Whoever first had the idea to send American customer service calls to India should be drug out into the street and shot. And his eulogy should be read over the telephone, in very broken English.
I know its cheaper to pay someone whatever passes for minimum wage in India (if there even is such a thing), than to pay someone to do it in the U.S. But in the history of calls to call centers located in India, not a single one has gone well.
Don't get me wrong. I don't care about a person's accent. I don't care about the distance, or the ethnicity of the person to whom I talk. I just think that if I have a complicated technical question that I need to explain in short order, it would be more helpful if the person on the other end of the phone could understand me and speak English well enough to respond at something higher than a third grade level.
Call me crazy.
The issue wouldn't be so annoying were it not for the fact that the companies most likely to send your call to India are the generally the ones likely to cause you the most complicated problems to describe. Every time I've had a computer issue, for example, it's something complicated. In fact, I've already tried every reasonably obvious solution by the time I resort to making a phone call.
But the person on the other side of the phone doesn't speak the language well enough to do anything other than ask me to re-start my computer or click the button that says Internet Explorer.
I know this because I've spent the last three weeks on the phone with non-english speaking computer techs at Clearwire. To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure their techs are trying to juggle two different calls at the same time.
Ironically, I left Comcast because of bad customer service. Unless you had memorized your account number or had your last cable bill in front of you, it was absolutely impossible to figure out how to report an outage. And if their equipment broke, it was up to you to drive to their out of the way office and wait in line for them to give you a replacement.
So the idea of a company that would send me all my equipment through the mail seemed perfect. Until I realized that I'd be needing replacement equipment every day, and it would all be coming from India.
I've had three different conversations with Clearwire so far. They have all gone exactly like this:
Tech (who is a male): Welcome to Clearwire, my name is Mary (Clearly not his real name, but he apparently chose something "American" from a book, without further research), can I have your name?
Me: Andrew
(long pause)
I'm having a probl...
Mary: What can I help you with?
Me: I'm having a problem connecting to the Internet.
Mary: I understand you to say you cannot connect to the Internet. Is this correct?
Me: Yes, when I...
Mary: Very good. I can help you with connect to the Internet. First, power up your computer...
Me: Yes, I know. I can connect with my ethernet cord, but my wireless isn't working, even though it claims to have a full signal. And I'm sitting five feet away from my modem: close enough to run an ethernet cord to it.
(long pause)
Mary: Ok. You cannot connect with wireless. Can I get you to restart your computer?
Me: I've done that 16 times. That doesn't help.
Mary: Maybe you need be closer to the modem.
Me: I'm five feet away. I have a full signal. It just won't connect.
Tech: Very good. I need you click on the button that says "Internet Explorer."
Me: I know how to connect to the Internet, it just won't work. I get an icon telling me the connection can no longer be found, but I have full signal strenght.
Mary: Is it plugged in?
Me: Yes.
Mary: The computer and the modem are plugged in?
Me: Yes
Mary: Maybe you try it closer to the modem?
Me: I can feel the heat from the modem radiating off of me. It's right in front of me. It has a full signal. I just get an error message when I try to connect.
Mary: What do the message say?
Me: It says the wireless connection can no longer be found.
(long pause)
Mary: I send you new modem. What is your address?
Me: I've already gotten three new modems. They keep doing the same thing.
Mary: I will need you to ping the modem. Grab a paper clip and insert it into the sensor control valve.
Me: I tried that with the guy (Sylvia) I spoke to yesterday. It won't work even when I stand on top of the modem. It's just not working for some reason. It's like I'm locked out somehow.
Mary: Have you forgotten your password?
Me: No, I can't even get to the point where I get prompted for a password. Can I speak to a high level tech please?
Mary: Hold on. Very good. Let me find my supervisor.
(long pause)
Mary: My supervisor say I should send you a new modem. You have to pay shipping though.
Me: Why should I have to pay for your equipment failure?
Mary: Hold on. I talk to my supervisor.
(long pause)
Mary: Ok, very good. My supervisor say you should try to connect more closely to the modem.
Me: Nevermind.
(long pause)
Mary: Very good.
(long pause)
And then Mary hangs up the phone, to inflict emotional terror on someone else.
Very good indeed.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Overheard on the Nashville MTA
While sitting on bus, waiting to go home last week, I overheard the following conversation of a group of teenagers who got on behind me:
Teenager: Somethin' smell good in here!
Second Teenager: It smell like laundry detergent.
First Teenager: Somebody be washin' they clothes.
Second Teenager: It might be that Hispanic guy over there. (pointing, I assume, at me, a partial Native American).
I didn't know whether to be amused or just scared for our nation's future.
I think I chose both.
Our future leaders may be grammatically challenged and racially insensitive, but at least they value cleanliness.
(More to come soon).
Teenager: Somethin' smell good in here!
