I talked to a techie from my computer's manufacturer today, presumably from a call ctr in India....

.... A really cordial and helpful guy, but a little hard to understand because of his thick accent. But I was very patient, we worked through it and solved my computer question perfectly. After the call ended, he says to me, "Thank You. You're the only person that's been nice to me this week." ....
So I asked him, "Why, what happened to you this week?".....
He paused, reluctant to answer, then told me the things people said to him: "Put an American on the phone, I can't understand what the hell you're saying"; "You (bleep) Indians are stealing all of our jobs"; "I hate talking to foreigners"; and that several people mocked him in a fake Indian accent. ......
THAT really bummed me out. Workers in India are not "stealing our jobs" - they're trying to do the best they can for their families. These slave-wage corporations have stolen the jobs, screwing people in this country and exploiting them elsewhere. But yet these good Americans turned all their rage on Indians making a fourth of what they would have for the same jobs.
Turn the hate and rage where it really belongs - on these multinationals and the politicians who enable them.
:mad:

...it's not their doing.

The unthinking blame the scabs, not the corporation who's locked the gates, to put it in union terms.

As long as the sheeple are made at the Indians, or whoever, the companies get off the hook. Many don't know that there were tax savings as well to go global.

-Hoot

to pull jobs away from 'hardworking Americans.' Didn't Bush I and Bill Clinton expedite corporate greed?

The late Georgi Papashvily, who immigrated to the US after WW1, was brought into a steel plant as a scab. When he discovered that he'd been hired as a scab, he wrote an apology in several languages, stuck them in his hatband, and walked out the gate (where he was knocked unconscious and almost killed before his apology could be translated). When he recovered, he joined the picket line.

He knew what solidarity is all about. Which is more than some people here know, it seems.

People here want to think there is one but that's deluded thinking.

Are you saying that the people being offered these jobs should refuse them?

If someone is being offered something they are not going to just give it up because it is hurting a nameless faceless person from a country with much better living standards.

And that's why people who take jobs that require an English language capability they don't really have, or technical skills they don't really have, or something else they don't have shouldn't expect solidarity when the job they have means someone in the US, who *does* have the language and the tech or other skill, is out of work or packing groceries for minimum wage.

You won't find jobs being exported from other countries. They have more socially-oriented thinking. Their politicians know that they'd get canned and maybe even strung up to a lamppost if they allowed jobs to be exported or competition imported when people are out of work.

They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.

- From "Blue Collar" 1978

with HP tech support a few years back. Yes, she was Indian, and yes, she was kind of hard to understand, but I'd just purchased an HP computer that simply was not working properly. The techie did all she could to help me, but it wasn't successful. I'd had the computer for four days, four days of frustration.

Finally, she told me I could take the computer back to CompUSA, where I'd purchased it, and I'd get partial credit for it.

Partial credit, I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

Well, she said, you could exchange it for a replacement.

No, thank you, I said, but I don't really want another HP product.

She said that was all she could do.

I said, Well, if that's it, I guess that's it. What do I have to do to get the partial credit? (Because I was NOT about to get another HP POS.)

She asked me to hold on for a minute.

I did.

She came back a few minutes later, and told me I could return the computer for a full refund.

What? How is this ....... ? What changed? I asked, happy but confused.

You were so nice to me, she said, I went to my supervisor and told her you were not getting a fair deal. So she authorized a full refund.

HP lost me as a customer forever, but that sweet young woman won my heart that day.

It use to be that every customer was treated good. Now it's a discretionary decision? And you don't think there's something off with that?

That wasn't the point of my post.

It takes two to make the dynamic work, and if I'd behaved badly, I don't think anyone should have had to put up with me. Our culture has gotten so coarse, so vulgar, so ill-mannered, that exchanges that once would have been considered routine are now the exception, and that, as I'm sure you'll agree, is tragic.

You really were given a raw deal and after they convinced you that you had no other choice, they threw you a bone. I'm glad you feel good about this because you feel you connected with another person, but I probably would have gotten the same results if I had asked for a manager.

You're still missing the point. No one threw me a bone, and your assumption is faulty. I didn't know their return policy; if I had known it, I'd never have purchased an HP product in the first place.

I bought it, and, in doing so, I voluntarily agreed to play by their rules.

And, therein lies the matter of civility. I never felt "connected," as you put it, with the young woman who caught my call. Rather, I acted like a mature adult and abided by the rules. It was all up to me.

She's used to people "asking for the manager," and other kinds of "I know better than you" behavior, and that's why she went out of her way to make sure I was taken care of. In this world, as I've learned after almost forty years as an attorney, you get far more satisfaction by behaving well than you do by copping an attitude.

I do hope you can see the difference and begin to understand my original post. I wish you luck.

On this very newsgroup, a DUer who was Indian and moving to Florida shared his opinion that basically trashed hispanics as if we were all uneducated and unworthy of the jobs here. Suggesting, of course, that Indians could do it better. And another DUer agreed with him.

So, I am tenuous, at best, to jump to a warm and fuzzy conclusion about Indians, until this brewing firestorm about the cultures, is fully understood.

You see, why should I have any empathy for the hostility they're receiving from Americans, when I have no immunity to it myself, from certain sects of America as well as from Indians who wouldn't think anything about type-CASTING me, so to speak.

Clearly, you have issues that transcend my simple story.

Good luck.

"Yes, she was Indian," direct quote from a Tangerine LaBamba, but not you.

