Bangalore calling
Today was one of those difficult days. I spent hours on the phone, at lo-call rates on a Saturday. The reason: my Broadband connection seems to have gone bananas and refuses to recognise me. It will probably cost me a fortune, but I am happy to be back online tonight.
With difficulty, I contacted the support services and got through to a polite man in a call centre. After we had been through all the troubleshooting operations, I asked him if he was speaking from India. Well - he had an Indian accent and I could hear other people in the background also speaking Indian-accented English.
No, he assured me, he was in Dublin. After an hour, we had done everything we could do except say a prayer together. He told me to disconnect the filter and check it, by plugging in directly to the phone line. Well it wasn't the filter that was broken this time; since I taped it to the wall, it doesn't get trodden on anymore. Then suddenly the computer connected - brilliant, except it disconnected shortly thereafter.
Call #2. Another Indian accent, this time in a tiny voice I could hardly hear. He claimed my browser was at fault and I had to give up on him, because I simply could not hear his instructions and I grew embarrassed asking him repeatedly to speak up. I was beginning to feel like a tetchy memsahib.
Call #3. Furious at having tried all the permutations of my name and password and still nothing doing. Yet another Indian gentleman. While we ran through his bag of tricks - and he did have some new ideas and a good loud voice to go with them, I asked whether he was in Bangalore. No, no - Dublin,-- Dublin 3, he insisted. I tried to think of a way to catch him out but failed.
He stripped out all the silly passwords and usernames and now my computer goes straight online as soon as I log on. Bliss - if only it lasts. According to Indian #2, the ISP set-up here is to blame for the local problem we are experiencing, especially in the morning. In other words, our mainframe system is buckling under the strain of the number of users on it.
When I was in Bangalore, many years ago, it was a quiet market town, but I met a man who described how it was about to become the centre of Indian, or even international, commerce. I didn't believe him for a minute.
With difficulty, I contacted the support services and got through to a polite man in a call centre. After we had been through all the troubleshooting operations, I asked him if he was speaking from India. Well - he had an Indian accent and I could hear other people in the background also speaking Indian-accented English.
No, he assured me, he was in Dublin. After an hour, we had done everything we could do except say a prayer together. He told me to disconnect the filter and check it, by plugging in directly to the phone line. Well it wasn't the filter that was broken this time; since I taped it to the wall, it doesn't get trodden on anymore. Then suddenly the computer connected - brilliant, except it disconnected shortly thereafter.
Call #2. Another Indian accent, this time in a tiny voice I could hardly hear. He claimed my browser was at fault and I had to give up on him, because I simply could not hear his instructions and I grew embarrassed asking him repeatedly to speak up. I was beginning to feel like a tetchy memsahib.
Call #3. Furious at having tried all the permutations of my name and password and still nothing doing. Yet another Indian gentleman. While we ran through his bag of tricks - and he did have some new ideas and a good loud voice to go with them, I asked whether he was in Bangalore. No, no - Dublin,-- Dublin 3, he insisted. I tried to think of a way to catch him out but failed.
He stripped out all the silly passwords and usernames and now my computer goes straight online as soon as I log on. Bliss - if only it lasts. According to Indian #2, the ISP set-up here is to blame for the local problem we are experiencing, especially in the morning. In other words, our mainframe system is buckling under the strain of the number of users on it.
When I was in Bangalore, many years ago, it was a quiet market town, but I met a man who described how it was about to become the centre of Indian, or even international, commerce. I didn't believe him for a minute.
posted by ruth @ 3:24 PM
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