outsourcing

I just spent the last 45 minutes on the telephone with 'Jackie' who works for Vonage customer service. She lives in India. She speaks great English complete with slang! They must have trained her well. Except for the fact that she didn't understand a fucking word I was saying! AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

We started off the call resetting my username and password. My username is "four(insert my last name here)" so I entered that in, then entered in the new password that she gave me. For 20 minutes we went round and round and I still couldn't log in. We intricately spelled everything out and nothing worked. Finally she sent me an email with my username and password and wouldn't you know? She made my username 'Sour(insert last name here)'. Okay, that is an honest mistake...'S' and 'F' can sound the same over the phone. Except that I told her that is was FOUR like the number 4 like the number of people that live in my fucking house. And the fact that my email address is 'four (lastname)'...so it makes perfect sense that I all of the sudden change my username to 'sour(lastname)'.

Then I tell her the purpose of my call is to make my phone number a local number. For some reason, the area code matches the city I live in, but the prefix that Vonage gave me makes my phone number long distance to my neighbor. I really don't care except that Kimmy-girl has memorized our home number and I don't want her to need to call me from somewhere but can't because our home number is long distance.

Are you still following me? Because i'm getting lost...

The woman sets me up with a virtual number. It sounds brilliant. She gives me a local number and Kim can call home blah blah blah. We go through 30 minutes of setting up the new service and then at the end the lady tells me, 'Okay just have your daughter call this new number and it will sync up to your old number...presto chango voila!'

Um no you moron! the whole point is that she is 5 and I don't have faith that she can memorize a new phone number. I want my regular number to be the virtual number and the Houston number to be the regular number that I will never call because everyone that knows me has memorized my regular number. Are you following me now? It's complicated I know. Even more complicated because 'Jackie' speaks english but doesn't understand me. Oh, but she did understand when I suddenly said, 'Let me speak to you manager.'

'There is no manager, you can only talk to me.'

'Jackie we are obviously having a breakdown in communitcation. I need to speak with someone that will understand me.'

'I understand you.'

'Well why did we just spend 40 minutes signing me up for something that won't work for me. I must keep my regular phone number. But I would like it to not be long distance for my kid to call from the neighbors house. If you can't make that happen, then you should say, That cannot happen.'

'Manager please.'

Then she put me on hold for 10 minutes while she, oh I don't know...painted her fingernails, until coming back on and saying there is no manager here.

oh just fuggetaboutit.