I can say no, you wouldn't have. I haven't been around long enough to know how much it's changed, but I know that these days there is a pretty strong incentive for them not to give away too much. There is actually not not very much to stop them refusing to let you speak to a manager; in fact the manager is more likely to be happy if they blatantly stonewall you. This is not true in small companies but in companies the size of HP, their market position far outweighs customer satisfaction or the lack thereof, or that you would express it to other people. Because if their computers are in say Walmart for $499 people are going to go buy them in spite of what they hear. We simply don't listen enough to other human beings over the media, in my experience.

But this is getting way off topic.

In the customer service positions I work in anyway (I'm in the US, not India). Many of the supervisors in my call centers don't want to take supe calls either. They are only there to make sure you don't go over your talk times, customer be damned.

When I have cable or internet problems with Comcast I frequently get Indians on the phone. They just go blah, blah, blah. I've asked them about where they are and get the answer "for security reasons we cannot answer that.'

My hub gets Indians on the phone every time we have a credit card glitch. It seems they like to hassle Americans for *supposed* late payments. LOL

What's that got to do with your service?

I've actually done this job, and it's a sucky job, but it is a job.

Besides, all those bright, well-educated Indians are needed to develop their own country. They shouldn't be kept away from that task by doing customer service or sales for some US multinational.

Perhaps all those bright well-educated Americans are needed to solve our own country's problems, like working on solutions for sustainable living. They shouldn't be kept away from that task by doing customer service or sales for some CEO.

Valid statement? Or offensive in some way?

Personally, I find your statement and the assumptions in it a bit wrong-headed.

When evaluating the worth of a job, it's important to look at the match between the labor market and the person who does the job, and the value added to the domestic economy. For example, take the case of a telephone solicitor (I'll leave tech support out of it, since I have never done the work myself). Here, the work is done largely by folks with high school diplomas, students, retirees, etc. It's fairly efficient, in the sense that no one has been trained by society up to, say, a masters level and then used for a job that does not require it.

But in India, a global corporation can hire someone with a masters degree for less than they would pay the high school graduate domestically, so they do it. They get someone qualified--nay, overqualified--for less money. Make no mistake about it: this is a neocolonial practice. It's a brain-drain. Instead of contributing to the local economy, in India there are many college graduates who spend their time calling Americans to sell them things they don't need.

Most people focus only on the people who are put out of work by this in the US. I think this is a real problem, because many of those affected by this are some of the folks with the fewest employment options in our economy.

But that's not the question I'm raising. I'd like to get us thinking more about what this sort of thing does to India. Here's an excerpt from Rajesh Kochhar of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics that sums up what's going on:

from: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jun25/articles8.htm

"There cannot be any objection to India’s providing competitive, soiled-collar services to the rest of the world. The trend in fact needs to be encouraged. Globalization, however, does not mean perpetual sunshine in the west and perpetual sunset in India. Globalization means that similarly qualified people anywhere in the world should be more or less similarly employed. Let India’s well-regarded manpower take up jobs consistent with its intellect and training. Let the service sector in India flourish on discounted payments but let it not suck in India’s trained scientific and technical manpower."

Dr. Kochhar is pointing out that it's silly to have Indian college grads doing work that would not be done by college grads anywhere else in the world. The jobs that are being sent to India are being done by people we would see as overqualified if they were American, but somehow, because they are Indian, they are not. Which I find offensive and invalid. It cost someone a bit of money to educate them, and here they are being underemployed, not in terms of the money they earn, but in terms of the value they add to their domestic economy.

So who's wrongheaded? The multinational corporations? Or Indians such as Dr. Kochhar, who think it's a bad idea to under-employ people? :shrug:

- Raising employment
- Bringing money into the country
- Paying taxes
- Incresing consumer spending
- Increasing economic ties with the US

and many similar things, tech support has a major factor in developing India -- in fact, it might be not be happening without it.

2nd: I cared about Americans in rural areas and inner cities.

North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania have lost 300,000 furniture jobs due to outsourcing. Many states in the South lost about 3,000,000 textile and manufacturing jobs. I care about those people who could go to work for years, have healthcare and salaries. It's one of my 'issues.' Anything wrong with not getting with the globalist program?

Who's been hurt in this country by outsourcing? Black and white lower income people. They have despaired. Many turn to drugs. They are victims of bad schools, broken families and lack of opportunity.

whether the specific individual you are speaking with on a phone call is the result of an outsourced job or not. The only reason I can think of to even ask the question is to go out of your way to be rude to them, to let them know that you, as an American, don't approve of their right to work at a job that was apparently advertised in their own country. We don't hold ourselves to this standard, though. My brother-in-law works for a German company, and nobody here has ever given him grief about that.

It's good to remember what you wrote applies to India as well as America: "Who's been hurt in this country by outsourcing? Black and white lower income people. They have despaired. Many turn to drugs. They are victims of bad schools, broken families and lack of opportunity." They, like much of the rest of the world, have in many cases lost their ability to use their own natural resources to support themselves because of western imperialism, colonialism, and industrialized lifestyles of people in the US. Remember the salt march.

I'd love to see the folks who are outraged by outsourcing be equally outraged over the economic hardships we've imposed on other countries. I doubt that will happen though. The same person who will make a point of being rude to a worker for no other reason than that worker applied for a job opening and was hired ... is likely to go to the store and buy produce from another country, without a care in the world that the multinational company growing that produce is destroying their farmlands and replacing them with a monoculture, displacing thousands of indigenous families. I'd love to know how many of those outraged folks own a diamond engagement ring. I'd like to know how many drink coca-cola or bottled water or eat bananas.

Ah, but that's different, because Americans are allowed to exploit others, it's just right and natural to do so. It doesn't require any self-examination or critical thought. But those other folks from other countries, they have a moral obligation to examine whether their acceptance of a job will affect a random American they'll never meet. Such is life in Privilegesville, USA.

