Plaidophile

Here's a hint to telemarketing agencies: Trying to sell things to English speakers works better if you hire people who can actually articulate in English.

I just got a call from a telemarketer (I think) who had an extremely thick Indian accent, and I couldn't understand a thing he was saying, though I could tell he was trying to speak English.

The call started out with a noisy connection, and a back-and-forth ping-pong of "Hello?"

Finally, the other person said, "This is [realname]?"

"Yes?" I responded, thinking maybe it was someone in my [former] department asking about the stuff I listed for sale on my academic homepage.

"Are you Indian?" asked a very heavy Indian accent.

"Uh, no?"

"Are you [mumble]?"

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"Are you [mumble]?"

"Um... I'm an American. I only speak English, sorry."

Then he launched into this really long thing which had something to do with gas vouchers and a survey or something, and asked me if my address was [insert correct address here]. I said "yes," concerned that maybe this was something that they were going to send me a bill for, or one of those bullshit "you have won a sweepstakes" things.

So then he rattled off a really long, and totally incomprehensible, speech for the next five minutes.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't understand a word you just said."

"What?"

"Your accent is too thick. You'll have to speak more slowly," I said.

Then he repeated what he was saying in the exact same manner.

"Okay, look, if you're trying to sell me something, I'm not interested, and if not, please have someone who can actually speak English call, okay? Thanks," I said, as I hung up.

I think someone wasn't thinking things through before outsourcing services to Bangalore. (Not that I mind wasting other peoples' money on international long distance or anything.)