I didn't even work during open hours and I still got an SC

[flutes_and_fabric]

So yesterday I got a call from a CW asking if I could come in early this morning. We've been so busy putting out halloween merch that we haven't been able to get out the boxes and boxes of general stock. So I go in 6-9, when we open. I get almost everything out when 9 am comes around. I'm dressed in sweats and a t shirt so I'm not allowed to deal with customers, just how I want it. I finish getting a box of books unpacked and a woman runs up to me...woah, where'd she come from? It's 8:45...

Me: I'm sorry, is the front door open?
SC: No, why is that??!
Me: We're not open yet, how'd you get in here?
SC: Oh, the front door wouldn't open, so I checked the back.
Me:...could you please follow me to the front, I'll have to ask you to wait outside until we open. (The lady very politely complies)

I went to the back, closed the door, let my CW know about what had happened, then took out a box of candy to get out really quick before I leave. I look out the window and there're 5 ladies out there waiting to get in. It's 5 minutes to opening, I just ignore them. One of the ladies knocks on the door. Again, I ignore her. If the door is locked, the logical conclusion is that we're not open. Too bad some people don't have good logic. I finish, grab my stuff, clock out, and go to open the door. I have my purse on my arm, my keys in my hand, I'm dressed as I said in sweats and flip flops. Suddenly I have 3 people asking me to show them where stuff is and why wouldn't we unlock the door if we were here and can I return stuff without a receipt and blah blah blah. My response:

Me: Lo siento, no hablo ingles.

You don't have to read any further, only the top part is about customers

And off to school I go. Speaking crappy spanish actually helped me twice today. My laptop fried and all I wanted is to know the price of a new recovery disk. You have to call tech support for this information, so I was prepared to be connected to an outsourced center. I literally went through 4 people who could not understand me. I don't have an accent, well, I speak a litter balmorese. Like saying wer-ter instead of water and warshington and warshing machine and balmore. My best friend is Indian, but the people I was connected to I just couldn't understand. I think it might be because they're trying to speak with an American accent which garbles things.

All I want to know is how much is a recovery disk for my computer. No one could figure out what I was asking. In a fit of madness I said this when the fourth person I was transferred to picked up (btw, I never asked to be transferred, I was nothing but polite and I never once sounded frustrated-the amount of patience I have is amazing)

O: Can I have your name?
Me: Hablas espanol?
O: I'm sorry?
Me: No espanol?
O: Are you speaking english?
Me: Necessito espanol...Spanish
O: Oh, one moment please.

I was transferred and by this time didn't really care what happened because I was almost home and would be able to look the information on my desktop.

New O: Hola, como estas.
Me: I'm sorry, do you speak English?
New O: Oh, yes. How can I help you?

Guess what, the guy was American, I got the information looked up in under a minute, and was on my way. I don't want to sound like a buttface about outsourcing, but it really is frustrating when there's that barrier between you and customer support.

And now a little something I found out about a CW

One of my CWs is so sweet, and she's also the preppiest person I have ever met. She loves pink and lime green, those pearl necklaces with the bows, and whatever else the new fad is. So one CW is up front grabbing magazine overstock from under the counter when a cricket hops out at her. She screams. PrepCW and myself run out to see what's up. I go to help, but PrepCW beats me to it. She walks over, picks it up with her bare hands, puts it in a little empty box and says "I can feed this to my tarantula!" giggle giggle smile nod. Other CW and I were just like lol! Can't judge a book by its cover, nope nope.

[Aethian]

*snip*
And now a little something I found out about a CW
*snip*

I scared the dogs with my sudden laughing. That poor cricket...

[Shimatta]

I like the speaking spanish to get transferred to an North american call center. That's some critical thinking there.

[Erin]

Next time I have to call tech support for my little Acer netbook, I'll have to remember this thread. Called them last week, and I think they were in downtown Mumbai. Could barely understand a thing they said.

[workerbee222]

I've used a variation of this technique to talk to a real person. I pushed the button to talk with a Spanish speaker to get out of the computer driven pre-recorded options I was being offered. Of course the representative spoke English as well.

I think the suggestion came from the gethuman database.

