It could very well be that I am just an obsolete dinosaur, but my experience here, over the last 10 years, is that dealing with technical details is very difficult in this environment where there are multiple cultures and native languages in play. Oh well, we wanted Globalization, so now we have it.
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I had a boss at a different job call me racist when I said I couldn't understand some Chinese Tier 2 dude. We had a Chinese tech that worked with us and even she said it was very hard for her to understand his Chinese. She said the guy had a speech impediment. Double whammy!
One of the several reasons why I moved to business and out of IT, was the language barrier and hearing 12 different language spoken at once. Where I sat, on conference calls. It left me with a pounding headache and a bad habit of stating to talk (make fun of, unintentionally) like a few people that had really bad accents. We had to use text and email in order to communicate clearly.
You had me at "obsolete dinosaur"
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called at 3am by Indians during my on call week. Talk about a freaking nightmare. So sad for America.
I love Q, had an issue with my work computer, put in a ticket to get fixed, should have been simple. If I had the admin rights, could have fixed it myself.
So here we go, the first IT guy had a dialect so thick it was hard to understand, I ask him to talk to me via q, he literally told me, no and since I failed to work with him, he would need to escalate my ticket.
Then next person spoke so fast, my ears did not pick up all they were saying. I asked them to repeat or slow down so I could understand. I was told they were not going to comply with my request and I needed to educate myself. So they talked and I just grunted out a sound after every question until they said they would have to escalate the ticket.
The last IT guy was cool, he immediately asked to talk through q, and his first reply was an apology that his dialect and voice was a barrier to good communication. I told him I was thankful for his honesty and was happy to communicate via q. It took him about 90 mins to fix the issue.
I agree Q is the best communication tool these days. Australian and British accents are the worst to understand.
@1qzt+17zXtGHq,
I'm an American of Mexican ancestry and proud of it, not Latinx or whatever ridiculous label of the day people use to separate themselves. This, being said why would you designate yourself as some sort of victim of prejudice when the possibility it could be just a simple misunderstanding? If this person was a racist then thanking you would have been out of the question. The take-away is not to pull the racism card every time someone looks at you cross-eyed.
When I get an Indian , I ask him to get on Q. I find most intelligent and do good work; I just can't understand their accent but Q allows us to get around that obstacle.
my solution was for them to use google universal translator benefits:
save lots of time
having in writting makes sense
avoid agravation
You know the cultural snafoo that i cannot understand. It is when the self righteous white guy thinks he is right until i correct his arse and he apologizes and thanks me....and by the way I am Latino.
I ask them to repeat it until I can understand it otherwise it is sol or put it in writing.
I hear ya! I even oftentimes struggle understanding some of our fine fellow citizens of the Latino community(I don't live in an area like FL, TX, CA, etc w/ a large Latino population, so I'm not accustomed to hearing it frequently)....I wonder is the Indian accent difficult for everyone to understand as well?
I have been on projects where people have been given tasks, but due to the language barrier, they did not understand the task ( or in one case, that it was theirs to do). This can down right demoralizing when work on a high profile project that the executives are pushing through.
We need to hire interpreters like the UN. That said, I know this issue exists in other companies from speaking to my friends.