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I hate overseas call centres.
In the past, I've had problems with the people I was speaking to being unable to understand the basic nature of the problem I was calling them about, because:
a) they didn't speak English very well
b) they had patently been trained by, and largely for, people with American accents, and they had extra problems with understanding an Australian accent
c) also, the weird hybrid American-Indian accent is hard for ME to understand
Whereas the one I just dealt with in Manila had people who were frustrating, yet also jerks.
I used to work in a call centre. I feel like *such* an asshole for generalising about call centre operatives based on dealing with just a couple of their reps, but at the same time: I don't care.
The thing about in-country call centres is that they're generally competent in Australian English (yes, we had people with foreign accents, but all of them spoke fluent English), and when I have a problem, I always find it gets sorted better by Australians.
For example, when I was at the service centre for my laptop yesterday, the woman I was dealing with was Chinese, in origin and accent, but she was a Chinese-origin Australian, which meant she was helpful within the bounds of what could possibly be done, not the "this is what the rules say, and I will get angry with you if you question them or have a problem with the precise process our rules say" I was getting from the call centre people in Manila.
Australians tend to be flexible, in any case (my experience in America is that American service people are very polite, but less flexible about problem-solving than Australians; then again, my experience in America was that a lot of American people are, by Australian standards, unbelievably rude to people in service positions), and think more in terms of "solving the problem" than "following the procedure".
Overseas call centres are inflexible. This isn't, I don't think, even a cultural variation thing - from my time in the world of the call centre industry, I know that the overseas ones are outsourced, run on the cheap, and the people working in them just have a rule set they are given and don't have any options beyond that. In the Australian call centre industry, even if you're outsourced, your management have regular, direct contact with the management of the company you're contracted to, and there's more scope for being a better extension of that company. You know more of what you can and can't do, and you're not communicating with people of a different culture.
Which *does* make a difference, I think - all the subtle differences matter.
Or maybe it's just Australians are so likable. I know that when I was in America, despite being a fat chick in Southern California, everyone I dealt with seemed to think I was great, and service people loved me. I got *fantastic* service pretty much everywhere I was getting service of any kind. The reason being, as far as I could tell, the simple fact that I treated service people like human beings. The Americans I was with were often bemused by how much waiters and waitresses liked me - I think it was just the fact that I made eye contact, asked politely when I ordered and thank you when they brought me things, all the sorts of things that are basic, elementary courtesy when in Australia and that I just didn't see Americans doing.
In Australia, people in service positions are people, doing a job, in which they help you with stuff.
In America, they're servants, apparently.
Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm mostly just feeling kind of stressed, I think. Not as bad as yesterday. Yesterday I was pretty bad. I had to call Chas while I was out, because I had lost my will to live and bought a knife for slitting my wrists and I had a fairly strong feeling that I needed to call him and get help.
I was far, far away. I did make it home, although that involved a measure of retail therapy, which is not usually my style. I bought a DVD (Absolute Power, series 2), and also a mobile broadband starter kit and, uh, a EEE PC. (A cheap one. But still.)
Buying the EEE PC: The problem, you see, that I'd realised is that I'm deeply, profoundly uncomfortable using someone else's computer, especially if they might be wanting it, and if I need to do serious work. I don't like things not being set up to my tastes and feeling like I can't mess around with settings, etc.
So now I have this. When I get my regular laptop back, this won't suddenly become useless. It will be my secondary computer, that's small and light (my laptop is a 17" widescreen; it's large and heavy, which is sometimes inconvenient) and I can take it with me when I'm going places I want to travel light, and when I'm going places I don't want to risk my regular laptop.
It also has longer battery life.
This, plus mobile broadband, is also my reassurance against getting lost; I can look up directions and bus timetables from anywhere. (I can also, potentially, work on transcriptions conveniently from anywhere, because that shit is time-consuming and annoying...)
Meanwhile, I installed the latest version of Firefox (putting IE to its traditional use: downloading Firefox, then never willingly loading it again) and discovered this "certificate unsigned" shit that, according to my googling, has no fix. HELLO THUNDERBIRD YOU WILL BE SAVING ME FROM HAVING TO USE WEBMAIL NAO. Because gmail throws up warnings, and I've set up exceptions, but trying to get to the webmail for my other e-mail address... urgh, seriously, no.
Only problem today, other than mental breakdown: my touchpad has mysteriously stopped working. Mouse control is working fine with the USB mouse I put in in case it did work because I'm doing a couple of things I don't want to interrupt. It's weird.
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