An absence of humanity..

This is probably going to end up on my other work in progress travel blog when I finally get a name for it.. but here's another joy of being overseas and trying to make simple things work.

Despite having used my mobile several times this morning, about 2 hours ago it completely died on me, and refused to believe that any cellphone networks existed in the UK. So, after much resetting, swapping of SIM cards and confirming that everything's okay with the phone and it's just the SIM that's messed up, I caved and called T-Mobile USA customer service...

First of all I get a stupid automated voice system, that doesnt understand any variation of "my phone is f*cked". The conversation went much like this:

T-Mobile woman: "Tell me what service you'd like?"

Me: "My cell phone wont connect to a network"

T-Mobile woman: "I'm sorry, I didnt understand that, tell me what service you'd like?"

Me: "Network problems"

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry I cant give out billing details through this system, is there another service you'd like?"

Me: (sigh) "My cell phone wont connect"

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry, I'm having trouble understanding you, please tell me what service you'd like, for example, how many minutes do I have left"

Me: (sobbing) "there's no network... please help..."

T-Mobile: "I'm sorry I'm having so much trouble understanding you, let me pass you onto an operator"

Me: (still sobbing)

Eventually an operator comes on, I give her my account details, and she goes through the system.. then says "what can I help you with today". I explain im in the UK and roaming, that I cant connect to a network, I explain that I've tried manually selecting a network, swapping the sim with a different phone and so far nothing's worked. So, for the sake of process she asks me to just try a manual network selection again, at which point I pick up my phone to find out whilst I've been screaming at a voicemail system it's fixed itself, and is happily telling me it has 4 bars of service on the O2 network, and that I have voicemail. B*stards.

I'm convinced there's some guy in bangladesh or some obscure country laughing his arse off over the whole thing. Just like all those times I've been asking for phone numbers from automated systems where "PC Warehouse" sounds like "George's El-Paco farm". Bah.

It's not just the customer service angle either, even in my own company I'm not free of it.. yesterday I wanted to connect to the internal wireless network but I'd lost the document with the config in.. so I called the helpdesk, sure enough I get some woman in Budapest with an accent thick as syrup, that takes a staggering 5 times to get my last name spelled correctly. Then she ignores what my problem is, logs a call and insists that somebody at the local Milton Keynes office physically comes to look at my PC and configure it for me.. ignoring me sobbing quietly in the back ground saying "I just want you to email me the document... please?!". Thing is, I know for a fact that as soon as she escalated it to a desk visit, rather than listening to what the problem was, that cost us almost $350 as a company, whereas some kind of knowledge base and a new email from her with the attached document would have eliminated most of that expense.

So I'm wondering now.. with all this overseas helpdesk activity, and offshoring, nearshoring and rightshoring, whatever you want to call it, has it actually resulted in a genuine cost saving, because I seem to now have to spend 3 times as much time with the helpdesk than usual!