**Caution… Painful conversations ahead.. You could seriously become an angry person and start hurting small animals after this…
One night around 9.30pm, our house phone rings. Very unusual – Kings and I are heavily dependent on 2 blackberries and an iPhone. Except for the bit with Kings and my mummy friend, the rest were in (horrendously ungrammatical on my part) Cantonese.
Young-sounding girl: Hello, is Mr Lai in?
Me: No he’s still at work, what’s it regarding?
YSG: I’m from PCCW and I need to speak to him about his phone contract. Landline number <our home number>
Me: (Thinking it’s something like we have forgotten to pay our bill or else maybe this is why our wifi has been down repeatedly recently. The guy just left after fixing it again. Maybe something else went wrong.) Erm, is it urgent, he’s out til late. I’m his wife but I don’t speak enough Cantonese to understand you very well.
YSG: Yes, it’s quite important. Is there any way I can contact him?
Me: Can I take a message and get him to call you right back?
YSG: Well… maybe you can help me… <rattles off in rapid fire Cantonese>
Me: Hang on. Slow down, I can’t understand. Can you say some of it English?
YSG: No, I can’t. It is about <repeats everything again in rapid fire Cantonese>
Me: That sounds like you’re trying to market something. Are you trying to promote something, like maybe subscription packages?
YSG: N-O. I. Need. To. Talk. To. Your husband. About. “Yau Wai”.
(Getting irritated but thinking she said it was important and what if tomorrow all our berries and smartphones die and then PCCW cuts off our home line and, God forbid, Rockstar or the dog set the place on fire and the lifts don’t work and we have to schlepp umpteen floors down to reception for a guy with an extinguisher)
Me: I. Cant. Understand. Is there no one in your office who can speak even a FEW words of English?? HOW important can it be then? Also, I have a small child I have to tuck in to bed. Why are you calling at 9.30pm, can you just call tomorrow when my husband is around? And how do I address you btw?
YSG: Ms L—. N-o one else you can speak to who speaks English here. I’m on leave tomorrow. I am trying to talk to you about “Y-au W-ai”
Me: <sounding more impatient> Doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it, I still don’t know that word. And can you not leave a message with a colleague to call us earlier tomorrow? And find out what “Yau Wai” is in English and tell me?
YSG: No I can’t leave a message, we don’t know who will be calling you tomorrow. Th-is. Is. A-bout. “Y-A-U W-A-I.”
Because apparently speaking louder and much slower like I am deaf/ stupid/ both will miraculously transform me into someone who can speak fluent Cantonese.
They should do this at the UN and save money on translation devices. Though it might start world war III. Many people could die. OK maybe not, then.
Next day, our housephone rings at around 9.30pm again.
Different girl: Can I speak to Mr Lai please?
Me: He’s not in. (Unfortunately true. Kings often cancels dinner at home with us at last minute, its why I no longer cook. If I didn’t slave over dinner he can Fong Fei Kei all he wants.) You’re from PCCW right? Please call tom. I can’t understand you.
The following day, the phone rings, but this time around 6pm.
YSG: Hello, can I speak to Mr Lai please?
Me: Did I speak to you a few days ago?
YSG: Yes you did. I need to speak to him about –
Me: Yes, yes I remember, you need to talk to him about our landline account. It was quite important and you’ve been calling for days.
YSG: Yes.
Me: Here’s his cellphone number. (What? Like, umpteen people have his cellphone number. He had Taiwanese clients who used to call him and scream at 6am the moment they woke up and switched on the news. In one place he had a righthand woman who called him at 3.30am because she got locked in the place.)
I text Kings to expect a call from “Someone From PCCW about our landline account because I can’t understand her.” I hear nothing further from Kings and assume this is sorted.
The next day, I’m out with a mummy friend:
Me: Oh, you speak Cantonese right? What does “Yau Wai” mean?
Mummy friend: It means promotion, discount.
Me: Oh, I am going to kill her. This PCCW lady has been calling for days and she assured me she is not trying to sell anything. I thought there was a problem with our PCCW account ok, the way she was telling me she urgently needs to speak to my hub about our account…
The next night, our housephone again rings around 9.30pm. I’m fairly sure (after so many conversations) she is the same idiot marketing caller – who btw, is back to 9.30pm calling.
(Probably) YSG: Hello, can I speak to Mr Lai please?
Me: You’re the same caller from PCCW who has been calling for a few days right?
<Pause>
I hang up.