I'm soft spoken and never confrontational.I am never rude.

Every now and then in a conversation when the person is being rude to me or I can't understand them I will mildly ask that question. Often one can't even get a supervisor.

I'm Native American so I don't particularly appreciate being lectured as you just have. I know history. It seems sensible to me to look out for the working class in this country and let others look out for their own too. When people think too big they end up accomplishing very little.

Education, the US economy, health care and ending the war are my issues.

Do you hope it will make their accent go away?
Do you hope it will make them feel guilty for living in their home country and accepting a job from an international company?

I don't see a point except to register your displeasure in having to deal with them. What are you hoping to accomplish with the question?

heavily relies on outsourcing.

We should all have that choice, shouldn't we?

from a guy with a thick accent who told me that his name was Billy Joe.

For real. Billy Joe.

It was so obvious he had thought he picked a swell name that I didn't have the heart to tell him that Mr. Washington is, in fact, pretty much the only Denzel (assuming his popularity onscreen has not produced a host of people naming their babies after him, that is).

Seriously. I'd even name him Denzel.;)

for what it's worth

It ended up being a really long call and they gradually broke down the barriers - that he was really in Bangalore, that his name wasn't really Bob, etc. They both had as good a time with it as they could under the circumstances.

oops...posted wrong place.

I wouldn't want to answer that either.

ughhhh there is something really grating about an evangelical Arkansas accent when the harpy at the end of the line is practically GLOATING about not being able to refund a bogus fee and ticking off ridiculously petty infractions you have violated within your "contract" with the bank. :grr: DOWN WITH ARVEST!

PS I use the word "harpy" to refer to either gender of Arvest rep since they have all been equal offenders in attitude, inflection, and obnoxiousness. Ya know the trick where you can call back 3 or 4 times and possible get a sympathetic person who might go out of their way to make something they agree is stupid go away? Well that would never happen at Arvest!

frustrating to try to communicate with someone you can't understand. I always try to be patient with them, but having to continually ask them to repeat that, I didn't understand you is very trying. I don't know if other Mfgs do this or not, but mine is an HP and as long as your connected to the net, you can use what they call "live chat". It's wonderful because each person can read what is being typed so there's no accent barrier.

it's also nice to have an easily documented correspondance with the company in case there is a dispute. Also much easier to refer to a typed conversation when trying to simultaneously trouble shoot and listen to the person helping you.

what is FTW? thanks

We are sooooo special. We're #1!

Anyway, I had a wonderful experience from India with a young man named Andy (?). He spent quite a long time with me trying to fix my Dell. He walked me through everything very slowly and was never upset when I explained that I could not understand. He took my phone number and called me the next day to see if everything was working. I can't complain, not at all.

We had some workers from Mexico working on our house. They were chattering away in Spanish and I smiled and said I wish I could speak their language because I thought it sounded so beautiful. They looked at me like I was nuts. They told me that usually they get told to shut up or speak English.

You are so right, it is the corps. We have so little compassion. It really is a sick society here.

It reminds a bit of this organized action against Wal-Mart. I saw some posts here on DU a long while ago (maybe 2004?) where there was some bit of organized sabotage against Wal-Mart being advocated, where the people would go to their local store, load carts with junk from every aisle, and then leave the carts in the middle of some other aisle. The idea was that it would slow down the store's operations, but of course some astute commenters pointed out that all these people would be doing is making life for the already-underpaid and under-insured Wal-Mart employees that much worse. Neither management nor the Walton family was going to be cleaning up the mess, just the workers, who'd likely have to stay after work to finish putting everything in order.

Your post reminds me of that story in the way that it describes how corporations get away with their crap. They do whatever they want, screw people over, etc., and the people who have to suffer abuse at the hands of angry customers are the frontline workers, who are just trying to get an honest paycheck. Whether it's screaming over the phone, making a big scene at a store, or engaging in some form of low-level sabotage, it's the workers who are affected, not the executives.

Of course, some people are just racist assholes and even if they weren't angry, they'd still be making fun of the guy's accent because it ain't Amurrrcan.

When I used to do this work, my least favorite line was something along the lines of "How dare you call during the dinner hour!" As if dinnertime were somehow sacrosanct, as if they couldn't just not answer the phone if they really didn't want to talk on the phone at dinner. I wanted to say that we are calling during the dinner hour because that's the time they are most likely at home and awake.

when people call you because they need help, and taking a job when you are more or less invading people's homes to try to market your product into their lives uninvited. That second job's no different than being a door to door evangelist - I can understand when people get angry about that. To do that job, you have to consider that your own need to sell something trumps the fact that you may be calling someone who's mourning a death (to sell your lawn service), or waking up a baby that just took an hour to get to sleep (to sell your newspaper), or interrupting a couple talking through a divorce, or waking up a person who works the graveyard shift or maybe was up for the previous two days straight at a hospital with a loved one. Telephone solicitation requires that you feel it's your right to intrude on other people's private time no matter what the circumstances are. It requires you to believe that capitalism is a higher priority than anything a personal could possibly be doing, at any time in their private home.

I'm not insulting to the people who call, but I do tell them its our policy never to do business with any company or charity that acts in that way, as a point of principle, and (of course) to take us off their list. Purple Heart refuses to take us off their list - they aren't legally required to as a charity, and they stand by that rule proudly. This is why purple heart will never get a damn thing from me. Other charities do, but not that one, because I refuse to endorse or encourage that tactic.

