Justins Saudi Adventure!: Dell's UK call centre....In Mumbai???

Monday 28 April 2008

Dell's UK call centre....In Mumbai???

With less than 10 days to go until I fly out to KSA, I'm currently having to battle with Dell computers to ensure they deliver my new laptop on time.

I thought it would be a good idea to buy a laptop to take out to KSA so I could keep in touch with all my friends and family at home by e-mail and Skype. Being a bit of a computer games nerd, I opted to go for a top of the line, high spec laptop from Dell known in Gamer circles simply as "The Beast!"

This has cost me a fair old whack...and unfortunately, Dell have let me down. First they Promised delivery on the 10th of April which soon got put back to the 22nd of April. Ive now been told it could be as late as the 8th of May....which is the day I fly out :-(
Unfortunately, trying to get any sense out of anyone at Dells "UK service centre" is like as difficult as trying to get into Kelly Brooks knickers! Whenever I call, I'm greeted by a very polite Asian sounding voice. Unfortunatley no matter how hard I concentrate Icannot understand a single word they say. Oh, I'm sure they are speaking some form of English, but not one that I understand. I used to think Rab C Nesbitt was the most unintelligible English speaker I had ever heard. This was a guy who had to have subtitles on the TV when he was speaking English (I'm serious!), but he was easy to understand by comparison.

This is not very encouraging seeing as many of the Engineers I will be dealing with in KSA will be Pakistani. I'm hoping I wont have similar difficulties in understanding what they are saying.

I tend to end up having to pretend that I must have a bad phone connection because I cant hear them properly. Eventually, the nice people at Dell give up trying to communicate with me and end up sending an e-mail instead. And this is where things get even more mysterious.

After speaking (but not understanding) to someone called Tina for half an hour, she decided to send me an e-mail to try and justify the tardy service I was experiencing. However I noticed that the name at the bottom of her e-mail is Veena. The same thing happened another time. I was told I was speaking to a guy called Mike; which sounded a strange name for a guy with an Asian voice. When he e-mailed me later that day it was clear his name was in fact Mitran!

Hmm... I think to myself. Where exactly is this UK call Centre? London? Birmingham?....or just perhaps Mumbai?? Who can tell? I would have asked the lovely Tina/Veena, but as I wouldn't have been able to understand the reply...I thought better of it.

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Glossary

Abaya - A long black robe designed to cover all of a woman's body
Haram - "Forbidden"
Istemarah - Car registration
Khalas - Finished, the end
Mushkilla - Problem
Muttawa - Religious policeman, the "authority for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice"
Throbe - Traditional dress for Arabic men
Ghutra - The tea-towel like headscarf worn by men
Iqual - The black band that holds the ghutra in place
Wasta(h) - Having powerful social connections
Insha’allah – God willing
Insha'allah Bakora - Tomorrow god willing ......or definetly not tomorrow in my experience, more likely next month, if you're lucky!
Iqama - Visa

Monty Python Sketch

Although its not anything to do with living in the Middle East, I find the following Monty Python Sketch hilarious and pub lish it in the hope it also brings a smile to your face:

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't!

Justins Saudi Adventure!

Monday 28 April 2008

Dell's UK call centre....In Mumbai???

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