Time For A Rant...

There I was last night sitting here checking my e-mails and sending a few when all of a sudden I get chucked out of it. Wierd. So I log back in, or at least try to. Turns out my e-mail address has been locked. Nice one.

Now as you do I went to the help page on-line to try and find out what is going on and how to fix it. It was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. The damn help page asks you to e mail them telling them what the problem is. You see the difficulty I might have doing that don't you?

So I resort to the telephone helpline (daylight robbery at 50p per minute) and I am met by an Asian woman who tells me to dial a different number. So I do and am met by another Asian woman telling me the same thing, ring another number. So I do. To cut the story short simply repeat the Asian woman and call another number thing by 7.

Eventually I get through to an Asian man who tells me to send an e-mail. "What fucking part of I can't get into the e-mail to send you one do you not understand?" The penny drops and he directs me to a help page where I can send a direct e-mail.

He advises me my e-mail is not suspended temporarily for maintenance so I must have breached the terms and conditions of use. "Try to remember the last e-mail you sent...it would have been that one that caused the lock". I think back. I remember it clearly. It was a message to my mate asking her how the kids and her Husband was. Here it is in full...

Hey you,

long time no speak. How's Chris and the kids? Hope everyone is doing ok. Drop me a line.

Jenny xx

Now it seems fairly innocent to me but obviously to Wanadoo it read something like...

Hey Osama,

Long time since you saw any action man, How's the plans for bombing the western world into oblivion coming along, hope it's all going to plan. Let me know when you need me to help.

Jenny xx

I mean honestly...you can see it, "Bloody hell it's a coded message from Jenny in Scotland, she's got terrorist links quick shut her account down". I fully expect the anti-terrorist squad at the door any minute, or maybe the paedophile police or drugs squad.

So if Mr Asian technical help man is to be believed I am not allowed to use my e mail account to send inoocent messages to friends across the globe. It is of course perfectly acceptable to send porn attachments, humour taking the piss out of all minorities, religions and cultures but a simple "hello, how's you?" is just unacceptable.

Fuck off.

So I've sent the direct e mail and await a response. Right now I hate fucking Wanadoo but what I hate more is the fact that every bloody time I need to ring them I get moved from one place to another but what I hate even more is the fact that everytime I speak to someone they are bloody Asian. I am assured there call centres are in England. If that's the case everyone in England must be Asian because it's not just Wanadoo it's every bloody place you ring.

Let me have another rant while I'm at it...I have worked in contact centres in various forms for nearly all my adult life. I have worked at all levels from the bottom to the top. It's not rocket science, you need only a few basic elements. You should be able to listen, be able to understand and be able to speak. It helps if you can type while doing the others as well but it's not always necessary.

The key to a sucessful contact centre is having staff who can perform these basic tasks while remaining polite. Why then do so many companies insist on hiring people who have just got off the asylum boat?? Seriously half of them can't speak English never mind understand it. Don't even get me started on this trend of moving contact centres to India and the like. They only do this because these people will work for a packet of monkey nuts and a glass of clean water. I just need to say stop it. I want to speak to someone who speaks my language. I don't want to haev to learn Urdu of whatever the fuck they speak.

End of rant.

Phew.

Jenny xx