After my dad died a few years ago, my sister (who was the executor of his will) would often get phone calls from telemarketers asking for him--sometimes two year after! She usually would just say, "He's not here, thanks." Do the people calling have no idea that sometimes asking for a person can bring up all kinds of bad memories? Every time she'd get one of these calls, my sister would have to be reminded that our dad was dead--or refuse to say why he "wasn't there," which only ensured that they'd be calling back some other time to remind her.

Even when it's, say, the DNC and they're asking for her (I only use a cell phone, not getting telemarketing calls is one of the bonuses to a landline) because she's donated to Democratic campaigns, it's annoying because it's like, look, we're Democrats and if we're going to be contributing to any campaigns, we're going to do that. Besides being annoying, it seems counterproductive: why bother Democrats when they're at home, perhaps antagonizing them into not contributing, since a percentage of it will clearly go to paying people to call them at home, asking them for more money?

I hate the calls from campaigns, particularly when I have already contributed. It makes me want to NOT contribute. Then, don't forget the junk mail from others who want you to contribute to them too.

The reason they have your number is because you contributed. What kind of incentive to contribute is that, then? "If you send us money, we'll harass you with phone calls for more money." The only mailers I don't mind are the ones that have all of the current party candidates listed, since that's actually informative, especially with the local candidates you might not otherwise know about. Then I can choose whether I want to contribute and to whom, and the candidates aren't wasting a lot of money on multiple mailings (or annoying potential contributors with them).

if they have to have it to get my contribution, they don't get the contribution. It's enough to give my name, email address and mailing address. I wish they would use the money in more wise ways. instead of mailing me glossy requests for more contribution.

Even for people going through a messy divorce it can be emotionally hard. "Is so and so there?" "No, s/he left me."

I can't even imagine having to take calls for someone who has died, and always having to make the decision to dredge up your personal trauma for the benefit of some random person trying to make a buck off you, or not tell them and keep getting the calls.

I've had several be really rude to me, which is unfathomable when they invaded my space to start with. I told one woman who worked for a charity for the blind that I don't do business with anyone who calls me at home asking for money. (I'm sure it's a fine charity, but so are many others that don't use those tactics.) She responded by saying she hoped I ended up blind someday so I would know what it's like! I can't imagine calling people at home, demanding money from them, then wishing blindness on them after they never asked for your call in the first place.

I was a big Kucinich supporter, but I ended up happy when he dropped out because his people called several times a week, it was beyond obnoxious. Really, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. We got one former telemarketer here in this thread saying "well, it was your choice to answer during dinner, don't be getting mad at me for it. If you didn't want to talk now you shouldn't have picked up the phone." But if you don't answer, they will just keep calling daily, sometimes several times a day.

I wish we could get no-calling added as a footnote onto the no-smoking bans - without an exemption for nonprofits.

It's the really infamous one from a few years back where the guy called in to cancel his service, and the AOL person kept trying to offer him other "options" to keep him as a member, and then started getting belligerent with the caller because he just wanted to cancel his service. The bad PR from when the caller put the recording online actually ended up making AOL change its policy. (I think the original policy was an incentive-based system for keeping people as members, so canceling is basically just another sales pitch, with the difference that they already have your credit card number and authorization to charge, and are practically holding your wallet hostage.)

Yeah, the "don't answer the phone" thing is ludicrous. That's like saying people should just not answer the door when salesmen/evangelists come to their door if they don't like it, which just makes people prisoners in their own home. I know when I see Mormons walking around in their white shirt "mission" outfits (or people from other religious groups--at least the Mormons have a uniform, of sorts, so you know who they are right away), I feel like I can't go out until they've passed, or else I'll get approached. Either I open the door (which may involve running out of the shower, etc.) and have to deal with a short spiel before of course saying no thanks, or I don't answer, and I try to be silent like the house is empty so they go away. It's like I'm eight and I don't want my parents to hear me in my room because I should really be at school! Why should I have to creep around my own damn house?

I don't think anyone really has a right to be rude to anyone else, but the people with absolutely no right to beg for sympathy are telemarketers or door-to-door people: you're entering someone else's space to sell them something; you have to accept the response you get. It used to be perfectly fine--before most people had cars, shopping catalogs, and then the internet; you know, the 19th century ;)--since the salesmen really were "bringing the store to you," but now there's no excuse to be coming to someone's house or calling them at home.

creeping around my own house stealthily because I feel like it would somehow be rude to not let a total stranger have access to me at my home on demand. I only open the door if I see a UPS or post office truck outside - and otherwise, it's exactly that sense of having to be a prisoner in hiding til they leave.

I've had that situation too where a persistent door bell ringer has woken up the baby after I've been practically in tears trying to get them to sleep when I myself am exhausted.

All you people on DU reading this who do door-to-door stuff, I hope you are taking notes here and re-evaluating your actions. You all just waltz off on your way, leaving us to deal with whatever situation got interrupted, whatever sleep we desperately needed and you just spoiled, etc.

We're happy just the way we are. If that changes, we'll call you." Cuts out 99% of solicitors. Those who still ring receive a "Did you see the sign?"
Neighbors and friends are instructed to use the back door.

Cleanse. Mind. Now.

Most people who take jobs soliciting don't do so because they have some belief that "capitalism is a higher priority than anything a personal could possibly be doing, at any time in their private home." People, whether Indian or US, take these jobs for the same reasons. The assumption I like to make about people when they call is that they need to eat. I'm not buying what they are selling, but maybe I can give them a laugh or two in the two minutes before I say goodbye to them. Wherever they are, they have a crappy job, so let's do try to treat them nicely. They may no have many other options. I did this work when it was the only thing I could find during a recession, and we're at the beginning of a really, really bad one again.

