Jacey Bedford's Journal

heleninwales  has been talking about learning Welsh and the resulting unintentional offence given when beginners mix up the intimate/formal terms of address. It reminded me of a story told to me by a bookshop owner in a little village in the Yorkshire Dales. Apparently there used to be this difference in Yorkshire dialect. The familiar form of address being 'thoo' and the formal one being 'thou'. (The use of thee, thou and thy survives to this day in the dialect of my part of the Yorkshire, much further south in the county, but I'd never heard of the 'thoo' form.)

So the example goes...

A farmer takes on a new apprentice and works with him closely for the first day. By supper time the boy is addressing the farmer as 'thoo.' Offended at the familiarity, the farmer turns to him sternly and says. 'Dun't thee thoo me 'til ah thoos thee first!'

Been so tied up with stuff and visiting musos that I've been out of commission on LJ for a few days. I spent yesterday in York with Tanglefoot and today I've been trying to get down to the serious business of buying a Dell laptop.

I have money.

I have a leaflet with special offers.

I have a Dell web page that doesn't quite match the prices in the leaflet

I have a phone number.

And now I have a direct line to (I guess) somewhere in India.

I have no objection to call centres being wherever they need to be, but when you are selling high-end machines to the UK market, don't you think it's sensible to have someone on the other end of your phone number who speaks clear English?

The switchboard operator was almost understandable once I'd asked her to slow down a bit. (Thereby already making me feel extremely patronising. It's a foreigner, I must speak slowly and clearly.) The salesman she put me through to, a chap called Santosh, who spoke heavily accented English that was quite difficult to understand over a phone line at speed and without clues of body language and mouth movement. He obviously found my Yorkshire accent a bit difficult to cope with, too, which is fair enough. He was also positively snippy when I kept asking him for alternative quotes and massively anxious to get me to close the deal and place the order when I was still at the weighing up alternatives stage. He also pushed the extra insurance quite heavily (at 140 quid, it's more than a 25% loading on the price). At one point he couldn't answer a question and asked if he could call me back. I explained that I was going out at 2.30. Not to worry, he'd call me straight back (it was then 1.45).  He called me back at 2.25. At 2.27 with the conversation barely begun I reminded him I'd already told him I was going out at 2.30 and he said he'd call me at 4.15. In the meantime I found out that the information he'd given me about the docking port was - if not quite incorrect - certainly misleading and there were enough USB ports on the machine that I could certainly manage without a hundred quid docking port.

So after I got back in I thought I'd start again. I called Dell and asked to speak to another assistant. No, sorry, they couldn't do that I could only speak to Santosh. But I don't want to speak to Santosh, I explained. I didn't feel I'd had very good service from Santosh and I'd like to speak to someone else. No, they couldn't do that, they could only put me through to Santosh. (Rinse and repeat a couple of times.)

Eventually: Can i speak to your supervisor?
No they could only put me through to Santosh and I could tell him that I didn't want to deal with him again.
No, you're not listening to me. I DON"T WANT TO SPEAK TO SANTOSH EVER AGAIN.

By now I was on the verge of putting my coat on and taking my six hundred quid down to PC World.

Eventually the penny dropped and they put me through to a salesman in charge of Ireland (duh!) who still spoke heavily accented English (indian not Irish) but not quite so heavily accented. Eventually he put me through to yet another sales assistant. Again a heavy accent, but understandable, and I could tell immediately he had a more colloquial grasp of the English language and he just seemed to make a connection on a more human level. Okay - now we're getting somewhere.

I explained what I wanted a quotation for and he started to build the quote. 2 gig memory - tick. Webcam- tick. Windoze XP-pro instead of Vista - tick. Price £457 ex-VAT.

How much for the same machine with 3 gig of memory?
£511
If I buy a machine costing over £499 I have the 'fifty quid off' voucher in this morning's first-time-buyer's catalogue, so that should be £461 for the machine with 3 gig of memory.
Err... he wasn't sure he could do that but he'd give me some free virus software and free delivery
I've got virus software I'm very happy with and the machine I've picked has free delivery anyway and it says on the voucher I can use it in conjunction with any other offer.
Err...
Anyhow it's a moot point when his computer system won't let him upgrade the memory to 3 gig even though the catalogue plainly says it's possible.

He's calling me back tomorrow morning. Not before eleven I say. OK, he'll call me at nine. No NOT before eleven. That's OK he starts work at eight and he can call me at nine. NO, NOT BEFORE ELEVEN. Oh sorry, he thought I meant I was going out at eleven.

<sigh>

(Oh - and I forgot to say, my second assistant is called Kali - should I be worried?)

All I want to do is spend my money, but they're making it very difficult.

I can't help feeling that they are a long way away and the sales agents don't really give a twopenny whatsit as long as they get their commission. I'd like a salesperson who wants to get me the best deal for the best machine on offer. I'd like one I'm sure understands the questions I'm asking and who can deliver an answer I can understand in return. I don't care what the accent is as long as I can understand it.

Is it too much to ask?

Should I go to PC World?