NO HABLA INGLES???

          

 What the hell has happened to the world??? I just spent thirty minutes on the phone attempting to cancel a dispute about a charge on my credit card. Do the people in charge of customer service for these accounts ever have to call in about their own credit cards? If they do, I hope it takes them forever to get things squared away.

          First, my call was answered by a robotic woman who gave me multiple choices with regard to why I was calling. After listening to the same loooooooong message twice, I said I wanted an operator. I assume the robot recognized that word because I was subsequently transferred to another woman, a human this time who didn’t have English as her first language.

          After answering a bunch of questions, some of which were difficult to understand and which I had to have her repeat, I was informed that she would have to transfer me to the disputes department. She couldn’t help me, but the disputes department would. I hoped the next human would have English as his/her first language.

          The transfer was successful; however, I now was dealing with a man who was very hard to understand for a couple of reasons. First, English was not his first language, so some words were difficult to understand. Second, there was some kind of problem on his end because words and sentences were garbled to the point I couldn’t understand and they didn’t make sense.

          By the time we finished getting this dispute cancelled (or at least, I hope that’s what we did), I’m sure this gentleman was just as frustrated as me. I also realize that there are a lot of English-speaking people who don’t care to work at these kinds of jobs whereas individuals who relocate to the United States are happy to work at any job that will earn them money…or at least that’s my understanding. But I’m old and my understanding could be seriously wrong.

          In any case, it doesn’t seem to matter much who you call or what you’re calling about, it’s extremely rare to find a person on the other end of the phone that speaks good, understandable English. The lesson here is, I guess, to make sure I know what the hell I’m doing so I don’t have to make these calls.

          Okay, rant completed and I feel so much better. Now, off to work on my driftwood.