outsourcing

I've had some credit card issues. Last week, I called my credit card company because I had received a suspicious phone call regarding the status of my card. Long story short, I had to close the card and get another one. Sounds like it should be easy, right? Only if you have the patience of Job.

When I called the company last week, I had only one question: Did you just call me to say that my card has been compromised? Because if you did not, someone else has all my CC info, and I'll need to cancel the card. A simple, 'no we did not call you,' and 'ok, we will give you a new number' would have sufficed. Instead, the story had to be repeated several times, to several different people. Most of whom did not speak English. What also didn't help was the immense amount of static over the line that made me feel like I was calling Turkey, though I dismissed this and remained calm, figuring because I was calling at night and using my cell phone. Yesterday I got the card in the mail, and had to go through the rigmarole of 'card activation' in which the company tries to coerce the customer into 'card benefits' that only cost 'twenty dollars monthly.' This monologue is all rattled off by again, someone who doesn't really speak English, with static on the line, though I was calling from a landline phone. NO. I just want to be able to use my credit card. Stop offering me things.

What this comes down to, though, is the problem of outsourcing. My credit card company is an American company. Don't get me wrong: I like my CC company; they've been good to me over the years. And I don't really mind people who don't speak English; I'm not ignorant enough to think that not speaking English is a retardation like many Americans (who, mind you, don't speak even a word of a different language). My point here is that Americans, like me, bellyache over having to talk out banking issues with an accented language barrier that makes everything twice as difficult as it should be. Which begs the question: why are Americans too proud to work as operators for banks? We complain, and yet would not, even as a last option, consider working as a telephone operator. So companies outsource. And then, we complain more because there are no jobs.

A vicious cycle, or American greed, or both? You decide.