When you here the words, I'm not racist but.... often it means the opposite, but no, I am definitely not a racist.
Last week I nearly became one. I see in this mornings business news that Dell are to lay off 450 workers here in Ireland. Well last week if I had to get my hands on the asshole I was dealing with they would have only have to lay off 449. I stood on the screen of my laptop and rang them to buy a new one. I could not understand one single word the Indian I was talking to was saying. The only thing I could understand was that he had a sales drive like a Morrocan manning a leather stall at a Spanish market.
First thing he demanded my phone number which I gave him. Then he demanded my mobile and I gave him that. How am I going to pay? When I said credit card he went into overdrive. I told him to slow down, I wanted to ask him the build of a specific model and we established that the price included a battery that would last about twenty minutes after six months use. This annoyed him and he told me that he would give me the exact same computer with the highest amphere rated battery (one and a half hours - two hours) and I asked him what about the battery with the spec they are advertising that lasts up to six hours?
In the end I said I would look at all the specs again and come back to him or ring back sales later. He went balistic and kept on and on about what else he could do and I kept saying I would call back. That's when it started. My mobile phone rang. It's the Indian. I tell him I will ring him back and not to ring me again. For twenty five minutes he alternated calls between my mobile and landline, at one stage I answered the mobile and left it beside the speaker of the radio that was turned up but he just kept ending and redialling the call. In the end I told him I had logged a complaint with Rathfarnham Garda. I could go on about this but the next time you get a colour brochure that is always in your face, either through direct mailshots or in every paper you buy, think about the hassle you are going to get from a company who have been parading as an Irish one, with 450 Irish people that are not cheap enough for them to employ and a crowd of henchmen who have three different specs of battery for a simple laptop and who are in a majority of people that I can not understand speaking.
I am not a racist but....
Share your pain Bud - Had a similar experience earlier this year. The benefits of globalization
The cheap battery thing is a scam!
Bud in all fairness, if you hadn't made a transaction why on God's green earth would you simply give out both your mobile number and landline at the start of the conversation, that just seems crazy!!!!
I'm just off the phone to my credit card company - Marbles. The call was routed to India - i think. I couldn't understand a word the fella was saying. In the end we ended up conversing using the phonetic alphabet. Rediculous. A 2 minute call took 10 at least! That's L for Lima, E for Echo, A for Alpha, S for Seira, and T for Tango.
Quote from: Mac Eoghain on June 01, 2007, 09:03:34 AM
Sent you a PM there bud.
Offshoring contact centres is the pits.
By the way, I have a hilarious mp3 about a guy who phones up DELL support because he cant switch his mums laptop off. If you want a copy then pm me your email address. Alternatively, if you can host it then pm me too.
Cheers.
O
Ringing SKY I've had to resort to the phonetic alphabet several times and they still have my name spelt wrong. It is pretty frustrating. A few times I actually thought it was a wind up and a television crew would come round the corner.
To be fair to the Indian though, the Laois accent is a bastard to decipher.
I understand your grief,however.
1. Indian food is unreal, i love it.
2. Flew with air india once, the indian air hostesses are drop dead beautiful.
3. You can call an indian man a gombeen or a buggawn and he will smile back and say something like "one millions thank you"
4. Had a pakistani lad in my secondary school class, awful crack altogether in the science lab, he would go into the long box thing we called a workbench and we would hold him in there for double science, then he would be exempt for irish and sit at the back of the class snoring with the teacher going nuts.He was a genuine gas dude and was always up for a laugh.
5.You should should ask the telephone sales guy if he has any sisters, that soon stop the conversation and phone calls.
Quote from: mannix on June 01, 2007, 11:13:11 AM
I understand your grief,however.
1. Indian food is unreal, i love it.
2. Flew with air india once, the indian air hostesses are drop dead beautiful.
3. You can call an indian man a gombeen or a buggawn and he will smile back and say something like "one millions thank you"
4. Had a pakistani lad in my secondary school class, awful crack altogether in the science lab, he would go into the long box thing we called a workbench and we would hold him in there for double science, then he would be exempt for irish and sit at the back of the class snoring with the teacher going nuts.He was a genuine gas dude and was always up for a laugh.
5.You should should ask the telephone sales guy if he has any sisters, that soon stop the conversation and phone calls.
:o :o :o :o :o
Quote from: Orior on June 01, 2007, 09:28:49 AM
By the way, I have a hilarious mp3 about a guy who phones up DELL support because he cant switch his mums laptop off. If you want a copy then pm me your email address. Alternatively, if you can host it then pm me too.
This is it I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSaDXVRSIbo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSaDXVRSIbo)
I wonder who put it up on You Tube? I doubt that it was the inbred with sh#t for brains calling support.
I'm with the caller. Everyone knows what it's like to sit on hold for an hour and then get some couldn't-care-less, bored-sounding so-and-so interrogating you for all your phone numbers and your email address and where you buy your socks, when all you have is a simple question that doesn't depend on who or where you are. And it's not intuitive that you hold the power button down for ten seconds.
