Lately I've been on the phone a lot, trying to straighten out the side effects of my social-security problem or dealing with tech-support issues with my gadgets. And in the process, I've discovered something very impressive: the quantum leaps in service from tech-support people who work the phones in India.
Remember when big companies first started outsourcing their service calls to India? A lot of people -- including me -- groaned and complained that the new workers didn't seem to know as much as their counterparts in the West, that they had limited scripts and tasks they could perform, that there were language barriers and difficult accents, and that their function often seemed to be as a "bouncer" who kept us from making contact with the people who actually knew how to solve our problems. Not anymore.
Most of the tech-support people I've talked to lately have been somewhere India, and the service has been great. They've been patient, attentive, friendly, professional, great on follow-through, and always resolved my troubles with little effort on my part. And I realized this has been going on for awhile: phone support has gotten good again -- if you get someone in India, that is.
It's not just because I read the Chetan Bhagat novel, "One Night at the Call Center," though I did feel empathy for the characters and the abusive treatment they sometimes got from their American callers. But I've realized that every time I make a support call and a person in India answers the phone, I get my problem solved pretty quickly....and when I make a phone call to a company in the USA and get a robot that makes a fake typing sound in the background, I DON'T get my problem solved.
So...here's a high-five to the tech-support workers in India... I hope that your employers start letting you use your real names instead of anglicized ones, because it's time for my culture to start recognizing where a lot of our tech talent is actually coming from.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
HummerSpotting
Today I actually saw two Hummers in one day.
The first was a big yellow Hummer speeding down the carpool lane during rush hour. The driver had no passengers. Are you surprised?
The second sighting was later that evening. I saw a very short, humorless-looking guy -- he was clearly under 5'4" tall -- driving a big, black Hummer down Castro Street in San Francisco. I know what you're thinking... I thought it, too.
The first was a big yellow Hummer speeding down the carpool lane during rush hour. The driver had no passengers. Are you surprised?
The second sighting was later that evening. I saw a very short, humorless-looking guy -- he was clearly under 5'4" tall -- driving a big, black Hummer down Castro Street in San Francisco. I know what you're thinking... I thought it, too.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
all you've got to do is talk naturally
Recently I've been paying closer attention to how skilled many people are at leaving voicemail messages. We've gotten pretty good at leaving clear, concise messages that actually convey useful information before the time-out beeper cuts us off.
Of course, I'm old enough to remember when some of my friends were intimidated by message machines and got clammy and stammered through a message....or worse, they got stage fright and hung up without leaving a message at all.
But those days are over. The next time you're in a public place, just listen. You'll hear people on cell phones everywhere, and many of these smooth talkers aren't having a two-way conversation -- they're just leaving messages. There's no human at the other end. They might even prefer it that way.
As a culture, we've mastered the art of sounding natural -- even downright warm, sincere, or even enthusiastic -- when we talk to machines. (And increasingly, machines are sounding more natural when they talk to us, too.)
How did we evolve to leaving these spontaneous soundbites for other people? Maybe it's trial by error, from being cut off by the beep too many times... but I also think we've finessed our intonation from listening to radio, cable news, and other media without really thinking about it...a modern instinct versus a primitive one.
Of course, I'm old enough to remember when some of my friends were intimidated by message machines and got clammy and stammered through a message....or worse, they got stage fright and hung up without leaving a message at all.
But those days are over. The next time you're in a public place, just listen. You'll hear people on cell phones everywhere, and many of these smooth talkers aren't having a two-way conversation -- they're just leaving messages. There's no human at the other end. They might even prefer it that way.
As a culture, we've mastered the art of sounding natural -- even downright warm, sincere, or even enthusiastic -- when we talk to machines. (And increasingly, machines are sounding more natural when they talk to us, too.)
