Don't Let Them Take What's Yours.....

Joe, co-CEO of Office Tiger in Chennai, India

I wrote here a bit about having a lot of computer issues over the past week or so. I needed some time to think about one element of it though. To solve the problems, I had to call Earthlink multiple times to get the dial-up established. It's a temporary measure - for more reasons than one.

My call was forwarded, of course, to a call center in Chennai, India. The people were certainly nice and tried to be helpful but that' s not the point of this post.

The point can be summarized in this short sentence: Shame on Earthlink!

The call center is not just a call center. It is Office Tigers which is an American corporation that hires hundreds of young Indian men and women to provide telephone support to American customers.

The first thing that happens to these young people is that they are stripped of their names. Raj and Praya become Spencer and Jessica. It is a condition of employment.

They are not allowed to wear their native clothing. Instead, they have to adopt western business dress. The men wear slacks, white shirts and ties. The women have a bit more latitude but they are still discouraged from wearing saris.

They have "pump 'em up" meetings, pushing American corporate values of efficiency and profit uber alles. Again, attending the meetings is a job requirement.

Being who I am, I can't keep my mouth shut. While talking with one technical support person, I told her that I was aware that she couldn't respond to my comments but to please listen.

I said, "Don't let them take what's yours". I told her that I know India is a beautiful country with a wonderful, deep and rich culture. I asked her to not lose herself in that job. Enough said.

She was silent for perhaps 15 seconds or so. She said, "You are the first American who has ever said that."

I told her about having seen the documentary and that I was very aware of the practices of Office Tigers. I also told her that cultural respect is something important to me.

She helped me solve the problem I was having and we hung up. But I know I made an impression.

I think it's extremely socially irresponsible of Earthlink and other companies that are using a service that strips human beings of their names, their customs and their culture.

Shame on you, Earthlink!

I'm not happy about being an Earthlink customer right now. As soon as I can get something else, I'll dump it like yesterday's garbage.

Maybe it's time to start speaking up about this kind of thing. Most of us are annoyed when we reach a foreign country for customer support and technical services but it goes a bit deeper than that. The people are being treated like chattel. They are being treated like property, as though their sole purpose in existence is to be pleasing to their American overlords.

That's not acceptable in this day and age.

And another thought: Don't Americans need those jobs?

While I don't usually support the idea of boycotts, I do in this case. Earthlink and all the rest of them need to lose their customers until they bring the jobs back to the US ~ and at the very minimum, boycott Office Tiger!






~*

A Kreng Jai Challenge....

In getting ready for my surgical appointment on Monday, I had to get a few prescriptions. Nothing serious, just little things that will make it easier for the surgeon to poke my eyeball and do his magic.

I went into Target and found out that my Medicare card doesn't match my Blue Cross RX Gold card.

(sigh)

The plan I chose for my "Part D" coverage is the Blue Cross RX Gold plan which is supposed to guarantee me a co-pay of $3.10 on any and all prescriptions.

Here's the Cliff Notes of how that came to be. After this, I'll get to the point of this rambling.

Medicare notified Blue Cross that they (BC) will be responsible for my Part D coverage as I am a low-income recipient of benefits. The "Gold" part of the plan was of my choosing. I pay a small premium for the upgrade. It includes more drugs in the formulary than the basic plan and the co-pay is considerably lower. I didn't get to choose the insurance company (basically a third party administrator for Medicare ~ confused yet?) that would provide my coverage.

Somewhere between Medicare and Blue Cross, someone didn't update a database so I was not "in the system". (If I ever hear that phrase again, I'm going to vomit!) When the pharmacist went to submit my claim, it came back as my not having any Part D coverage. The pharmacist told me that I would have to pay cash for the antibiotic eyedrops because of this error. He told me to call Medicare.

I should have known! Get on the bus to Call Center Hell.

Medicare told me to call Blue Cross. Blue Cross told me to call Medicare. Medicare volleyed me back to Blue Cross ~ and on we go. I spent 5.5 hours Friday afternoon on the phone.

Finally I got a supervisor at Medicare who made a few phone calls to Blue Cross on her own. "After all, we have a bigger bat," she said.

Well... ermm... yeah. Okay. After 5.5 hours on the phone, she could have told me she had a hotline to Jesus Christ and I would have believed her.

As a result of her conversation with BC, the problem was to be fixed by 1.00 PM on Saturday. I was given a tracking number and supposedly "inside" phone number.

The "inside phone number" was just the Customer Service line and none of the representatives knew what to do with the Help Desk tracking number.

How hard can it be to update a freaking database? It's not that bloody complicated! It's one command on a command line after a search through the beneficiary archives!

Looking at yet another marathon of phone calls, I lost it.