Second Teenager: It smell like laundry detergent.
First Teenager: Somebody be washin' they clothes.
Second Teenager: It might be that Hispanic guy over there. (pointing, I assume, at me, a partial Native American).
I didn't know whether to be amused or just scared for our nation's future.
I think I chose both.
Our future leaders may be grammatically challenged and racially insensitive, but at least they value cleanliness.
(More to come soon).
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Technology Sucks
It all started when the coffee pot died.
It was a slow and steady decline. First, it gurgled and sputtered but still spat out half-cups. Then it became quarter cups. Now it just makes a lot of steam. Which offers little in the way of a morning wake-up and doesn't taste very good either. Even with cream.
We didn't immediately replace it because we have a smaller back-up coffeemaker for emergencies like this. It doesn't make as much and it's kind of a pain to use, but at least it gives us caffeine in liquid form.
But judging from our recent history, its days are probably numbered.
Our defective coffeemaker has now infected every other electronic device in the house with its diabolical virus of doom. It's like our appliances had a swingers party while we were at work one day, and all of them ended up with the coffeemaker without one of those protective sleeves they give you at Starbucks.
Not long after the coffeemaker died, this website crashed, as I mentioned here.
Then it was our light bulbs. We changed our living room lights about two months ago with a bright, shiny new one. A few weeks after our coffeemaker died, our living rooms light stopped working too. I replaced it with a brand new bulb, on the off chance that was the problem, but that didn't help. At that point, I used my extensive electrical knowledge to try the only other possibility: I changed the new bulb too. Surprisingly, that worked. At least for now.
My wife's car went out next, with a defective oxygen sensor (Why does a car need to sense oxygen anyway? Oxygen is plentiful-- can't the car just take my word for it?).
We got the car fixed, and it immediately came down with something even worse, that our mechanic can't quite diagnose. It's still in the shop. Our other car, meanwhile, is scheduled to go in on Thursday with its own set of problems.
It gets even worse.
When our neighbors finally secured their Internet connection, we had to finally breakdown and get one ourselves. Before I signed up, the salesperson at Clearwire assured me that their modems absolutely never have technical problems. It was so rare, she said, that she didn't even know the process for getting a replacement if one ever went out, because she'd never seen it happen in all her years there.
That was a week ago. And three modems later, they still haven't sent us one that works. I'm sure it isn't Clearwire's fault, though. Their perfectly good modems probably got deathly ill with a coffeemaker-transmitted virus the moment they crossed the threshold of our house.
Basically, nothing in our house that requires a battery, a power cord, or any form of energy is functional at the moment. Even our electricity was out for four hours today.
I swear on my life, I just got an error message and had to re-launch Internet explorer, even as I'm typing this right now.
I don't know why this is happening. Is our infected coffeemaker getting it on with our other appliances, who all know the dangers of infection, but find the coffeemaker too alluring to resist?
Or is it something more sinister? Perhaps the coffeemaker has decided it has had enough slave labor and is now slowly converting our other electronics to join it in a massive hyper-caffeinated appliance revolution?
Could it be that I don't stop often enough to tell my appliances that I care?
I don't have the answers. And even if I did have them, I'm pretty sure my website would instantly crash again if I tried to write them here.
Whatever the cause for our massive malfunctions, it wouldn't be such a big deal if this were just a personal problem. But it's even affecting my work life. I have some tape recorded evidence at work that I've been needing to copy for weeks, but, of course, our work tape recorder hasn't been working. Frustrated with the long delay, I finally just brought it home tonight to do it in my house on my own time.
I should have known that my tape recorder wouldn't work either.
It was a slow and steady decline. First, it gurgled and sputtered but still spat out half-cups. Then it became quarter cups. Now it just makes a lot of steam. Which offers little in the way of a morning wake-up and doesn't taste very good either. Even with cream.
We didn't immediately replace it because we have a smaller back-up coffeemaker for emergencies like this. It doesn't make as much and it's kind of a pain to use, but at least it gives us caffeine in liquid form.
But judging from our recent history, its days are probably numbered.
Our defective coffeemaker has now infected every other electronic device in the house with its diabolical virus of doom. It's like our appliances had a swingers party while we were at work one day, and all of them ended up with the coffeemaker without one of those protective sleeves they give you at Starbucks.
Not long after the coffeemaker died, this website crashed, as I mentioned here.
Then it was our light bulbs. We changed our living room lights about two months ago with a bright, shiny new one. A few weeks after our coffeemaker died, our living rooms light stopped working too. I replaced it with a brand new bulb, on the off chance that was the problem, but that didn't help. At that point, I used my extensive electrical knowledge to try the only other possibility: I changed the new bulb too. Surprisingly, that worked. At least for now.