[mikoyan29]

Guess what, the guy was American, I got the information looked up in under a minute, and was on my way. I don't want to sound like a buttface about outsourcing, but it really is frustrating when there's that barrier between you and customer support.

I wonder how many companies are getting poor customer service marks because of this? When I called Canon, they were all American. A computer can cost easily as much as a camera, so why can't Dell and all those folks use American tech support? And seriously, how much of a financial drain is using Americans anyway?

[iradney]

Ok folks, we're not going to devolve this thread into a debate about the pros and cons of outsourcing. Please feel free to take it to fratching.

Thanks in advance.

[AccountingDrone]

I wish I had a tarantula. They're the only spiders that don't squick me out!

I had a couple way back in the mid 80s, lovely pets. The urticulating hairs on their tummies tickles when it brushes your hand, but some people may be slightly allergic to the little hairs [they are barbed and may stick into the skin but it washes right out]

Havent priced them lately, or the live bugs for them but the terrarium for them is reasonably inexpensive to maintain, they really adore the heat rocks, and I found they preferred the heatrocks with natural sun instead of a heat bulb. It is fun as you can combine raising cactus and succulents with the rock gardening aspect of their habitat =)

[Howler]

I have my purse on my arm, my keys in my hand, I'm dressed as I said in sweats and flip flops. Suddenly I have 3 people asking me to show them where stuff is and why wouldn't we unlock the door if we were here and can I return stuff without a receipt and blah blah blah. My response:

Me: Lo siento, no hablo engles.

I think I'm in love

[NateTheChops]

I think we should get a special thread going of easy to learn phrases from different languages to use when we don't want to deal with customers off the clock or at all for that matter.

I'll be practicing that one.

[Thud-n-Blunder]

Snacks for critters...

...She walks over, picks it up with her bare hands, puts it in a little empty box and says "I can feed this to my tarantula!" giggle giggle smile nod.

Reminds me of my wife - before we met, she had a California King snake as a pet. Every week, she had to go to the pet store and buy a mouse to feed to the snake. She told me that the most ironic part was the writing on the box, which read, "Thank you for giving me a new home!"

[Howler]

I think we should get a special thread going of easy to learn phrases from different languages to use when we don't want to deal with customers off the clock or at all for that matter.

I'll be practicing that one.

Ask and ye shall receive---
http://www.wikihow.com/Say-%22I-Don%...is-Language%22

I like the Thai translation best...