How did we evolve to leaving these spontaneous soundbites for other people? Maybe it's trial by error, from being cut off by the beep too many times... but I also think we've finessed our intonation from listening to radio, cable news, and other media without really thinking about it...a modern instinct versus a primitive one.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Planned Passwordhood
If you're like me, you have a lot of passwords. And if you're cautious, you employ multiple passwords that shouldn't be easy to guess. But if you're also like me, you have some version of culture-induced ADD. And you forget some of your passwords. If you use multiple computers in multiple locations, this can be a pain.
Let's say you've set up a new account on some web site. A week later, you've already forgotten your password. After multiple attempts to recall it, you give in or you're shut out. So you click the "I Forgot My Password" button, which sends a new -- but temporary! -- and overwhelmingly unmemorable password to your email address. You can finally log in again -- but you have to create yet another new password, which you promptly forget the next day. And the cycle repeats again and again.
In the Web 1.0 years, this wasn't such a big deal. Forgetting your password was as simple as remembering the answer to a simple "hint" or verification question (What's your pet's name?). Answer the question, et voila! Here's your password. However, for understandable reasons, password retrieval is a thing of the past. Now, in this age of sophisticated hacks, if you answer the hint questions accurately, you'll only get an opportunity to change to a new password, but never retrieve your old one. And thus your array of new passwords will proliferate like bunnies.
So....what to do? I can't travel from place to place carrying a notebook full of passwords everywhere I go. And because I use multiple machines, saving my passwords to Keychain Access (in Mac OS X) does me no good.
I need a good system for remembering my passwords.....any advice? Maybe a USB memory stick that I carry with me...and which contains all my passwords in a text file. Or can anyone recommend a secure, portable software utility for password recall?
Let's say you've set up a new account on some web site. A week later, you've already forgotten your password. After multiple attempts to recall it, you give in or you're shut out. So you click the "I Forgot My Password" button, which sends a new -- but temporary! -- and overwhelmingly unmemorable password to your email address. You can finally log in again -- but you have to create yet another new password, which you promptly forget the next day. And the cycle repeats again and again.
In the Web 1.0 years, this wasn't such a big deal. Forgetting your password was as simple as remembering the answer to a simple "hint" or verification question (What's your pet's name?). Answer the question, et voila! Here's your password. However, for understandable reasons, password retrieval is a thing of the past. Now, in this age of sophisticated hacks, if you answer the hint questions accurately, you'll only get an opportunity to change to a new password, but never retrieve your old one. And thus your array of new passwords will proliferate like bunnies.
So....what to do? I can't travel from place to place carrying a notebook full of passwords everywhere I go. And because I use multiple machines, saving my passwords to Keychain Access (in Mac OS X) does me no good.
I need a good system for remembering my passwords.....any advice? Maybe a USB memory stick that I carry with me...and which contains all my passwords in a text file. Or can anyone recommend a secure, portable software utility for password recall?
Saturday, June 23, 2007
much ado about "nothing"
I've just started reading "The Globalization of Nothing," by George Ritzer (ISBN: 0-7619-8807-6). His argument is that our culture is moving rapidly from "something" to "nothing" through the proliferation of mass-produced products and services that are centrally controlled, but available everywhere.
A case in point is obvious enough: the fast-food hamburger, which is produced identically in countless towns in multiple countries. The fast-food restaurant, Ritzer says, is a non-place (depersonalized, indigenous to nowhere) selling meat that comes from anywhere ("nothing"), served by employees who function as "non-people" and who can easily be replaced by others without missing a beat.
He cites the local tavern as an example of "something" -- a real place, with a bartender who knows the customers and has a distinct personality, and where the customers have real identities. These places thrive because of the personalization they offer and the reality that the bartender constructs.
"Nothing" is the term he uses for objects or places that are mass produced, not unique, not local, and generally not meaningful. "Something," then, is unique, meaningful, often local, and crafted.
None of these ideas are brand-new, of course, but try applying the concepts of "something" and "nothing" to the internet. To get started, let's look at another example from Ritzer's book: people who inhabit the costumes of Disney characters for their jobs and use scripts to portray their "personalities." If the employees quit, they're replaced by others who inhabit the costume. The enterprise thrives regardless of which person occupies the costume at any given time. Nothing else changes.