My wife's car went out next, with a defective oxygen sensor (Why does a car need to sense oxygen anyway? Oxygen is plentiful-- can't the car just take my word for it?).
We got the car fixed, and it immediately came down with something even worse, that our mechanic can't quite diagnose. It's still in the shop. Our other car, meanwhile, is scheduled to go in on Thursday with its own set of problems.
It gets even worse.
When our neighbors finally secured their Internet connection, we had to finally breakdown and get one ourselves. Before I signed up, the salesperson at Clearwire assured me that their modems absolutely never have technical problems. It was so rare, she said, that she didn't even know the process for getting a replacement if one ever went out, because she'd never seen it happen in all her years there.
That was a week ago. And three modems later, they still haven't sent us one that works. I'm sure it isn't Clearwire's fault, though. Their perfectly good modems probably got deathly ill with a coffeemaker-transmitted virus the moment they crossed the threshold of our house.
Basically, nothing in our house that requires a battery, a power cord, or any form of energy is functional at the moment. Even our electricity was out for four hours today.
I swear on my life, I just got an error message and had to re-launch Internet explorer, even as I'm typing this right now.
I don't know why this is happening. Is our infected coffeemaker getting it on with our other appliances, who all know the dangers of infection, but find the coffeemaker too alluring to resist?
Or is it something more sinister? Perhaps the coffeemaker has decided it has had enough slave labor and is now slowly converting our other electronics to join it in a massive hyper-caffeinated appliance revolution?
Could it be that I don't stop often enough to tell my appliances that I care?
I don't have the answers. And even if I did have them, I'm pretty sure my website would instantly crash again if I tried to write them here.
Whatever the cause for our massive malfunctions, it wouldn't be such a big deal if this were just a personal problem. But it's even affecting my work life. I have some tape recorded evidence at work that I've been needing to copy for weeks, but, of course, our work tape recorder hasn't been working. Frustrated with the long delay, I finally just brought it home tonight to do it in my house on my own time.
I should have known that my tape recorder wouldn't work either.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
I'm here; the Cicadas are gone
Vacation's over. Beautiful Bermuda is but a piece of my memory. I guess it's more than that to the people who live there, but you know what I mean.
It was a cruel return to reality when my return flight was delayed until 2 a.m. the morning of our return. Then our car broke down (they can't figure out what's wrong with it), our internet stopped working (I'm currently on modem number three in the past week), and our lawn guy stood us up right before we had relatives in town, causing me to spend a morning searching in vain to find an emergency lawnmower on short notice. The Frogs of Doom are back in my neighbor's pool.
And I didn't even mention my real job.
One of Newton's most overlooked laws of physics is that your everyday life will go to pieces immediately upon your return from vacation. Trust me, I'm definitely back. I'm not happy about it, but I'm here.
As for you, you really, really hate cicadas. Not that I blame you, of course. Those things are gross. The cicadas attack! column alone did more traffic than I often get in an entire month.
The cicadas brought me by far the most read blog post of all time, but I'm still thankful they are--finally--gone. No amount of ad money is worth having to live with thousands of the insectual embodiment of Satan at your doorstep. Actually it might be ok if they were at your doorstep, but it's certainly not worth it if they are at mine.
When the cicadas come back in 13 years to take over Nashville once again, I will have a more organized plan to fight back. Next time, I'm going to Bermuda for an entire month.
Until then, the blog is back. You can expect at least one post a week (usually on Tuesday, but give me a day's leeway either direction if life gets crazy).
Which it will. Because my vacation is over.
It was a cruel return to reality when my return flight was delayed until 2 a.m. the morning of our return. Then our car broke down (they can't figure out what's wrong with it), our internet stopped working (I'm currently on modem number three in the past week), and our lawn guy stood us up right before we had relatives in town, causing me to spend a morning searching in vain to find an emergency lawnmower on short notice. The Frogs of Doom are back in my neighbor's pool.
And I didn't even mention my real job.
One of Newton's most overlooked laws of physics is that your everyday life will go to pieces immediately upon your return from vacation. Trust me, I'm definitely back. I'm not happy about it, but I'm here.
As for you, you really, really hate cicadas. Not that I blame you, of course. Those things are gross. The cicadas attack! column alone did more traffic than I often get in an entire month.
The cicadas brought me by far the most read blog post of all time, but I'm still thankful they are--finally--gone. No amount of ad money is worth having to live with thousands of the insectual embodiment of Satan at your doorstep. Actually it might be ok if they were at your doorstep, but it's certainly not worth it if they are at mine.
When the cicadas come back in 13 years to take over Nashville once again, I will have a more organized plan to fight back. Next time, I'm going to Bermuda for an entire month.
Until then, the blog is back. You can expect at least one post a week (usually on Tuesday, but give me a day's leeway either direction if life gets crazy).
Which it will. Because my vacation is over.
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