Room Service: “Morny. Ruin sorbees” Guest: “Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service” Room Service: “Rye..Ruin sorbees..morny! Djewish to odor sunteen??” Guest: “Uh..yes..I’d like some bacon and eggs” Room Service: “Ow July den?” Guest: “What??” link

Customer: It’s not much of a cheese shop, is it? Wenslydale: Finest in the district! Customer: (annoyed) Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please. Wenslydale: Well, it’s so clean, sir!

Reminds me of a line from the book I am reading – Shantaram by Gregory Roberts The dishonest bribe is the same in every country, the honest bribe is India’s alone So true!

Had a similar issues with my linksys wireless router cust rep. The man patronized me and asked me why I was doing the configuration and my husband wasn’t. I think he thought that being guju like me gave him the right to be my ‘moto bhai’.

My all time favorite experience a project manager for a major american insurance company. The tech dept is outsourced and in India (but naturally) and despite being told that I was the only project manager in charge, the grudgy My Ranganathan Swamy always insisted upon speaking to someone ‘highest up’. This was worse then the chuddie-buddie issue because he was taking out his chauvinistic grudge on me. Needless to say, the american powers that be had to look into stuff.

2.privatization does appear to have made some change back in india(the post about banking,reservationt etc) but then again,a 100 million people were bred on 60 years of bureacratic inertia,please do pardon them if instances like the one mentioned crop up from time to time…..and yes,i hate to say it coz it is after all unethical BUT a few palm-greasing techniques and you can have anything done,anything!

3.regarding the call-center,my experience was a bit different…..the moment the creature on the other end figured i was indian,they would start being patronzing like’so,how do u like it in the US sir’ or ‘do u know this call is being routed through ahmadabad’..i was like,thats so unprofessional,i called you to have my pc fixed and not to sing ‘saare jahan se achcha’……. one of my cousins back home is human resources consultant with GE overseeing the training of call-center workers,i told him to maybe incorporate it in their training as well……just because the person on the other end is indian doesnt mean he is your chuddie-buddie…..anyone else feel the same way or was i being a high-strung ass with my fellow countrymen??

oh definitely true! some unintended pluses of globalization. the reps are exceptionally nice and at least try a little harder to be helpful.

@gunda, i like to think it is not antagonism against surfer-dude hariharan subramaniam, but rather something nicer towards always-spelling-out-his-name venkataharan sheshashayithirunarayanan . but you may be right of course. and no, not my name.

yeah, even the “state” banks, notorious for their red tape, have started becoming more efficient.

I dont think the incident narrated by manish is merely red tape. It is also squeezing-customer-out-of-last-rupee tactic whose equivalent here is your “try our program free for 30 days, but we will automtically charge u after that if u dont cancel”; private banks in india often indulge in almost-hidden, fine-print based unethical money grabbing.