Elon Musk agrees with Scott Jennings' reformation proposal on H-1B visas
(twitter.com)
The Musketeer
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Don't think this would affect call centers out of Bangladesh as they aren't working in America. But I agree completely.
Customer service should always be by people with a clear accent native to the regions they're servicing. Any time anyone has to say "excuse me, could you repeat that?" is a waste of time for both parties.
I usually encounter this with pest cold-calls, preceded by a robotic greeting and query. Somebody comes on with a Hindi accent that could run from Mumbai to Calcutta. I just call them out on having an impenetrable accent and that I have no interest in talking to someone I can't understand. I think that offends them, but I have rung off by that point.
Another modern symptom is their habit of opening with "Hello, (my first name)." I usually take this as an opportunity to remind them that in English-speaking countries, it is proper manners of respect to address a stranger as "Mr. (surname)," as we are not on friendly acquaintance. Then I say, "Which (first name) do you wish to speak with?" They are usually servile enough to comply with the education.
But, honestly, there are plenty of native English-speakers that have terrible enunciation and do not speak up. Most annoying are the young women who speak in cozy, murmuring voices, trying to be demure or something. It is more like listening to winds on a distant seashore.
Heh. Years ago, when I was visiting USA, I rented a car. Now I mostly have no problems with native speakers, or they with me, although I do have a definite accent. So no problems when I got it because I was speaking face to face with an American. But then something happened that made me need to extend the time I had it, by about 3 days. And I wasn't near any of their brick-and-mortar offices. So I call customer service.
Pretty heavy, I assume Indian, accent. And as said, I have a definite Finnish accent. I say that I need the car for 3 more days, and would return it to a different city. Let's say Chicago, while I was currently somewhere in Kentucky.
The person on the other end says something like "okay, a month more, and you return it to Florida?"
COME ON, my English isn't THAT bad...
Took nearly half an hour to get that cleared up. She didn't seem to get anything I said right, and I had hell of time understanding what she was saying. We managed in the end, but what should have been at most a ten minute call, yep. About half an hour. And for several moments during that time I was considering driving to the nearest city where that rental firm had an office.
My company used to have a partnership with Nokia so my colleagues and I had plenty of contact with Finns by phone and in person. We were always astounded by their ability to speak excellent English. Every one of them sounded American to us though and when we asked them why that should be they replied that they watched US TV shows all the time for fluency practice. Back in those days "Kojak" and other police shows were very popular and I was half expecting the Finnish guys to be reading me my rights or something.
I have been able to almost lose my accent a few times in my life, but it requires that I practice speaking a lot. When I don't and just listen I get it back.
You are absolutely correct.
Im hijacking this comment so its at the top.
Here we go again. A pertinent discussion on the most pressing issue for MAGA atm is derailed by nonsense. Do not upvote these pithy comments and cause them to rise to the top. What in the fuck does customer service have to do with any of this?
We are going to talk about crap instead of what is becoming plainly obvious -- that Elon and Viveks tweets that have MAGA up in arms were nothing more than a play to shine a spotlight on the abhorrent H1B policy?
But we get this customer service crap. This is forum sliding shill bullshit. Learn to recognize it.
Agree.
"Forum sliding" is a known technique used by bad hats to derail legitimate discussion of some subject which the bad hats do not want discussed. I think you are being over-sensitive and didactic this time though. I really doubt there is anyone in this thread (whatever they think of Elon Musk and H1B in principle) who approves of the current implementation of H1B and thinks it is great.
There are daily and routinely plenty of worse discussion derailers for example I am not religious and people push it all the time in here.
Relevant to this comment
https://greatawakening.win/p/17te9kltVA/an-opinion-on-what-is-considered/
Apologies to anyone if I’ve done this. Feel free to point it out to me.
I think the notion that this is "the most pressing issue for MAGA" is inherently silly.
There are roughly 600K current visa holders.
That is a small fraction of the number of illegals affecting politics, getting cheap jobs under the table, etc.
I maintain that this topic is exclusively to drive a wedge between people.
But you're right, I apologize for responding to a post about customer service. I was attempting to show that I see their beliefs, but it wasn't relevant.
You removed the context 'at the moment'. How is it not? It is all anyone is talking about.
We went from drones to this. Its so easy to distract the public.
customer service is obviously a ruse. people should really learn the way business works. econ 101 classes for all. guess what? businesses with customer support dont actually want to make your life easy. they want to upsell you or put you on hold and then disconnect when they transfer your call.
Telecom company playbook
Tariffs will fix this problem as well. No more outsourcing.