Now think of another "costume": for example, an avatar on Second Life. Like the people in the Disney costumes, you might not know what the person behind the avatar looks like outside the virtual world, but each avatar is inhabited by people expressing their creativity...and thus they are unique entities and they create "something," not "nothing."
My point -- and I do have one -- is that "real life" doesn't necessarily offer more meaning than some of the things you can enjoy in virtual life, nor vice-versa....but with some of the same players involved in both, we can -- and often have -- turned "something" into "nothing" again.
A case in point is obvious enough: the fast-food hamburger, which is produced identically in countless towns in multiple countries. The fast-food restaurant, Ritzer says, is a non-place (depersonalized, indigenous to nowhere) selling meat that comes from anywhere ("nothing"), served by employees who function as "non-people" and who can easily be replaced by others without missing a beat.
He cites the local tavern as an example of "something" -- a real place, with a bartender who knows the customers and has a distinct personality, and where the customers have real identities. These places thrive because of the personalization they offer and the reality that the bartender constructs.
"Nothing" is the term he uses for objects or places that are mass produced, not unique, not local, and generally not meaningful. "Something," then, is unique, meaningful, often local, and crafted.
None of these ideas are brand-new, of course, but try applying the concepts of "something" and "nothing" to the internet. To get started, let's look at another example from Ritzer's book: people who inhabit the costumes of Disney characters for their jobs and use scripts to portray their "personalities." If the employees quit, they're replaced by others who inhabit the costume. The enterprise thrives regardless of which person occupies the costume at any given time. Nothing else changes.
Now think of another "costume": for example, an avatar on Second Life. Like the people in the Disney costumes, you might not know what the person behind the avatar looks like outside the virtual world, but each avatar is inhabited by people expressing their creativity...and thus they are unique entities and they create "something," not "nothing."
My point -- and I do have one -- is that "real life" doesn't necessarily offer more meaning than some of the things you can enjoy in virtual life, nor vice-versa....but with some of the same players involved in both, we can -- and often have -- turned "something" into "nothing" again.
Friday, June 22, 2007
7 points about identity theft
Recently, I discovered that another person was using my social security number ... and if you've ever wondered what kind of personal hell that can unleash on your life, here's a brief summary of what's transpired thus far in my quest to reclaim my own identity.
1) Discovery: In my case, I received random emails from my bank about transactions that I never made. I thought they were "phishing" emails at first, but when I read the source code, I saw that there weren't any links embedded in them, and therefore nothing a phisher could use to collect info. The emails looked legit.....just not the transactions. I called my bank, and found out that someone else had opened a new account using my number.
2) Pursuit: You would think that the discovery would be enough to apprehend my intruder. Not!! While the emails I've gotten from my bank have enabled me to piece together the name and account number of my intruder....and googling his name gave me his locale...I've been completely unsuccessful thus far in getting my bank to apprehend him. Why? This leads me to point #3.
3) Proof: Despite the many years that I've had an account at this bank, the burden is on me to prove my own identity. The bank will ask you to sign a W-9 form and show proof of your social security number. But it doesn't stop there....that's just the beginning. Even when you provide the proof, they still want the other person to have ample time to do the same. In fact, they're probably being more fair to my identity thief than they are to me.
I've made several visits to a branch office and showed them the following as proof that I am "me:"
* my original Social Security card, complete with my teenaged signature
* over a decade of W-2 forms
* my driver's license
* my passport
* the annual mailings from Social Security that show how much money would be in my social security fund when I retire, if it wasn't already spent in Iraq...
4) Harrassment: After providing all this evidence, I received a letter from my bank saying that I had three weeks left to prove that my Social Security is mine as opposed to the guy who just opened an account. It demanded that I provide another signed W-9 form as well as a new form that I didn't hear about earlier: form 7028 from the Social Security administration. If I don't convince them that it's my number and not his, they will strip my social security number from my bank account. Hey, no big deal...