Here's a helpful tip, though: the callers keep records of who they call and the outcome of each call. Some assholes call people back at the same number, hoping to talk to someone other than the person who hung up on them the last time. With these folks, the goal is to get them to jot down whatever it is that will get them to not call you. "He's dead" usually works. Keep trying different lies until you come up with something that works for you. "This is a business," "I'm administering an enema," "They moved," "You have a real sexy voice," or whatever. Improvise. Usually, they will know you are lying to them, but whatever. They just want to mark something down indicating that you are not to be called back, and move on to the next sucker.

like being interrupted at dinner?
I work 12-14 hours a day, if I'm not sleeping I'm spending time (not much) with my kids.
Dinner is one of those times, and I resent a call from you.
So, I turn the phone off, good luck getting ahold of me.
Oh, and way to parrot the company line "thats the time you are home".
Did it occur to you people may enjoy their only time with their families?

I mean, I think there's something where, if you record a phone call, you have to get someone's permission, but does that apply to someone in another country? After all, if the government can record any call, foreign or domestic, shouldn't I be able to record a call to which I am actually a party? Especially since solicitors routinely record calls "for training and verification purposes."

Anyway, I used to do telephone solicitation. Rather than simply hanging up, I have some fun with the caller, whether they be US or Indian or whatever. Stuff ike "No, thank you, I don't want your cheap phone service. We have the most expensive phone service on the market today, top of the line. I don't want people to think I'm cheap." I always tell both my local newspapers whenever they call that I am boycotting getting a subscription because they print editorial writers such as George Will and Chuck Krauthammer, folks who are out of touch with our times and the tenor of our community, and that I won't subscribe unless they get more liberal syndicated writers. Useless, but it makes me feel better.

I just read this over in the Editoral Form posted by OhioChick:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x361462
Law Firm Files Suit to Bar Outsourcing of Client Data

- snip -
Joseph Hennessey, name partner at Newman McIntosh & Hennessey, turned to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on May 7 seeking a ruling on the outsourcing of privileged client data that may be subject to eavesdropping by the U.S. government.

Hennessey, who in 2005 wrote this column for Legal Times on the Fourth Amendment and privacy rights, says foreign companies have no presumption of privacy because the National Security Agency is free to spy on them without constitutional constraints.

"We are really heading toward a collision between globalized economic interests and the limited extension of constitutional rights," Hennessey says.

- snip -

"It seeks this declaration knowing that foreign nationals who reside overseas lack Fourth Amendment protections," says the firm's complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. "It seeks this declaration having been informed ... that the United States government engages in pervasive surveillance of electronically transmitted data."

- snip -


Just one more clever way for the government and enemies to invade privacy.

As an aside, ordinarily I wouldn't have borrowed and posted another DUer's snippets, I would have just posted the thread's link here. But after reading your post, the ramifications of our privacy being breached is very real. I'm glad OhioChick posted that article.

of the person you are speaking to.

More often than not, they hang up.

I think we should all refuse to deal with telephone robots and endless phone calls where our time
is not being considered --

They don't want to pay for real people and/or professionals to do the job so our time is wasted with telephone calls that take much longer to work out problems ---

LANGUAGE is a barrier to getting problems worked out ---
When you can't understand the person on the phone -- and this may be because the person speaks
too low -- or too rapidly -- or because connection is poor --- keep asking for someone else.

When we are willing to let corporations waste our time, they will continue to do it ---

DO NOT express anger towards any individual --- just quietly demand that you receive appropriate
service.

i immediately hang up. the one exception is if it's my cable company because that means it's time to pay the bill or call to make arrangements. can't let my internet get turned off!!!

that being partially deaf I cannot understand and ask if I can speak with someone else.

I've just had this with Comcast --- simply a woman who was speaking so low and so rapidly that
I couldn't begin to understand her. I kept quietly repeating to her that she had to speak louder
and slower and she tried -- and we finally -- after much wasted time got to making the appointment --however it is obvious that this is not someone you would put on the telephones if your aim was to
provide efficient service.

Would you ?

Think about it --

from india...the poor guy had no clue about the word "mendota". he started to get really frustrated and start apologizing but i said it was ok...he finally settled down and found the number..why yell at those people it`s not their fault some asshole accountant fingered out that the company could "save" millions if they went overseas...

To what were you referring?

But, as said elsewhere on this thread, DON'T take it out on the workers. That's NOT what real unionism is about.

My own off-shore Help Desk experiences have, on the whole, been pleasant. One time, I got by internet order, a Toshiba laptop that wouldn't boot up properly. I got essentially a run-around from the US-based people, until I was connected to a Filipina. She patiently listened to my (by now, pretty frustrated, and probably irritated) description of the problem. In short order, she came up with the solution and told me to please stay on the line while I tried it. I did, and it WORKED! I was at the point of proposing marriage, but gave her my heartfelt THANKS instead.

pnorman
On edit: Here was the solution: Remove the battery, and then hold the ON button for several seconds. Replace the battery, and then hit ON. VOILA! I passed that on to several friends (some fairly knowledgeable about computers), and they thanked ME for solving their problem!

Nothing was said so explicitly, but it explains why, after discussing and resolving whatever it was, I commented that I had traveled through a lot of India and how I loved the country and the people. We chatted a fairly long time, until I got uncomfortable about him getting called on the carpet for not making the daily quota. At the time I thought he might just be new and and a bit unaware of the Profit Uber Alles law of corporatism, but your post reminded me that it could have been his first or a very rare encounter with someone who wasn't treating him like a subhuman.

edit to add: recommended!

say the same thing to me. I always try to be as amiable as possible. It has to be a rough job. I feel bad they get hollered at so much.

a few years ago between his phone connection and his accent. He seemed like a nice enough guy and was trying his best to be helpful. I told him I appreciated his time, but that his cheap boss needed to get him a better telephone.

