This Is This

I’ve been watching Heroes, where ordinary people with extraordinary lives can do extraordinary things.

There’s the cop who can get himself promoted and save his marriage, the politician who practically lives with his mother but no one thinks it’s dodgy, a Japanese guy who can learn English in three weeks, a heroin addict with a massive apartment in Manhattan and Mr Teasmade who can bring water to the boil just by touching a glass.

There are others, but as I understand it, the whole “Find The Heroes” operation was outsourced to bloke in India. He was better educated than most American agents and probably cheaper, so he was allowed to carry out his research funded by money from the west. Then he died, but instead of moving back to the States and creating jobs where all the heroes seem to be in the first place, his son took over.

In the US, union pressure demanded that some agents had to be based in-country, so they ran a domestic operation out the back of a paper factory in Texas, but really the bulk of the work is done by the dead guy’s son, a mild mannered chap with an English accent and an excellent telephone manner. Nepotism and outsourcing - nice.

Of course, when the shit starts hitting the fan they don’t expand the US operation, they bring the guy in from India to the US where he continues to work separately from the mainland operation, using his father’s old office space, again saving on overheads and setup costs.

Meanwhile, everyone in the US office seems to be a manager. It’s a cautionary tale and a modern fable of “too many chiefs, too many Indians”.

My bank has outsourced its calling centre to India. I promise you this - I called the other day and was asked: “And how are you spelling Jones?”

Um, the same way you are spelling Jones. I felt like asking them how they are spelling three hundred and seventy five pounds and fifty three pence.

Thinking about it, I really should have. For my records.

Why can’t I have records? Why can’t they object to likeminded customers contacting them from time to time with queries that might be of interest? Why can’t my system go down? I have a system. Why can’t I record calls for security and training purposes?

T-W-A-T-S. Twats.

Also on This Is This
I offer the breeze a customary blindfold and cigarette and put the whistle to my lips.
Read this post...

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.