(no subject)

[blondebeaker.livejournal.com]

*Cackles* This second last call of the night had me dying of laughter all night. Italics and asterisks are my thoughts.

Me: Thank you for calling *insert cable company* this is blondebeaker  speaking how can I help you today!   *I haven't touched coffee in two weeks and tonight I had three cups!*

Customer: Where are you located?

Me: Canada!

Customer: *sighs* Close enough. Listen, I'm a Network Engineer for a Major company and I have your home networking.  Every time I call in  with a wireless issue, I get some thick accented foreigner from overseas who tries to make me do basic troubleshooting. I already know what to do so why do they make me do it? * I dunno, maybe because half of the "Network Engineers"  who call in are actually dolts who never do basic internet connectivity troubleshooting? Oh and the networking guys are thick accented because they are from the ALABAMA! our Philippines team even have a hard time understanding all ten of them!*

Me: I am sorry about that, we kind of assume that most people don't know how to do this stuff, if I can have your phone number and pull up your account I can help you!.

Customer: NO. I want to speak to a supervisor, not some twit from buttfuck India. I want an AMERICAN. NOT CANADIAN, A. MER. EEE. CAN. Understand? *asshat* I have not had internet in my house for over a month! *oh wah! you are still an asshat*

Me: Ok I will transfer you to a sup. I have to put you on hold and talk to them first ok?

Supervisor who is located in the Philippines: 'Sup my Goddess of the Internet Connection? * ROGER! I love this guy to death, and yes he does call us "Gods or Goddess of the Internet Connection!"

Me: *Explains the issue in great detail and tells him about the A. MER. EEE. CAN. bit* 

Supervisor: *lolsnort* He is not going to be happy with me! I'm a Fillipino with a Aussie accent! 

Me: *dies* Ok transferring him over now!


------------------------

Oh and the customer's problem? He set up his hooked up his home network to a PHONE MODEM. He never had internet with us just phone and cable tv! Now he is trying to contact Corporate because he thinks he was misled when he got the phone service and that we said he could surf the internet with it!  What a dumbass!

Comments

[salavora.livejournal.com]

*ggg*
I am wondering what kind of trouble shooting this Network Engineer did in the first place...
But to think you can surf the internet, when you only have phone service *headdesk*

Just curious: Do many americans have issues with people that don't speak english with their particular accent?

[blondebeaker.livejournal.com]

I get a lot of "OH THANK GOD A LIVE PERSON IS TALKING TO ME!"

But not a lot of the foreign people issues at my job, so when I get one I laugh about it a lot because they want a supervisor....who are in the Philippines.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

But to think you can surf the internet, when you only have phone service *headdesk*

*stares at my external USR 33.6 modem*
Why yes. I think that you can. :)

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Do many americans have issues with people that don't speak english with their particular accent?

Speaking for a very small sample set (N=1), my problem with accents is entirely my own -- I have trouble understanding some of them. I suspect my brain is miswired, as I have trouble with accents that present no difficulty at all to anyone else in (for example) the meeting. The key is that I don't feel the need to blame my difficulty *on somebody else*, which seems to be the common response. The reasoning (such as it is) seems to go: "I don't understand this person. That makes me feel embarassed and a little stupid. Hey! They're making me feel stupid and embarassed! Assholes!"

Kinda sad, really.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Do many americans have issues with people that don't speak english with their particular accent?

Only problem I had was a call from the DEEP South, where someone asked if "Ya'll be a Yankee?"

"NO SIR I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT!" I said with full indignation in my voice. (I'm Canadian.).

"Whall then, ya'll be hall right then."

Slack-jawed talk aside, the guy was very intelligent and just needed information on propritary items to the company. One of my good calls. Although I did get a weird look from my Supervisor. ;-P

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

I used to, but growing up in a French and Portuguese community and then going to a university populated with lots of Chinese and Korean grad students largely cured me of that.

[amynnah.livejournal.com]

Do many americans have issues with people that don't speak english with their particular accent?

Naw... not all of us are dumber than a box of rocks that fell out of the stupid tree. Just... a sizeable chunk of the population. :(

Oh, and I live a short drive from the border of Canada, and people tell me I sound Canadian on Vent. /sighs. New York is not just a city.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

It's an added annoyance, particularly when it's really thick.

