Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Memorable call to call center

Normally we all are really pissed off by the long and tiring process that takes place when we call some customer care or we get really irritated when somebody from a creditcard company calls up and starts her/his ramayan.
There are 2 calls , 1 of each type which i will never forget.
The first one happened in bhubaneswar and i will never forget it for teh fact that it was most peculiar call. I was in the office but doing timepass only. The call comes and when i pick up, it says, "hello, this is chumki calling from 'Shanghai Express'. aap hamare restaurant mein kyon nahi aate?". Now this shanghai express is an awesome chinese restaurant in BBSR but a bit costly. I have been there once before the call. But how can restaurants afford such things? And that too what a funny name, "Chumki". As if she is some long lost friend. Then as i was also in mood, i said" Aaya tha ekbaar, ab aapne bulaya tho fir aaoonga."
She said," Kab aa rahe hai fir?"
Me:"aaj tho friday hai aur main kalkatta jaa raha hoon. Is weekend nahi rahoonga. MAy be next weekend."
Chumki:" Oho, aap kalkatta ke hai. Theek hai, fir next weekend zaroor aayiega."
End.
Somehow i enjoyed the call to much. I mean i was not flirting but the whole concept was new to me. And i really went the next weekend.

The second was just 3 days ago. New york times suddenly started giving free subscription and said that if not cancelled by calling to 1800-NYTIMES , they will start billing after 2 weeks. Now this is really irritating. Who asked them to give it first of all. But anyway, i had to do it. I expected long dragging and asking reasons of why not continuing and all. I mentally prepared the answers also. But then i call and after pressing this and that key, finally reached the lady. I said," I want to unsubscribe." She said "Ok , Done, You won't be billed.Thank you." That's it. end call. I was most surprised and really liked it.
Hope all call centers are like that.

Friday, October 21, 2005

My favourite quotes

Here is a list of my fav quotes. Some are in bengali but will be translated. But due to either the poor language or my knowledge of this language, appropriate words won't be possible. As i myself is the creator of some quotes, they are tampered suitably to meet my needs. No copyright is violated.
1) "No comments"
This quote was suggested by my school friend aparajita biswas as a means to ward off the 100's of useless questions about how the exam paper went (in 12th and the competitive exams). As competitive exams are unpredictable and relative, to comment on how they went sounds foolish. This stands out as the most humblest way to answer the stupidest question.

2) "Hole bhalo, naa hole aaro bhalo"
This means " If accompolished, its good, if not even better." This was by my eldest cousin Sudipta Mitra. It was suitable during competetive exams results and admissions time after 12th when each failure demoralized to great extent. Helped me during campus interviews and even while apping after GRE.

3) "sneho nimnogami"
A bengali adage, stated by whom i don't know but told to me by my mom. This means love flows downwards. You can never love your parents as much as you will love your kids but you expect your kids to love you more. Thsi has so much practicality in it and it is really hard to believe or realize. But it is a truth. You better agree. A story to exemplify:' A son, very angry on his mom for some reason, cuts her head off with a sword and goes past. While going he tumbles because of her mom's cut head on the path and falls down. The cut head says," Son, are u hurt." '
somehow this story has touched me greatly.

4) "Hardwork can make you lucky or unlucky, but without hardwork, you will never be lucky. So work hard"
roots can finally boil down to Shri Krishna's "karmanyavadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachana" but suitably modifeied by me based on my experiences. Any takers?

5)"Oracle is not about ulta and seedha traingle of stars"
stated by the oracle instructor during infy training, this actually speaks of some stupid programs in C where it is very complicated to do these programs of drawing inverted and straight triangles whic are really useless. while the C pundits in the class in first year did it in minutes and thought they are great, i struggled for long. But i guess this was a useless thing to do. I like this quote not because i like DB programming but because i hate 'C'.