Just plain lost it. My housemates heard me and came to find out what was wrong. I don't think they've ever heard me yell before.

While managing to make it clear to the representative that I was not angry at her but at the situation, I let loose with some invective that would have put Howard Stern to shame. I managed to avoid the f-bomb but make no claims beyond that.

I'm hardly proud of it. It wasn't funny or cute. It was hurtful and damaging to the woman on the other end of the phone who had to hear it. For that part, I am truly sorry. I am ashamed by my lack of self-control and make no excuses because there are none, particularly for one who gives plenty of lip-service to traditional Thai values.

What I am not sorry for is that if my conversations with more than twenty people will cause Blue Cross to take a look at what falls through the cracks and the larger implications, my frustration was worth it. If I had been someone who needed ~ say, heart medication or something else life-sustaining rather than just some stupid antibiotic eye drops, I could be dead this morning. If I'd been someone who required medication for a child, that child could be dead or seriously ill.

There is absolutely no excuse for these kinds of errors.

I ended up paying cash for the eye drops. What if I hadn't had the money?


Peace,


~Chani

Comcast and the Call Center Universe....

There's something else I'd rather talk about than having heard the interview on radio this morning.

When I first got up, I wandered out to the computer room with my eyes half closed and my usual stumbling around like I'm drunk routine. Glancing over at the computer, I noticed that there were only 20 emails waiting which is about one fifth (okay.. no more drinking references) of what I usually have.

The Internet was down.

I have Comcast High Speed and there has only been one time when it had anything to do with our network here. It's usually an area-wide outage.

I got on the phone. Not always the best idea when I first wake up. If I'm going to be cranky, it's always first thing. Getting up, being half blind and trying to orient myself to time and place is a challenge. I admit it.

After getting through the multi-layered call distribution system (yes, I want to speak English, yes, my Internet is down, yes, I booted my modem, yes, I rebooted my system.. you bloody bastard!), punching ones and twos and using the f-word a time or two, I finally got a human being, a real person and he was in this country.

Glory be! Blessings abound!

I told him the situation and he suggested a few things to me. I tried them. Still no Internet. He told me that he could send out a technician tomorrow.

"Not an option," I said. One of my housemates is a tax preparer and she needs the Internet to e-file for her clients.

We went 'round and 'round about that for a few minutes and he finally flicked a switch or something. For some reason, he was able to find me an appointment for this morning.

Glory be!

But the interesting thing about this interaction is that we began chatting off-topic. Since I know something about call centers, I told him to turn off the recording device since I know supervisors listen in unless the customer says he or she does not want to be recorded.

He caught on. He's a sharp .. dare I say it? ... dude.

He told me how he had been an executive level credit department manager until a few years ago when his company outsourced. He lost his job. His wife is ill. His son was murdered a few years ago.

This guy has tolerated more in 3 years than most of us can tolerate in a lifetime!

He's 60 years old. Due to corporate outsourcing, he has lost his pension, lost his house in Southern California and now finds himself in West Texas working at some lousy call center for 9.00 an hour.

"That's just plain wrong," I said. "It's worse than wrong. It's amoral!"

He knew what I was saying and we continued talking in an unspoken code. He knew I understood his situation and he knew how incensed I was about it. He appreciated the understanding. I could tell. It was something in his voice.

"How's your wife doing with all this," I asked.

He told me that his wife has had a very hard time accepting the death of their son. She's attempted suicide more than once.

She's bipolar.

She's trying to get SSDI.

SSDI would make their world such a better place to live. Even a measly $1500.00 a month on her end would make his salary and her income into a liveable financial situation. As he said, "At least I could take her out to dinner occasionally."

I should mention here that I am a fairly decent judge of character and I believed every word this guy said.

I asked about his wife's SSDI process and how far along she's gotten, etc. He told me.

When I went through that process, I had an advocate. I recommend it to anyone who has to go through it. He had no idea how to get one for his wife.

"I'll do it," I said. I still don't know where that came from! It was instinct. I will call her on the phone and I will walk her through the process.

At any rate, I told him to stop talking, pick up a pen and get ready to write. I gave him my personal email address. He wrote it down. I told him to write me soon and I would talk with his wife, give her some pointers on how to deal with the Social Security folks.

After all they've been through, they deserve a break. Truly. I believe that! If I was rich, it wouldn't be an issue. I'd more than gladly write them a check every month.

Meanwhile, my stomach is still burning with disgust and fury over the way corporations are permitted to treat employees. Like Kali enticing us to the rocky coast, they paint a beautiful picture and then lead us straight to disaster. It is immoral. And it's amoral. And it's unacceptable.

There's got to be a special place in hell....


Peace,


~Chani