for about 3 weeks. It has been difficult to let myself do but I believe it’s been the best thing for me. I’m still battered and I still think about the thing that causes me pain but I suppose you could say, I’m absorbing it, processing it and dare I say, I’m healing. I am rising up one millimeter at a time.

Over the three weeks, I’ve distracted myself with work in the city and I’ve given my husband a hand with building a back deck when he needed one. I still thought about my problem, but not as consistently as I had in previous weeks and I had moments when I was only focused on the tasks at hand. Meanwhile, my son who was the physically afflicted party continued to move on in a positive way. I haven’t seen my son much since his surgery but he looks good and seems happy and that encourages me to feel the same.

I’m still not where I’d like to be but I suppose I am where I need to be, inching my way towards full acceptance and a sense of peace. I’m trying new things, busying myself at work and looking forward to good things to come.

Every Winter Olympic Games there is scandal in figure skating and it usually involves Russians and doping or bribing and cheating. The country’s name and flag have been banned from the Olympics since 2018 as a punishment from the World Anti-Doping Agency. It was a group of athletes from Russia, not involved in the doping scheme who appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to be allowed to compete as neutral competitors. Competing as the Olympic Athletes from Russia they have adopted the acromym ROC — Russian Olympic Committee when competing. But somehow, Russia fails to understand what being penalized truly means. They continue to sabotage their athletes but doping them without them even knowing it and the younger and more naive the athlete, the easier it is for them to be duped.

It is hardly likely 15 year old skating phenom, Kamila Valieva chose to consume a banned substance used for angina patients. The drug in question, Trimetazidine, can potentially help athletes perform at a higher heart rate for a longer period of time. This means on Olympic sized hockey arena ice, which is bigger than NHL ice, a trick laden routine can sap your energy. But if your heart rate is up and you can still keep going without feeling tired, well, you just might win an Olympic medal, preferably a gold.

But results and information about cheating always has a way of leaking out during the most important competition for an athlete. As it stands, the figure skating world has a catty, diva-ish aura and a shady side when it comes to judges and scoring. You could be perfect in every way and come 4th while a favourite athlete from a certain country could fall on their ass multiple times and win gold. Skating tetters between the world of performance art and sport. In my opinion, it is closer to ballet than it is to sport with the music, the costumes and the makeup. Of course, like ballet and gymnastics (another question mark in the Olympics with it’s own share of abuse and judging scandals), figure skating requires a great deal of strength and athleticism. What is disgustingly and unfair is that this so-called sport requires the dedication, determination and sacrifice of any other sport but it seems to be the one in which adults are able to abuse and manipulate young athletes, especially young girls.

The story of Kamila Valieva is a tragedy. Four years ago she was an 11-year old girl who loved to skate and was damn good at it. Now she is a broken 15-year old who was embarassed and confused and splashed across the media and the internet for something that was done to her, most likely without her understanding or knowing that she was being doped. The Olympics are an athlete’s dream and Kamila’s own country truned her dream into a nightmare. Still, they young skater, went onto the ice and performed her two routines as best as she could given the pressure, scrutiny she was under and the comments she might have heard from other athletes and coaches. She fell numerous times but she tried her best. She even told the lie they told her to tell whe she said she most likely sipped water that belonged to her grandfather who uffers from heart disease. Yeah, that’s right, that’s how she got an angina medication in her system along with some other stuff too… Drugs incidentally, that have been previously found in bobsledders and cross country skiers that caused the ban placed on Russia from the games.

The cover was blown when the silver medal Russian skater, Alexandra Trusova, who was supposed to be part of a teenage Russian podium sweep, broke down and angrily expressed her hatred of the sport, and her hatred of her coach whom she told off just before the medal ceremony.

“You know everything that was going on!” she shouted at her in Russian. “I did four quads and I came second. Everybody has a gold medal except me. I am never going on the ice again. I hate it! I hate this sport!”

Since Valieva bombed her routine and didn’t make it onto the podium, the winners were able to have their medal ceremony, which is everything to an athlete at the Olympic Games. Two of Russia’s teens placed first and second and Japan took the bronze. I will not be surprised if we see Valieva skate again but I would completely understand if she didn’t. We know silver medalist Alexandra Trusova isn’t interested in representing her country again. Perhaps Russia should just be banned from the Olympics once and for all. Perhaps, figure skating should not be a sport but a performance fans and spectators pay to attend like a play, ballet or symphony. It is no good at being a sport because it is laden with scandal and cheating and for what? Ruining the greatest feeling an athlete can have after devoting their life to their passion and representing their country with pride. I don’t think representing ROC is easy. I don’t think it is worth the pain or the shame this young is feeling and will feel for years to come. Maybe figure skating could be a part of the opening and closing ceremonies of the games. Maybe it would be more successful and gentler on skaters if it becomes a stand alone art form. I will gladly pay admission to a figure skating show but I cannot bring myself to watch it as sport when all I see every four years is some little girl or boy of the moment sitting between adult coaches clutching a stuffed animal and weeping over missed jumps and tricks and low scores, due to the pressure of a scandal. Perhaps the only way to fix the problem with competitive figure skating is to get rid of competitive figure skating.