A lot of the issue is that nobody really wants to be stuck on the phone for half an hour with somebody reading a script to them; what they want is for somebody to come here and FIX THE DAMN THING FOR THEM. (They don't want "help", they want to transfer the responsibility for the problem to someone else.) A noticeable foreign accent exacerbates the irritation, because it puts a big heavy underline on the distance between the tech and the caller, when what they want is a tech HERE to FIX IT.

If you add in an accent that genuinely is difficult to understand, or worse, english skills that are perhaps "fluent" but not really up to par with normal conversation, it REALLY gets annoying. The tech and the customer already speak different languages, just due to one of them being a tech (or, worse, a know-nothing script-monkey) and the other being an end-user. Add in confusion over idiom and usage patterns, and you've just got a really bad scene.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like the standard response to someone that doesn't want to speak to a woman; we take the call, and go "yes... yes... I see... I will have to send this to a specialist, wait one", then get the woman on the line. XD

I love it when people start talking to me and my Canadian-accent-in-America, and then decide they want to be jokers. "Oh, so you're from Canada *3...2...1... EH!? HAHAHAHAHAHA *Yep, right on cue. So predictable.

I don't think he was lied to.

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

Let's face it, you can surf the internet using a dialup modem.

It's just not very fast.

--H

Re: I don't think he was lied to.

[snoopyh42.livejournal.com]

But not without a service provider...

Re: I don't think he was lied to.

[blondebeaker.livejournal.com]

This was a VOIP modem....for out phone service. No interwebs access!

[darkrose.livejournal.com]

Usually the ones who have a bunch of fancy letters after their names are the worst. At least with a complete an utter noob, you can fix the problem without the attitude.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Well, without as much attitude.

The worst is "Mrs. DOCTOR", who expect special treatment because she MARRIED a Doctor.

Sorry, Honey, you didn't get the degree yourself, the only "Special Treatment" you get from me is the Short Bus type.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I used to be the worlds biggest arsehole when BOFH'ing on graveyard. Unless shit was breaking or I had a lot of frankenputers to build, I got bored very quickly and would sometimes assign myself the normal tech queue just for something to do.

Every time I got a "OH THANK GOD I'M TALKING TO SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH" whiny shit, I'd reply with variations on "Everyone here speaks English. Perhaps you're looking for another company."you racist fuck (We were solely in Australia at the time, and everyone who worked there was an Australian resident. Fellow Aussies can tell you how wide the gamut of accents runs, especially in Melbourne.)

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

I get such a kick out of the stupid 'oh yay an American' people. Half the time, I pretend I'm British.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Apparently my Indian accent is bang on. Or so my friend (From India) said when I threw it on when he transfered a call to me. ;-P

Guy started complaining about outsourcing (We're in Canada, so, yeah, we're also outsourced) and I went back to my regular accent and told him that we're in "The Americas", which is true.

Hell, I could have told him we're in North America and still been accurate.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I used to like saying "Well, today we're in $streetname/$suburbname. It's not a bad place, really. Even got windows, desks, I hear there's a coffee machine somewhere. Pretty cool, actually. So, what's up?"

Totally throws off most people's rant buildup.

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Comcast

[canray.livejournal.com]

*Curls up on the ground, twitching and frothing at the mouth*

[blondebeaker.livejournal.com]

I assure you madam I do not work for Bombcast!

Mine rhymes with "harder"

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Somehow I've never had one of those. They usually ask me if I'm Canadian when I tell them that they can check their version number by clicking on Help -> Aboot About.

A couple of times I've had people ask why tech support is in Canada when the company is American. I just tell them the truth -- this program was originally developed right here in Toronto, and when an American company bought it they decided to keep the same development and support team in the same place.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

indefatigable42: "They usually ask me if I'm Canadian when I tell them that they can check their version number by clicking on Help -> Aboot About."

Thanks for the Sprite all over my monitor.

[krank-kether.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe I should demand I speak with Canadian tech support whenever I call any support line :oP

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Nemi! :D

[wibbble]

I loved those calls when I worked for Nokia.

Supervisors don't take calls, there's no real escalation channel, and the calls aren't recorded. I just hit the Big Red Button on the bastards after telling them that their racist comments were unacceptable.

Fuck 'em.