She never calls again.
Me (accusatory tone at Kings the next day): Remember that PCCW caller I sent to you? You hung up on her the moment she started talking, didn’t you?
Kings (without looking up): Yeah.
Me: WHY didn’t you just find out what she wanted, that it was a marketing call, and THEN tell me?? She called for DAYS!!
Kings (looking up in mild surprise): Why didn’t you just hang up? How come you didn’t know it was a marketing call?
Me: She said it wasn’t!! Who lies about that?? How could she possibly still expect to sell anything after insisting she is not, who’d buy it, do you sell derivatives that way?
Kings (patiently): If you get a call in Cantonese, it’s always a marketing call. Don’t you know everyone just hangs up? If you speak to them they don’t stop. Don’t. Speak. To. Them.
Me: But –
Kings (still patiently): If they can’t also speak English (as in, not a single word), it’s not important. They’re marketers.
Sigh. Last time our landline saw that much action was when Rockstar was practicing numbers.
Census kids waiting for the bus outside Cyberport... Saw them moving about Cyberport one day very quickly and efficiently, regrouping after having split up to cover the different blocks... Soo much more professional than the telemarketers, I find..... Or is that just totally d-uh of me to say? 😛
He’s right, though. We got a call from the HK government population census bureau, apparently they also sent us a letter notifying us they were dropping in (that Kings must’ve picked up and forgotten to mention to me – this is normal in our marriage), the kid who intercomed and then quickly and painlessly did the 10 minutes census with us switched immediately to perfectly grammatical English.
TO PCCW COMPETITORS:
1) IF IT WAS YOUR GIRL I HUNG UP ON, THAT WAS BRILLIANT.
2) IF THOSE REALLY WERE MARKETERS CONTRACTED BY PCCW THAT I HUNG UP ON, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.
Hi there Aileen, I can feel your blood boiling as I was reading your post. Just curious, don’t they need to sell to people who speak English too?
I think just not enough need out there to justify cost of getting more professional ppl to do it.. Tell u honestly I had some experiences with Canton-only marketing – I got pushed to do stuff like placenta-cream… I said no cos I really DON’T use stuff like that n thought doing a commercial where I demonstrate how to apply it to my face was grossly misleading, stuff like that.. Then I got called n texted for days (yes pure canton) pushing me to do it the company wanted someone with “elegant, rich feel”… DONT ask me what that’s supposed to be, but the perpetual calling plus with apparently before n after shots etc (what before-after?? In ONE application, over in the time taken to film the shots you hsve before-after??) No one in advertising it cared that I don’t use the stuff.
I think the “professionalism” benchmark for these things tends to tie a little with whether they hire ppl who can also speak English, unfortunately…
After, because, in spite of…
Obviously my opinion was expressed via you never having read here that i endorse or did commercial for placenta cream or other what-not..
I had some calls fm our local phone company’s marketers asking me to upgrade my broadband package. I had firmly told them that we were not interested. Finally, when I ‘beh tahan’ with the last call, I told them I was not happy with the current package as my internet speed (checked fm the speedometer) was lower than what i was supposed to get. So I told them why should I pay more for a higher end package when I might not get the speed that is promised. Stupid( sorry …really beh tahan) marketer could not understand what i was saying and I had to repeat my statement a few times. She asked me why I never made complaints. Told her it’s a waste of time cos have experienced it. I even told her to log down as a complaint from customer. Hubby overheard my conversation with the marketer and told me I should have just put down the phone. I told hubby that it made me feeelll soooooooooo goooood to be able to vent out my frustration cos making complaints to the customer service hotline will be like hitting my head on the wall. 😛Â
JK – well if it makes you feel good may as well… better than suffering in silence (or worse being short with the kids) if they’ve already provided much aggro…
i try not to engage though, cos it doesn’t make me feel good though that may be cos of what hard sells go on here (if you tried to view property during an open house for eg, your car can get seriously mobbed and the mom you open your car door umpteen agents would thrust fliers through the crack into your face – it is one of the few times I’ve ever heard Kings yell like that).. There are even parodies in local movies (one of which one of an ex-boss then showed a clip of in a presentation to hundreds of bank branch sales personnel along the lines of Really Hope You Guys Don’t Do This..
CA – thanks for the comment, I didn’t know they go door to door in older buildings, can’t imagine there’s a very high success rate so don’t understand why they still do it… Does it ever work??
Thanks for that, CA!
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