Alias
So I call Comcast yesterday because our modem is rather antiquated and can’t provide the bandwidth that Comcast is charging me for. Their website gives a list of recommended modems and a very convenient link to order one directly from Amazon. Very smart and efficient.
Anywho, I picked out one and before I clicked “order” I called the 800 number for Comcast to double check that it would work and the installation woul be seamless. There was the usual delay as I was routed to the call center in Bangalore and then that little extra delay that tells you that you are now talking to someone wearing a headset sitting in a room with three hundred other such folks, and then this nice fellow says, in accented English that checks off every box on the Official Stereotype Indian English Form, “Hello, thank you for calling Comcast. My name is Larry, how can I help you?”
Larry.
Larry.
So now companies are giving these folks fake Gringo names.
What a hoot.
Biz, Fun, Uncategorized | Mr. Bingley | 
November 25, 2013 7:08 am
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That’s been going on for a long time. Haven’t you seen the ‘Peggy’ commercials?
Someone I work with once got to talk to someone named Adonis. Doesn’t sound very Indian to me.
Ah that’s right Thomas, I’d forgotten about the Peggy stuff.
I was talking to “Steve” one evening and I asked, “Steve, what did your mother call you when she called you to dinner?”.
We’d been chatting for a while already, while waiting for the ‘puter to pute, so he just laughed and said something that I missed entirely. So I kept calling him “Steve”. Easier that way.
Not Gringo, “Farangi” – though they are using the English “foreigner” as often these days. (Just where did you think Star trek got Ferengi, anyway? Yeah – I’m a geek.)
That may well be a convenience for them – most of us can’t pronounce their names – anymore than most ferengi can pronounce mine. (It ends up as Katee, or Kassee, depending on culture.)
Cheers,
KaTHy – with the unpronounceable TH… 😛
A fellow college student, way back when, was a Hindu from India. He had a standing offer to buy a case of beer for anyone who could pronounce his first name correctly, after three practice tries.
There were no winners. EVER.