I think I gave the poor guy the first laugh he'd had in ages.

I can't see abusing these people. They didn't take our jobs away, the fat corporate bastards who wanted to loot more from their companies took our jobs away.

Coincidentally, there's a documentary on FX about an American who is living in India for a month and working in a call center. He's now visiting Indians where they live, finding a janitorial supervisor living in a place we wouldn't let a dog die in.

I think those jobs are gone forever and if Indians can pull themselves out of such unimaginable poverty with them, then it's a good thing.

I just want to see those fat corporate bastards prevented from sending the next wave of US jobs after them. I want to see those fat corporate bastards taxed to the hilt on everything they loot from their companies.

And I want to see this country work on the next wave of industrialization, with sustainable energy both as power and product, with stiff protectionism to keep it all here.

amerika has become more hateful.
and scared. and stupid.

i want my country back. tho, i always had a BITCH of a time understanding my indian pediatrician.

then you'd be me :(

:rofl:



Cher

Have an accent, yet? :rofl:

for a minute and you'll feel MUCH better. Does your life depend on understanding another's accent or language? Get over your xenophobia and stupidity.

The first qualification for a service rep who speaks to customers over the telephone hours and hours a day is the ability to communicate clearly in the language of the caller.

I have an advanced degree in French, and I speak good German, but I would not qualify as a service rep for harried French or German speaking customers.

Although my American pronunciation is very clear and people complement me on my pleasant voice, I sometimes was not understood in Britain -- not well enough to be a customer service rep there either.

The telephone distorts the voice to some extent. Some sounds are lost in the transmission, others muffled. I have trouble understanding my own daughters if they talk too fast on the phone because of the distortion or loss of the sound. The Indian, Pakistani and Philippino service reps I have talked to do not speak slowly or clearly or patiently enough to be understood. They may be fairly competent as technicians, but they do not speak my language.

The problem is especially serious for those of us with slight hearing losses. It is just so frustrating. Most of the foreign service reps are simply not qualified for the work they are doing. I always try to be courteous, but I usually have to ask them to slow down and speak more clearly. Last week, I got a service rep who absolutely refused to slow down. I could figure out some words, others not at all.

I remind you that I once did their job -- and well. It isn't as easy as you might think. It takes more than technical facility and expertise. It requires patience, a pleasant personality, courtesy (most of them try to have this), a love of people, a good sense of humor, clear diction, a good vocabulary and a pleasant voice. If they want to keep their jobs, they should learn to speak the language of their customers.

Made me re-think my position on this.

Now it looks to me that the work of understanding a foreign accent is one more thing we're supposed to suck up in the age of corporatism.

Same thing goes for the phone menus. They make us do their work if we want to conduct business.

Just what I needed--another reason for these bastards to disgust me.

Most alarming of all is what dmr posted above.



Cher

forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English

There are differences in pronunciation, stress patterns and so on, to be sure -- but it is a well-established, recognized variant of English. There have also been studies proving that one of the barriers in the US to understanding Indian English speakers is the same hostility evident in this thread: that is, listeners don't feel they should have to try to understand.

We can debate over whether mutual intelligibility is worth striving for, and under what circumstances -- and I believe it's perfectly valid to say that when you're a customer (as opposed to one party in a neutral two-person exchange), that burden of intelligibility ought to fall more heavily on the rep of the company providing you with service. However, that is different from saying that we in the US own English, which we absolutely do not. As former colonies of Britain (e.g. India) and the US (e.g. The Philippines) continue to bolster their economic and educational standing in the world, we'll have to face that one way or another. Working globally in English really does require a learning curve, even if one has been speaking one's own variant since birth.

Finally, if you want to reach computer CS reps with North American English accents, buy a Mac. :)

absolute fucking nonsense - as someone who has to talk to many of the SAME people over and over, they never quite understand what information they need to give me EVEN THOUGH I TELL THEM OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

languages I don't speak well. The be problem with the Indian service reps is that they speak very quickly and that the telephone connections tend to be very bad. It is not me. Rest assured. I am particularly good at decoding language in almost any form.

I think that the Indian and Philippino service reps are sloppy about communication. Most of them don't really have the concept of equality and that serving others well is noble. Historically speaking, castes and class have been very important to their culture. I think that much of the conflict between Indian service reps and American customers is that the service reps do not see us as their equals, as people they want to serve well in order to make a better society. It's a cultural attitude. Some groups in Europe have the same problem. The Hispanic person who wrote a post on this thread is right. Some Americans feel "more equal" than Hispanics. It's a shame. We are all equal. Indian nationals should be serving their countrymen and women. They should not be service reps to us. Americans who can communicate well with us should be our service reps. As I said, the first requirement for a service rep is to speak clearly and understandably in the language of the customer. That is why when you call a service desk here in Los Angeles, you are given the opportunity to choose between English and Spanish as the language of your call. We have so many residents who speak only Spanish. They need service reps who speak their language. That is good business sense.

Imagine all the RW hatred they get all the time.

I got a guy in India one time when I called a support line. He couldn't help me so I just hung up. I understood what he said pretty well though.

I, too, believe corporate America should keep these jobs at home for the Americans who need them. That being said, I'm not going to take out any frustration I feel about that situation on the Indian employees who are taking those jobs. They didn't come over here and steal them - they were GIVEN away by our own corporations.

I have a few friends who are Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani. I suspect I'm used to hearing and understanding their accents, which is why I think it's easier for me to understand the call center personnel than most, who seem to dread talking to these people. But, I do admit that I did have difficulties understanding one of them in particular because of the accent. In a polite way and in language that (hopefully) made it clear I wasn't angry, I simply told them I couldn't understand them, thanked them for trying to help me and told them I would call back later.

