Ah, Moving...

[toomuchplor]

I love that you can now change most contact info for accounts online, it's lovely and convenient and sidesteps all that unpleasant waiting on the phone listening to godawful hold music and then trying to decipher interesting accents of call centre workers from Louisiana who have never heard of your city or province or possibly your country.

That is, assuming the stupid online account sites work.

I just spent ten minutes trying to convince my (ostensibly Canadian) wireless service provider's site that Alberta is, in fact, still a province, and is not, in fact, 'invalid'. Finally gave up and sat through the painful phone call procedure instead.

Dear (faux-patriotic) Company,

Is it so hard to contract out the automated menu messages to a Canadian voice actor person? We Canadians say 'ad-dress, not ad-'dress, for the noun form of the verb. Like 'a-dult instead of a-'dult. Yes, Rodney Mckay, like 'zed' instead of 'zee'.

Maybe it seems insignificant, but these little slips MAKE US AWARE THAT YOU ARE AMERICAN and your careful campaign of fooling us into thinking you're Canadian? -- with all your little '.ca's and 'Canada Inc.'s and sponsorship of CFL football -- IS WASTED AT THIS POINT.

Distastefully yours,

Plor

Comments

Ah, Moving...

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

There's nothing quite so infuriating and frustrating as trying to make contact with a big agency (government or commercial) via phone, I've found! Sympathies coming your way!
Love, max

Re: Ah, Moving...

[toomuchplor.livejournal.com]

I know, it's ridiculous. Even getting the phone number to call involved jumping through internet hoops.

[nudaydreamer.livejournal.com]

And yet the voice prompt system at the IT help desk for the (American) university where I work has clearly been done by a Canadian. Maybe there was some kind of cultural exchange involved?

[toomuchplor.livejournal.com]

Ha, actually, that's all too easy to imagine. It's bizarre, the number of American company call centers are in town here. I've known a few people who worked there and they're always ordered to *never reveal their geographic location* as though their accents weren't a dead giveaway!