Demeaning experience at UG loan agency

Dear Editor,

It was my misfortune to have visited the Ministry of Finance’s Student Loan Agency on the Turkeyen Campus of the University of Guyana October 19, 2016. Though I work at the Turkeyen Campus, I had not visited this facility in nearly ten years. On this occasion, I was accompanying someone to check the details of his case because what was related to me suggested that the student had misunderstood what was said to him.

To my discredit, I had forgotten about the opening hours of the Agency and arrived between 11:30 and 11:45 to a locked door. Another person arrived approximately twenty paces ahead of me to the same situation but as he turned and began walking away, the door was opened and this renewed my conviction that I was on time. I was wrong. This realization struck me only because the door remained closed.

A careful look around revealed no information about the opening hours. However, customers were still inside the building and as I stood deflated, a young man arrived and he also could not find the opening hours.

From where we were standing, we then noticed some people using a door at another side of the building. The young man responded quickly and I waited to know his fate. He entered and walked up to the waiting area uneventfully. I followed but stopped at the threshold when I noticed a sign on the door indicating that it was an entrance for staff.

The young man ahead of me was apparently eventually turned away because he returned outside. Nevertheless, I had to know the opening hours. I could see no employees due to the layout, so I raised my voice to ask about the opening hours and to indicate that there was no sign outside to communicate this to visitors. About ten vacant seconds elapsed before a young woman walked briskly and purposefully to the entrance and began to close the door without a word in answer to my question. Yes Editor, I was still standing at the threshold.

Having instantaneously realized what was happening, I held my ground which stopped her since the door was destined for my face. I repeated my inquiry about the opening hours of the Agency with voice still raised perhaps in response to the aggression. To this she responded simply “one-thirty” and in the same breath continued “please excuse yourself so that I can close the door”. The situation had suddenly become even more demeaning.

But, what happened next was appalling on a new level. For my own sanity, I have to believe that in her eagerness to close the door and be rid of me, the woman was attempting to reach for the grill that was behind me as it opens outwards whereas the door opens inwards. My reflexes were unsure, because I caught myself rotating my shoulder to avoid contact. She stopped. Then she said something to the effect that this is a staff entrance and added “please excuse yourself so that I can close the door”. I responded to indicate that I can see that and that’s why I am still standing outside.

She was visibly agitated and as far as I could tell regarded me as nothing but a nuisance or some pestilence, the cure for which was simply closing the door. Her answer – “one-thirty” – suggested that she did not hear my question which was about the opening hours and not about when the office will be opened again later in the day. I said this much and she retorted that I was the one who was not listening. My response to this was to say that “you are providing a service, there is no sign outside so I am asking, you cannot treat people like this”.

This was an allusion to the way she was treating me and it elicited rolling eyes, loud sighs and the frustrated words “oh lord”, confirming that I was a nuisance. I stood my ground as anyone would if abased like this.

In the meantime a young woman arrived behind me and indicated that she works at Georgetown Hospital and that she could not leave work at another time to visit the Loan Agency. There was no response. This young woman waited about half a minute while the stand-off continued with my repeating that “you are providing a service, you cannot treat people like this”. She then walked past us in the doorway and to the counter without being sent back.

Editor, I had no case for being allowed in if the Agency was closed. The point of my inquiry was to establish that it was disrespectful to have people arrive to a closed door, with no one there to indicate that it was past opening time and no sign to establish this fact. Although I wanted to get my business done, I did not ask to be allowed in as a matter of respecting the right of the employees to their lunch break. Yet, someone was allowed to walk past me through the “staff entrance” even while there was a stand-off about using the said entrance.

I even refrained from using this as leverage to demanded entry. But the woman from Georgetown Hospital and all of us should understand what happened right at that point.

The woman who came to close the door left frustrated either because I just stood there repeating my refrain or perhaps because she felt that she lost whatever moral ground she had. Another person came a few seconds later, presumably a superior, to do the same thing. However, she stopped when she heard what I was saying. She indicated what the opening hours were and explained that there was no sign because they sometimes “flex”. I wanted no special treatment so I didn’t ask, but I was dissatisfied given all that transpired.

I left the facility, wondering about what people must go through as they attempt to access a loan from the Ministry of Finance to educate themselves. This was in fact the primary reason I was visiting the Agency and I may have gotten the answer. I infer from this experience that people who visit the Loan Agency sometimes leave without some measure of dignity. There is no lower limit on service quality at this facility and firing someone would not address this failing for as I recall, no other employee objected. No other employee attempted to apologise. Indeed, I had no right to be at the staff entrance, but I had a right to be treated as a human being. I will return; during opening hours.

Yours faithfully,

Troy Thomas, PhD