Having lived and traveled internationally, I think one of the ugliest traits American culture exhibits is our propensity for severe and irrational xenophobia. I feel sorry for, and am embarassed by, the abuse my fellow Americans undoubtedly heap on these people just trying to make a few rupees. Previous responses to this thread are exactly correct - we should be heaping that abuse upon the corporations who have sold American jobs down the river.

Another Republican lie, right?

How can the person afford the computer otherwise?

People are such idiots. They have to hate somebody. As if the Indians have no right to live in anything but third world poverty.

It can only make our country more hated, when, as the richest country in the world, we act resentful when someone else, starting out from much poorer than we are, gets a break.

Their job just got outsourced or offshored and they're trying to access their local classifieds online, perhaps?

Or enough money to survive.

Sell the Indians something, now that they have more income.

They don't need cars, either, so you have an open market.

Not necessarily so. A friend lost his job and is continuing to have internet access in the high hopes that he can get a side job or two to feed his family. To discontinue service and have it reinstated would've cost him an arm and leg in fees.

We have nothing to sell the Indians....we don't manufacture much here any longer, if you've forgotten. Oh that's right.......none of this affects you, yet. You're a lawyer.

Instead of sitting there being helpless.

Rip off other people, bend the laws in my favor, lie and cheat the system. Yeah, that's productive.

because he could turn half of them on the other half any given day?

People need to wake up and realize it is not about old v young, white v black, American workers v Indian workers. It's about CLASS WARFARE. We have to stop letting them turn half of us on the other half and focus on the REAL problem.

or other places of incarceration. I've heard labor there is cheaper than India.

Every once in awhile it makes a 60 minutes type of news splash.
The one I heard about was airline reservations being made via phone banks in a prison.

as for land lines, I don't answer ours. Period. It's for the computer.
We put it in a false name,so I know when it rings its a sales call.
Friends and family have the cell #.

operating and using prison labor to man some of their reservation lines. It was always obvious when a prisoner picked up the phone. They weren't well trained and were constantly putting people on hold in order to get their supervisor's attention. Any corporation so desperate to save a buck that they use incarcerated slave labor deserves to go under, as TWA eventually did.

Good job, marmar.

I totally agree with your economic analysis and suggestion, but also, good on you for making that worker feel a little better. What a shitty deal, having to listen to Americans do a fake Indian accent while they insult you. That is low.

:hi:

Other areas are becoming cheaper. I'm talking to more people from the Philippines lately than India.

Blame the CEO's and Suits.

if people have a problem with outsourcing they need to stop buying products where if you call support you go to India. Anyone that takes it out on a person that is just doing their job is an asshole. I can't believe how hypocritical this country is.

Sorry, but you take care of those in this country LEGALLY FIRST.

Your post is what is wrong with this country! :grr:

Ask all of the Union workers screwed by outsourcing AND insourcing (workers brought in on H2B visas) who take their jobs and ask them if we should be nice to the scabs?

THEY'RE NOT IN THIS COUNTRY!.....Secondly, blaming those workers for "taking their jobs" is misplaced blame. Who sent the job to India? Why is that such a hard concept to figure out?

Blame the greedy-ass CEO's and Execs.

Do you even realize that the U.S. is on it's way to become a 3rd world country? Soon this will be a country of rich or poor and bye bye middle class!

You should care about what's happening here BEFORE you get all teary eyed about someone half way on the other side of the world!

What if it was your neighbor, your friend, YOURSELF who had their job outsourced to India?!

You'd care then wouldn't you?! :eyes:

it is the guy on the other end of the line, working at a fucking call center, who is responsible for outsourcing?

:rofl:

AMERICANS are to blame. Wealthy, greedy, corporate slimy ones, but americans nonetheless.

Take your stupid post and stick it. :eyes:

:eyes:

You are implying that tolerance for workers in other countries is what is wrong with this country. That is absurd. Period.
Like I said, your anger needs to be directed at the Americans who are responsible for outsourcing, not the people working at call centers.
I fail to see the stupidity in that.

On an expensive enterprise-level server for which we have a 4-hour response service contract.

It took 7 calls and 16 hours for them to decide to send a tech to the site, when it was obvious from the beginning that we had a hardware problem.

Oh, the final call was answered by their help desk in Costa Rica. The tech there was extremely helpful.

I don't care where somebody is, but I do expect them to speak reasonably good English and to fulfill their contractual obligations.

My company spends about $3-5 million per year on H-P hardware and servcies.

difficulty communicating as heavy accents. But I've definitely known the frustration of that, too. It's hard.

More frustrating, though, are the techs who do not listen, period. You can hear them yawning at you, reading down their line of questions, regardless of the information you've already given them - the info that makes it clear that yes, you've rebooted, yes, the machine is turned out, yes, you've already tried X,Y, and Z... Those are the ones who frustrate the hell out of me - whether they're in India or Indiana.

to put people with a tenuous grasp of English into jobs wherein they have to communicate verbally in English. I understand these companies pay less for this, but the reduction in customer service and satisfaction makes it seem like a dumb business decision in the long run.

Are you fucking serious?

I guess I don't speak arrogant asshole filled with a sense of entitlement.

Why do you hate the American Labor Movement?

a telephone helpline for its American consumers to foreign countries. It's a slap in our face in itself, but to have to decipher the information is even more demeaning.

Being progressive doesn't mean that you have to be stupid.