Of course, he should have read the manual. Or had someone read it to him.
Do you think he would have enough cop to record his marathon session with Dell support and then upload it to You Tube?
With Sky you usually get someone from Scotland, really hard to understand and shake off. I've moved to Chorus recently, customer service is still crap but at least when you do get through to someone its ususlly an Irish wan.
I'm not racist either but I'd still rather be a Pakistani than a Jackeen or a Langer.
QuoteWith Sky you usually get someone from Scotland, really hard to understand and shake off
Correction - you ususally get an Indian with a semi Scottish accent!
I hate dealing with Dell. I had problems witrh my laptop and was put through to some Indian, I couldnt understand her and she couldnt understand me. I wanted to be put through to the area to sort out a problem with my laptop and she put me through to the sales department. Luckily in the end I ended up talking to some lad with an Ulster accent, and while he couldnt sort out the problem he was a great help. I had another problem with Dell soon after that though when once again I was put through to some Indian lad.
To be honest I hate having to deal with foreigners that dont understand the language. If they can speak proper English then no problem, I dont mind. But when they dont know what your looking for and get confused when you try to explain it really annoys me. Or when they mix orders up...The sad thing is anytime these facts are pointed out you always get some PC idiot who disagrees with you because your "racist" even if your right.
QuoteCorrection - you ususally get an Indian with a semi Scottish accent
should try living in dundee with an irish accent, thick fcukers dont understand what your saying, right enough i cant understand alot of them, and glaswegians are desperate altogether
Leave the indians alone . I have 3 of them paying my Mortgage Lovely people. always pay on time never quibble overbills could not parise them enough. AS for those PAK...........
BTW when i ring Sky i always get a scot with the most wonderful clear accent you can imagine.
on the other habd Spring soft water company ring me about once a week fron a call center in india and just wont take no for an answer so i just stay silent untill they hang up .
My own private war
The India Call Centre for BT Yahoo was driving me at the beginning of the week, so I share your pain.
I'm not a racist.
QuoteBTW when i ring Sky i always get a scot with the most wonderful clear accent you can imagine
Count your blessings.
The Indians could't be any worse than the ones who work in the Vodaphone call centre in Dundalk
Imaaaaaagine wha' dey soun' like heeeeey
Quote from: ONeill on June 01, 2007, 10:46:42 AM
To be fair to the Indian though, the Laois accent is a bastard to decipher.
:D Funny coz it's true
could be worse, they could be staffef by Belfast millies. Imagine it, sitting at their desks in the jammies, hooped earrings that you put round your waist, chewing chewing gum loudly down the phone, intermittently blowing bubbles and banging them, then twirling it round their finger, blond hair, fake tan making them look like ompa lumpas. "Wat did ya say misser"
im not racist either but i just cant understand them indians, pakistanis etc at all so rather than try and talk to them and understand what they want i just hang up.
I was contacted the other day via a scottish call centre and while the call was to do with banking standards and services offered etc. the operator managed, with my help, to talk his way round from banking to cars, and how diesel is better over petrol and some potential premiership transfers.
All in all not a bad phone call.
Just happens that some accents happen to be more difficult to decipher than others. One of the main problems here in Ireland, north & south, is that most of us would not talk to people very often who are either from or are second generation Indian sub-continent. Therefore the strong accent that most of them would have when speaking in English can be hard to understand when you're not used to it.
I was calling Orange last week about a tarrif change on a mobile phone of mine & I remember the last time I called them I had an operator who was near unintelligible, so was a bit apprehensive this time but thankfully this guy I talked to was a lot clearer to hear and speak to. Also some UK operators have similar accents - one time I was on the phone to a Birmingham office whereby a woman was on the phone whose accent was hard to make sense of for me.
Some "native" accents can be difficult for others to make sense of. Very often foreign visitors & workers often mention that most Irish people speak much quicker than over in Britain, and in places like Ballymena and Strabane you crank it up even further. The BBC at one time in the 90's was going to relocate their central complaints office from London to Belfast. Could you imagine some lad from the Home Counties of England ringing up, gets speaking to a man from West Belfast & gets an earful of "Whata 'ye whingin aboot now?"!
I hate the fact that these call centres (where ever there are abroad) are taking jobs away from Irish people and English, Scottish and Welsh. Also they are seriously hard to understand, theres something comforting about speaking to someone with an understandable accent, especially when you consider that most of the time you are calling one of these places its because of a problem!
But jezuz lads this thread is starting to sound seriously racist! :o
The race issue is a red herring here. If I worked in a call centre for French callers, using my Leaving Cert level of the language, it certainly wouldn't be a good level of service. The customers would be entitled to expect better. I wouldn't label anyone who expressed dissatisfaction with this a racist.