* Arabic: Ana laa atakallam al arabiyah (انا لا اتكلم العربية)
* Afrikaans: Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie
* Bengali: Aami Bangla boltey pari naa. ( আমি বাংলা বলতে পারি না )
* Bislama: Mi no harem save Bislama
* Bulgarian: Ne govorya bylgarski [ne go`vorja `bal,garski]
* Catalan: No parlo català
* Czech: Nemluvím česky
* Chinese (Cantonese): Ngo (a throaty sound) m sik gwongdong hua
* Chinese (Mandarin): Wo bu hui shuo zhongwen (我不講中文, Wo bu jiang zhongwen)
* Creole: Mi coze pas kreol
* Croatian: "Ne pričam hrvatski" or "Ne znam hrvatski"
* Danish: Jeg taler ikke dansk
* Dutch: Ik spreek geen Nederlands
* Egyptian, Ancient: "Na djedya kemet aramsya" OR "Na djedya aramna kemetyu" OR "Na djedya aram ni kemet"
* English: I do not/ don't speak English
* Esperanto: Mi ne parolas Esperanton.
* Estonian: Ma ei räägi Eesti keelt.
* Farsi: Man Farsi Harf nemi-zanam-(من فارسی حرف نميزنم)
* Finnish: En puhu suomea
* French: Je ne parle pas français (juh nuh pahr'l pah frohn-say)
* Gaelic: Chan eil gàidhlig agam
* German: Ich spreche kein Deutsch or Ich kann kein Deutsch sprechen or Ich spreche nicht Deutsch ( "eu" is spelled "oi" ; "ei" is spelled "ai" )
* Greek: den milao elinika (δεν μιλαω ελληνικα)
* Hebrew: Ani lo medaber ivrit (male), Ani lo medaberet ivrit (for female) (אני לא מדבר/מדברת עברית)
* Hindi: Mai hindi nahee boltaa (if you are a boy) or Mai hindi nahee bolti (if you are a girl)or hum hindi nahee boltay (if you are a boy or girl)
* Hungarian: Nem beszélek magyarul
* Indonesian: Saya tidak bisa bahasa indonesia
* Irish: Níl aon gaeilge agam (neel aeyn gay'l-gah ag-um)
* Icelandic: Ég tala ekki þetta mál
* Italian: Non parlo l' Italiano
* Japanese: Watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasen (私は日本語を話さない) (Wah-tah-shee wah nee-hohn-goh oh hah-nah-shee-mah-sehn)
* Kannada: Nanigge kannada baralla (pronounced ba-ra-lla)
* Korean: Juh han-gook mal mot hae yo
* Kurdish: Ez zimani Kurdi naxivim
* Lithuanian: Aš nekalbu lietuviškai
* Malay: Saya tidak dapat bertutur dalam bahasa Melayu.
* Marathi: I don't speak marathi - "Mee marathi bolath nahi"
* Nepali: Malai nepali bolna aundaina OR Ma nepali boldina OR Ma nepali bolna sakdina
* Norwegian: Jeg snakker ikke norsk
* Nunatsiavummiutut (Labrador Inuit): Inuttut paasinngilara
* Ojibwe (southwest): Gawiin indojibwemosiin
* Papiamento: Ami no ta papia e idioma aki (pronounced: Ah-mee no tah pah-pee-yah eh ee-dee-o-mah ah-kee)
* Polish: Nie mówię po polsku
* Portuguese: Eu não falo português (eh-Oh NAH-oh FAH-lo porr-TUH-gays)
* Punjabi: Main punjabi nahii boldaa (if you are a boy) orMain punjabi nahhi boldii (if you are a girl)
* Sepedi: ke maswabi, nna bala English fela (formal sorry i speak only speak English.English may be replaced by your own language)
* Setswana: Ga ke itse go bua Setswana
* Serbian: Ne govorim srpski (In English: I don't speak Serbian)
* Slovak: Nehovorím po slovensky
* Spanish: No hablo español
* Swedish: Jag talar inte svenska
* Tagalog: Hindi ako marunong mag-Tagalog(I don't know how to speak Tagalog.)
* Tamil: Yenaku Tamil Pessa Theriyathu
* Telugu: Neenu Telugu Maatladalenu (Maat-la-da-lenu)
* Thai: Pom my poot pasa Thai Krap (Masc.). Chan my poot pasa Thai Ka (Fem.)you can also say "poot pasa thai mai dai ka (Female), poot pasa thai mai dai krap (Male)" - these are more common
* Turkish: Türkçe konuşamıyorum
* Ukrainian: Vybachte, ya ne govoryu ukrayinskoyu
* Urdu: Mein urdu nahin bolta/bolti. (Bolta is for male, bolti for female.) Pronunciation: meh urdu nahee bolta/bolti.
* Vietnamese: Toi khong noi tieng Viet (Tôi không nói tiếng Việt)
* Romanian: Nu vorbesc româna
* Russian: Ya ni gavaryu pa ruski. (Я не говорю по-русски}
* Welsh: Dydw i ddim yn siarad Cymraeg


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Listening to: Traffic - The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys
via FoxyTunes

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Listening to: Traffic - The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys
via FoxyTunes

[Phantomgrift]

Heh, my wife and I own nine tarantulas.
I wouldnt feed them random crickets I find though, it's possible to pick up mites or disease that way.

[tropicsgoddess]

I like the no hablo ingles bit with the SCs. For me, this always works. Het Spijt me. Ik spreek geen engels (Dutch for: I'm Sorry, I don't speak English). Ah, gotta love being a polyglot!

[BookstoreEscapee]

Heh, my wife and I own nine tarantulas.
I wouldnt feed them random crickets I find though, it's possible to pick up mites or disease that way.

Please don't ever invite me to dinner.