[OT] Outsourcing [ was Re: Legal aspects ]

[Ted Ozolins]

Chong Yu Meng wrote:

>> to India. The s**t has hit the fan when someone leaked this to the 
>> media. I am partially, no make that DEAF. I have
>> had phone calls where the person I speak to has an Indian like 
>> accent, or even phillipino, where it is broad enough
>> for me to be intelligable, especially when its a local call within Oz 
>> and you expect an Aussie to answer. I also had
>> troble with them at the other end not understanding the rather broad 
>> Oz accent either. It usually ends up with me
>> angry and frustrated, so I broaden the accent and use more 
>> slang/colloquial words than before. No one benefits.
>>
>
> LOL ! That's really funny ! Actually I sometimes find it hard to 
> understand them on the phone. In person, it's a little easier because 
> you can sometimes get the gist of what they are saying from the body 
> language, but sometimes ... not.
>
> I was posted to India for a few weeks, many years ago, to train the 
> engineers on some hardware products my company was selling. One thing 
> that offended me when I was there was the way they shake their head 
> from side to side -- which means "yes" to them, but in my culture it 
> is a sign of sketicism. So there I was giving a lecture and all my 
> students seemed to doubt every word I was saying !
>
> Regards,
> pascal chong
>
Whenever I encounter information/help serviced staffed with people 
having strong accents who are difficult to communicate with I ask them 
to please enunciate the words so that I can understand what it is they 
are saying.  If they carry on without giving even an attempt to clarify 
their speech, I hang up. I was not born in Canada, my parents are from 
Latvia, escaped at the end of WWII to Sweden  where I was born. I spent 
hours in libraries listening to audio recording and practicing to 
pronounce each word correctly so I would sound like the rest of the kids 
at school "when in Rome". Its a matter of effort, and if anyone 
supplying a service doesn't think it worth the extra time to learn a 
language properly then they shouldn't be pretending to be a service 
company. I use to do avionic tech support where I had on many occasions 
deal with people from all over the world. There I expect to be talking 
with someone with various accents. When I call a North American 
company's tech support and some twit answers the phone who can not speak 
English properly is unacceptable. 

-- 
Ted Ozolins(VE7TVO)
Westbank, B. C