Outsourcing to places like India, while cheap has plenty of drawbacks. I know of a couple of IT related companies who tried it and it backfired on them. The poorer quality of work more than undid any cost savings made. If you let your bank or service provider know that you aren't happy with the standard of service, then they might rectify it. By looking for better language skills when hiring or else locating in countries where English is the primary language.
Obviously it's probably taboo to complain about such things. I'm guessing the only people who do so probably do it for racially motivated reasons. So the companies assume that apart from a few crackpots, people are happy enough with the cheap level of service.
QuoteBut jezuz lads this thread is starting to sound seriously racist!
To be fair this is a thread about pathetic customer service.
But as it concerns Indian call centres people feel they have to tippy toe around the situation. Something they wouldn't do if they got crap service from someone with an Irish accent.
Something I'm sure multinational companies love as it glosses over their absymal service.
Quote from: ziggysego on June 01, 2007, 02:35:36 PM
The India Call Centre for BT Yahoo was driving me at the beginning of the week, so I share your pain.
I'm not a racist.
BT have a call center in Dublin , just ring the chairmans office and say your no speaking with "off shore" anymore . Most company's do have call centers here or in the UK as 2nd line when people get pissed off. Just make your feelings known, call the complaints line and demand to speak to a Irish/UK tech/sales agent
A lot of Indians have recently moved into my building and l have found them to be generally an unfriendly bunch, they rarely if ever respond to my greetings, they dont integrate and the smell of onions cooking at 8 in the morning is not too nice.
ls this racist? A matter of opinion l suppose..
But what if they were say, Welsh! And l was to call them a shower of smelly Taffys..is that racist? Whats the difference?
It's not that hard to learn to speak Indian. I learned it from the comics when I was a nipper.
How! Big chief's laptop have-um big heap bootmark on um-screen. Me need-um medicine-man to fixum.
Quote from: Hardy on June 02, 2007, 03:34:58 PM
It's not that hard to learn to speak Indian. I learned it from the comics when I was a nipper.
How! Big chief's laptop have-um big heap bootmark on um-screen. Me need-um medicine-man to fixum.
:D :D :D :D
Working in IT I've worked with a lot of Indians and have always had decent enough working relationships with them. Their culture is vastly different so it is interesting to know where they came from, arranged marriages etc, but once you find out different cultures some are hard to relate to.
The ones over in Belfast in my experience always gather among themselves. In my time working we've had a few go on the beer but not too many with the funniest episode being one doing john travolta pulp fiction style dancing at the christmas do and hitting on the most senior woman in the office.
They do seem however to eat nothing but curry. This does mean they sweat curry which means they don't smell the best which is a pain when you're working closely with them and has led to some awful messes in the toilets... It's generally only afternoon time though. One who I was continually developing software with so sitting pretty closely beside kept burping almost in my face so some manners would be needed among some of them!
As for work standard I have yet to find a happy medium. They either are shit hot or know absolutely buck all and are lazy as sin.
They're like anyone else - some are grand some aren't. I often wonder what they think of us. I'd say they think we talk too much,question things too much, drink too much, spend too much money, eat too much and get paid too much!!
QuoteThe ones over in Belfast in my experience always gather among themselves.
Classic ghettoisation. The best example in Belfast would be the hordes of culchie students that infest the Holylands.
Quote from: Gaoth Dobhair Abu on June 02, 2007, 01:01:33 AM
I hate the fact that these call centres (where ever there are abroad) are taking jobs away from Irish people and English, Scottish and Welsh. Also they are seriously hard to understand, theres something comforting about speaking to someone with an understandable accent, especially when you consider that most of the time you are calling one of these places its because of a problem!
But jezuz lads this thread is starting to sound seriously racist! :o
Considering Dell, IBM, Gateway and others are US companies, the outsourcing would be taking jobs away from the US first then taking away from the western european countries after that. Welcome to the world of globalization.
Quote from: Fluffy Che on June 02, 2007, 01:34:53 PM
A lot of Indians have recently moved into my building and l have found them to be generally an unfriendly bunch, they rarely if ever respond to my greetings, they dont integrate and the smell of onions cooking at 8 in the morning is not too nice.
ls this racist? A matter of opinion l suppose..
But what if they were say, Welsh! And l was to call them a shower of smelly Taffys..is that racist? Whats the difference?
I'd say both are equally racist. Look at the bother Anne Robinson got into ;)
Defination of Racist
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
Race is defined as:
a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.
2. a population so related.
3. Anthropology. a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.
4. a group of tribes or peoples forming an ethnic stock: the Slavic race.
5. any people united by common history, language, cultural traits, etc.: the Dutch race.
6. the human race or family; humankind: Nuclear weapons pose a threat to the race.
7. Zoology. a variety; subspecies.
8. a natural kind of living creature: the race of fishes.
9. any group, class, or kind, esp. of persons: Journalists are an interesting race.
10. the characteristic taste or flavor of wine.
–adjective 11. of or pertaining to the races of humankind.
All above from dictionary.reference.com
so, if you "Dislike" certain counties because that are inbred are you a racist?