American Customer Service...

Now this is customer service!




Good morning, welcome to the United States Of America, a Christian nation, land of the free and home of the brave.

How may I help you?

Press '1' for English.
Press '2' to disconnect until you learn to speak English.

And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American Soldier.

One died for your soul,


The other for your freedom,

 

My dad told me he'd die for me too, can we get a picture of him in the OP?

 

Sure, post it!

 

Unfortunatly, American customer service has been outsourced to India.

 

The above post creeps me out a little bit. WTF are you talking about?

 

Why does it creep you out?

 

Idk. It just seems odd to me.. Are you offended by the "press 2 for {insert language here}" option? You do know that the united states has no official religion either right? I just don't see your point.

 

Simple. I should NOT have to press anything for English.

 

First...a little background. My husband is a Muslim, and a proud veteran currently serving in Iraq; his relatives are a mix of various denominations of Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. I am a proud military spuse and a veteran as well, having served 14 years and currently rated 50% diasbled from VA. I was raised Pentecostal, but I frequently transition between atheist and agnostic these days…as do our children.

On to my point...Religion is not synonymous with goodness or unity. It has, on the contrary, fueled more wars and more brutality and more intolerance than any other ideal in human history. Do you and the other people who forward this garbage actually believe a lack of belief in Christianity’s “God” means we are any less American?? Last time I checked, my family and I have given 16 years of our lives in service to this country. I don’t recall adherence to any one religion being a condition of my or my husband's enlistment or our citizenship. My family donates time and money to helping others, do good deeds and perform many acts of kindness toward animals and people, often to our own financial detriment. A humanistic sense of empathy and common decency is all the motivation we need. Are our contributions lessened because we don’t care/worry/feel an obligation to emulate some fantasy notion of “what Jesus would do”?

Also, to educate those ignorant in military semantics...to most, if not all, military members in other branches, “soldiers” is a title representative of personnel in the Army. AND...they are not the only ones that protect this country. What about policemen, border patrol agents, sailors, fireman, airman, marines, etc. And that’s just in the conventional sense…our economic status, our scientific collaborations and contributions, our political partnerships with other countries…these all contribute to our sovereignty and status of being a world power. It’s not just who carries the biggest stick. This "American Customer Service" post is absolutely idiotic and pandering in its declaration of what makes America great and what we should be thankful for.

Having had the pleasure to experience a lot overseas travel, I can honestly say I am ashamed that our country has not mandated the teaching of other languages in all grade levels. Everywhere I have traveled (Thailand, Sarajevo, Macedonia, Kosovo, Japan, Philippines, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Canada…and Mexico) I’ve had the opportunity to meet host nationals that could speak English. And they weren’t few and far between, either. While graciously overlooking my ignorance of their culture and language, they were thrilled that I would converse with them in English so that they could practice their accents and pronunciations with a native speaker of their second (or third or fourth) language.

We, the all-too-proud mono-linguistic mainstream Americans, are the disadvantaged and the promoters of intolerance...propagating a “my way or the highway” mentality…while the rest of the world is effectively scaling the tower of Babel.

And though it is true the majority of Americans speak English….we do not have a declared national language…nor should we. We are a nation of immigrants; our distinction and national pride is largely derived from the fact that we are the most diverse country in the world. And, remember…we do have a territory full of American citizens in a predominantly Spanish speaking society…Puerto Rico. Not to mention Guam with its Spanish/Pacific Islander fusion, Hawaii, with its own beautiful and unique language, and Louisiana’s Creole population, to name just a few. Furthermore, the Native American Code Talkers were directly responsible for turning the tide on a war we were quickly losing due to the enemy’s adeptness at intercepting and decoding our encrypted English language radio transmissions. We should be very thankful that the missionaries failed in their brutal conquest to force English and “civility” onto every last tribesman in the name of Christianity’s God and a desire to produce a homogenous American population.

America isn’t only for Christians, nor is it only for English speakers. People entertain attitudes toward other languages and beliefs based on insecurities and preconceived notions regarding their beliefs. Negative attitudes toward a multilingual and multifaith society are nothing more than a thinly veiled front for negative attitudes towards other races and cultures. And, since we’re on the subject of intolerance…America is not just for the financially successful, the completely self-sufficient, the highly educated and the self-insured. Not every single person in this country has the physical ability or mental capacity to be successful. Should we just kill them off a'la Hitler? Acknowledge it or not, but the fact remains that our country was founded on some very liberal and tolerant ideals….freedom of religion, welcoming the down-trodden, equal rights for all, caring for our sick and poor, etc.

Despite the rose colored glasses the past is viewed through, America has never been perfect. We are a more free society today than ever before (racial integration, all-volunteer military, women in the workforce, etc) with more access to information and education across the social classes than at any time in history. If anything is to be accomplished it is going to have to be through the unified efforts of every American citizen, not just a particular demographic. You know… good ole “together we stand, divided we fall” principals. Deliberate alienation (pun intended) of segments of our country’s citizens by way of elitist mentalities and hypocritical religion based discrimination is getting us nowhere.

I don't intend to reply to any responses or debate this further, as I have wasted way too much time on this already. I signed up for this forum in order to respond to this post in hopes that others that may be reading it in the future realize not all Americans profess this opinion regarding the supposed founding "American values" identified in this post.

 

Well unfortunately automated phone services have no way of knowing what language you speak when you call in, and these companies have every incentive to serve people who do not speak English because.. well... they like making money and English speaking persons aren't the only one's who have greenbacks to spend.

So whether you like it or not is completely irrelevant, either you love and embrace free enterprise and the ability to sell your wares to anyone willing to buy, or you prefer an autocratic society where companies are forced to cater to a single language audience.

It's really that simple.

 

It's really funny if you read it as satire.

 

This is probably a more accurate picture for the first post.. well... actually... this:

 

I thought this was going to be a serious thread about the decline of American customer service. While it would have been appropriate, it also would have been extremely ironic since this is the day and age of the all powerful SERVICE ECONOMY!!!!!!!!! ....lol...oh, well....

 

We here in the U.S. have the advantage of speaking the universal language already, so there is no need to mandate learning another language. What language would you choose? We already have to take some foreign language in most schools anyway, and I remember the choices being French, German, Spanish, and Russian in my high school.

 

Luckily most phone systems will default to English if you press nothing.

 

You do know that when you call a customer service line for a company that said company likely sells their product in many countries. Some of those countries probably don't speak english. It would make bad business sense to not offer customer service to people in every country where their product is sold.. Or do you think the United States are the only country on earth?

 

Wow, you missed the point by a mile. What a shame.

 

What's a "**********"?

 

If I call from the U.S. to a U.S. company, I should be hearing English. Phone systems are smart enough.

 

Maybe your point was pointless.

 

Thanks for your service.

The rest of your post is a mix of nonsense, and your idiotic username puts you squarely in the category of ignorance on parade.

 

True. Not typical of an American Soldier.

 

If you call from a cell phone how does it know from where you are calling?

They don't listen spanish or any other language as an option as an afront to you, they list it because they have customers in other countries who don't speak English. They would lose money if they only operated in your language.. That's it. It's not to make you feel threatened by people speaking a different language than you.

 

What's wrong with what she wrote? She pointed out that it is not neccassary for a person to be Christian to serve this country. Also, that it is impractical to assume that everyone only speaks english.