5) Phone labyrinths: If you have your identity stolen, you'll spend a lot of time making phone calls and trying to navigate through phone prompts to get you to the right person who can help you solve your problem, or at least make you feel better for five minutes. Other times you'll get a robot. And you'll experience just how much voice-recognition software has improved, or hasn't improved, in the past few years. For example, the robot at the "free annual credit report" number is doggedly persistent and will not connect you to a human, but this robot also has a listening-comprehension problem.
6) Sales opportunities: My bank has used every phone call to try to sell me their $12.99-per-month identity theft program (just $155 per year!). Apparently they might be more helpful to me if I paid them to contact me the next time someone uses my social security number to set up a new account.
7) A visit to Social Security: If you've never done this, you're in for a surprise. I thought I'd be standing on line with a few retirees ... instead, I was sharing a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"-style institutional waiting room with over one hundred SSI recipients who were low on their meds. Try not to make this visit if you can avoid it.
My saga is not yet over. My bank tells me that my intruder has till the second week of July to prove that my number is actually his number. So far -- and not surprisingly -- he hasn't responded. When the deadline passes, they will "zero out" that number on his account. But will they pursue him?
1) Discovery: In my case, I received random emails from my bank about transactions that I never made. I thought they were "phishing" emails at first, but when I read the source code, I saw that there weren't any links embedded in them, and therefore nothing a phisher could use to collect info. The emails looked legit.....just not the transactions. I called my bank, and found out that someone else had opened a new account using my number.
2) Pursuit: You would think that the discovery would be enough to apprehend my intruder. Not!! While the emails I've gotten from my bank have enabled me to piece together the name and account number of my intruder....and googling his name gave me his locale...I've been completely unsuccessful thus far in getting my bank to apprehend him. Why? This leads me to point #3.
3) Proof: Despite the many years that I've had an account at this bank, the burden is on me to prove my own identity. The bank will ask you to sign a W-9 form and show proof of your social security number. But it doesn't stop there....that's just the beginning. Even when you provide the proof, they still want the other person to have ample time to do the same. In fact, they're probably being more fair to my identity thief than they are to me.
I've made several visits to a branch office and showed them the following as proof that I am "me:"
* my original Social Security card, complete with my teenaged signature
* over a decade of W-2 forms
* my driver's license
* my passport
* the annual mailings from Social Security that show how much money would be in my social security fund when I retire, if it wasn't already spent in Iraq...
4) Harrassment: After providing all this evidence, I received a letter from my bank saying that I had three weeks left to prove that my Social Security is mine as opposed to the guy who just opened an account. It demanded that I provide another signed W-9 form as well as a new form that I didn't hear about earlier: form 7028 from the Social Security administration. If I don't convince them that it's my number and not his, they will strip my social security number from my bank account. Hey, no big deal...
5) Phone labyrinths: If you have your identity stolen, you'll spend a lot of time making phone calls and trying to navigate through phone prompts to get you to the right person who can help you solve your problem, or at least make you feel better for five minutes. Other times you'll get a robot. And you'll experience just how much voice-recognition software has improved, or hasn't improved, in the past few years. For example, the robot at the "free annual credit report" number is doggedly persistent and will not connect you to a human, but this robot also has a listening-comprehension problem.
6) Sales opportunities: My bank has used every phone call to try to sell me their $12.99-per-month identity theft program (just $155 per year!). Apparently they might be more helpful to me if I paid them to contact me the next time someone uses my social security number to set up a new account.
7) A visit to Social Security: If you've never done this, you're in for a surprise. I thought I'd be standing on line with a few retirees ... instead, I was sharing a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"-style institutional waiting room with over one hundred SSI recipients who were low on their meds. Try not to make this visit if you can avoid it.
My saga is not yet over. My bank tells me that my intruder has till the second week of July to prove that my number is actually his number. So far -- and not surprisingly -- he hasn't responded. When the deadline passes, they will "zero out" that number on his account. But will they pursue him?
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