Either Americans should boycott goods produced by outsourced companies or vote out the politicians that make it easy to do so if so many are so angry about this problem.

absolutely fucking DISGUSTED

give the name, address, and phone number of the CEO of the company because that is where the fury should be directed.

Please ask for the CEO's name and number in the future. A supervisor should have that info....and if thousands of us start to ask, they'll have to provide it!

I hate greedy corporations.

but i do get frustrated when i'm trying to communicate and cannot understand or be understood. i am also sick to DEATH of solicitations from people who don't speak english. i have had three calls from the same organization in one day.

you are right in what you say. all over the world people are just trying to make it. i will try to be kinder in the future, remembering that the person on the other end of the phone is not the source of the problem. just a working person, like me.

I'd corrupted the file somehow on my local host and called up the service #. Great guy, we had
a nice chat, he told me about the automatic back up and then helped me download it. I was sooooo
grateful. Guy said it had happened to him (we used the same software).

I've had other calls to the company that were not so great but they're no different that US calls.

Clearly, many of the companies using foreign call centers are now getting support people who barely
speak English. That's a disservice to customers and to the people hired. I can almost tell when
that's the case - everything is "yes."

But we've got enough bad rep overseas, why make it worse. They're fellow workers, give them a hand.

to something that can't be outsourced. So I'm going back to to school to train for a job in health care. (respiratory therapist) They haven't yet come up with a way to outsource direct patient care. As of September, I'll be an ex-tech-geek and full time college student. Yeah, I'm raiding some of my retirement funds to finance it. But I've still got 20+ years of working ahead of me, and health care is one of the few fields that are still growing.

I must admit to a bit of personal resentment towards the folks they are outsourcing our jobs to. I know it's not the fault of the techs in India. They are just trying to earn a decent living, just like the rest of us.

how, with all the health care options out there, you decided on respiratory therapist? I've also thought that this kind of job would be good for one of my sons, but it's difficult to choose among all the options for specialized medical training that are out there.

I knew I didn't want to be a nurse, even though that's the most in-demand health care job out there right now. I think it had something to do with the prospect of people spewing various bodily fluids all over me in the midst of an emergency. I Also knew that I couldn't afford to be in school for moere than a 2-year program. I've been working and living on my own for 20+ years, and I didn't want to be stuck with a ton of student loans in middle-age. I've always been attracted to the "helping professions". My years in tech support gave me good customer-service skills, which are just as useful when dealing with patients as they are when dealing with people whose computers are malfunctioning. I considered going into a radiology tech program, but I was concerned about working with radioactive materials. I'm something of a dental-phobic, which ruled out the dental hygenist program. I know a former co-worker from the tech biz who went back to school, and is now working as a respiratory therapist. I spoke to her, and she told me a lot about the field, and how she enjoys it so much more than her former line of work.

In my mind, it came down to either respiratory therapist or medical lab tech programs. The nearest school with a good, accredited 2-year medical lab tech program was over an hour's drive away. The community college with the respiratory therapist program is a 20 minute drive away. Medical lab tech work could get isolating, and would not make use of my years of customer service experience. So I settled on applying to the respiratory therapist program. I filled out the admission forms and submitted them. A couple of months later, I was notified that I'd been accepted. New career, here I come. :)

... and as it turns out I had to avail myself of a tech support service last week when I couldn't get my new router working.

The guy was in India (I asked) and while he was not as pleasant as a Southern gentleman, he handled the call professionally and solved my problem.

At the end of the call he said I would be receiving an email survey about his performance and would I please rate him well. I told him he could count on it and I did.

I don't blame these folks for doing these jobs. We'd do the same thing if placed in their circumstances.

Thanks to our success other parts of the world want the same lifestyle that we have. They are willing to do these jobs for a fraction of what we make just to get a little closer to that, so if it's between them and us where are those jobs going to go? Who are the companies going to hire? If we don't have jobs we can't afford our housing, education, or health care. And if they don't have those jobs, they will never get anything like we've had in the first place. Who are we to say that we deserve that lifestyle and they don't? If we stop our companies from moving jobs to those countries, then they go on strip-mining and clear-cutting their resources like they've been doing since the 1800's to feed the demands of their society's most ambitious members, and the world's ecosystems will suffer.

Maybe the whole problem is that the basic things that our modern standards of living and health depend on just cost way too much. And of all them the most basic cost that all the others depend on is the cost of energy, and right now that means a limited supply of energy that will only keep getting more expensive. But those costs are so beneficial to a few people that those people will use all their power and do anything to keep them from going down. The worst thing is that we might even be among those few, depending on how high our expectations for a lifestyle are.

I think maybe the single most important factor to determine the shape of the world's economy and quality of life in the future is energy technology. So when I look at the Indians, sometimes I think it's a damn good thing at least somebody on this planet is getting a decent education.

i am indian. i know my customer service call is being answered by an indian 1. from the accent; and if i had any doubt 2. from the fact that i dont often have to spell out my kinda complicated long lastname.
i am always very polite. but i never get thanked for that.. guess I am taken for granted :shrug:

I called several times trying to get my order resolved finally got an American and my issue was resolved. Working in the tech field I have nothing against Indian tech workers who know what they're doing.

called for support for zoomerang.com (web-based surveys) and I knew right away the guy was in India. I made it a point to be nice and we got a long great. He helped me solve my problem quickly and I was off the phone in less than 5 minutes. I felt like he appreciated my kindness.

I have gotten to talk to few of them on the phone also. With the after-hours help desk at work that's all we get. If that corporation could figure out how to replace me and my coworkers it would happen in a second.

You could also be sure that those taking the calls would of rather been helping those of their own country. Multinationals are trying to make us all slaves of our own nationalities, i think we should ALL get together and deal with it :-)