The Asia Pages pointed me to this WP article about how tough it is for Indian customer service workers to deal with racist Americans who want to deal with Americans.
I agree that the Indians aren’t to blame for wanting to use their English skills to feed their families. But I have to tell the lame-asses who hired them: Indians accents are hard to understand! Even as someone who has lived abroad (though not in India) and who deals with shitty accents for a living, I have to ask the customer service people to repeat themselves almost every sentence. I’ve had a few customer service experiences where the person was in India but easy enough to understand and sometimes even friendly, but 7 times out of 10 (I’ve had to call customer service a lot lately) I feel like I’m lost in a foreign country.
We’ve been screwed so hard by companies in the customer service department that I’m not even going to bother asking for courtesy anymore. They can be complete assholes as long as the problem gets solved. But I don’t think it’s racist or too much to ask to speak with a customer service representative that actually speaks my language. I’m not the typical moron who needs everything explained step by step, but if there is no manual included with the product I buy (and there’s usually not) and it’s not working I need someone to tell me what’s wrong with it. And if possible I’d like to understand it the first time it’s said. That is all.
The Indian accent is very harsh sounding and spoken fast without inflection. No, actually the Indian language is very harsh sounding. I though German was bad but at least I can tolerate it. Sorry, I too have had to say to an Indian speaking English “I didn’t understand a word you said”. They don’t have my business.
Your posts have come a lonnnnnnnnng way over the last 5 years Adamu.
I stand by my argument!
Not that you’re wrong…. just that you’ve become more…. subtle?