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Friday, April 29, 2011

The over privileged ringtone..

Before I start, I ll have to apologize for the cheeky title.. especially since it's a twist on the title of a post that I read from someone's blog.. but it sort of suited what I was gonna write about.. So, a thanks to the author and a sorry to his fans.. And now that I have silenced my conscience, let's just go ahead..

The over privileged ringtone, in this case, is my very own, non personal ringtone.. by that I mean that it's just one ringtone for everyone on my mobile.. one tune that plays anytime anyone calls! So why is it the over privileged ringtone? Coz of all the unnecessary calls I keep getting from the so called tele marketing people.. I have so far got so many calls that I have actually had the chance to understand the different types of persons who call...

And having understood the different categories of such call persons (with obviously no pun intended!), I am thankful that I didn't listen to my friend and activate DND.. Besides, I don't think DND works very well... They can always do this:


So here are the types of persons who might call you. I will illustrate each with an example based on true calls that I have received over the past 2 yrs or so. You can appreciate my patience later for bearing with the callers and my presence of mind (read -> lack of work) for coming up with this research :P
  1. The Informed Caller:
    These are the people who actually have some kind of background information on you and try to convince you with actual data and facts. One such call I received was from Vodafone. The actual transcript would be pretty boring to read so I ll just describe the call as shortly as possible (by me, that is).. A Vodafone Executive called me up and asked if she could talk to me for a few mins. I said yes and she started describing this wonderful plan that was just meant for me (I am sure she used that line on everyone.. but hey, we are suckers nevertheless!) She told me about a plan that would cost me Rs. 39 per month and which would make my Vodafone to Vodafone calls to cost only 20p/min.. I eagerly asked whether it was all Vodafone numbers to which she said in a lower voice that it was only for local Vodafone
    numbers.. And that made me wonder what was the use of the plan.. My current plan charges me 40p/min for local Vodafone numbers and this new plan would just reduce it by 20p while I have to pay Rs.39.. and that too considering I have CUG and most of my friends are on CUG (atleast the ones I need to call regularly).. So I pointed out the same to her.. And she immediately said (and here I try to quote) "But sir, we notice that you call 9********* and it's not CUG".. I was a bit taken aback.. I mean, I know they would have my details but this was the first time I was seeing it being used against me! I politely replied that I get more incoming than outgoing from that number (ofcourse, I didn't recognize the number but then, who cares?).. I thought that would stop her but no.. She said "No sir. We can see that you talked for more than 20 mins with this number last Saturday and it cost you Rs. X and taking this plan would reduce those charges".. Now this was really getting out of hand and I couldn't think of anything to say.. In the end, I just said "Actually, we are fighting so we are no longer talking to each other, so I won't need the plan but thanks anyways for asking!"
  2. The too-good-to-be-true caller
    These are the type of callers who try to give you some offer but you are not sure whether you are the intended person or whether this is a crank call or whether someone is just trying to pull a fast one on you. Picture this scenario: I get a call on my office desk phone and the person on the other end says "Hi, I am so-and-so from 'X' consultancy and we are recruiting for Java developers for a MNC. Would you be interested to share your resume?" I had just recently joined office so I was not really planning to move out.. but since I got the call I thought I could give it a try.. and then I remembered that
    I had never heard of a consultancy person calling on the desk phone to ask for resume! This got me suspicious and so I ended up saying "Actually I am quite happy here but thanks for the offer". To this day, I am not sure whether that was really a call from some consultancy or whether it was our company HR's way of doing background verification!
  3. The indifferent caller
    These are the ppl who call you just coz they have to.. porbably the best kind of ppl to get calls from.. "Hello sir, can I take a few mins of your time" "this is about" "a free gold credit card from..." "not interested" "thank you sir" simple, short and quick call!
  4. The taking-things-personally/ insistent caller
    These are the callers who get offended if you say no and actually take things personally.. They try to defend themselves and try and convince you to accept the offer.. I got a call from a credit card company, one day. "Hello sir, can I talk to you for a few mins?" "what is this about?" "sir, this is about a free gold credit card from X bank" "Sorry, not interested" and I was about to cut the call when I heard a slightly agitated tone from the other end "why not sir? I want to know why!" This was the first time somebody had actually asked for a reason! "I already have two credit cards" "but sir, this card has features 1, 2 and 3!" "I have all the 3 features on both my cards and I am not actually the card using kind of person.. I don't travel and I shop very little" "But sir, this card is free! you can just take and keep it without using!" "why would I buy a card that I won't even use?" "But sir, this card is completely free and you can use it anytime you want and we are giving it to only Y company employee" By now I had run out of excuses and patience "ok, if I take this credit card, how will I pay the bill? Can I pay the bill online?" "No sir, you can pay cash or cheque at the nearest bank or drop a cheque at the the nearest ATM or you can ask one of our executives to come and pick the cheque for a nominal fee!" "That's why I don't want the card. The bank is far, the nearest ATM is atleast 8kms away and I don't see the point of paying for paying my bill!" "I understand sir. Thank you for your time" phew! finally!
  5. The sensitive caller
    These are the callers who get hurt if you don't listen to them or if you say no. This call came to one of friends "Hello madam, is this the right time to talk to you?" "what is this about?" "Maam, a free credit card..." but before he could finish, my friend interjected "Not interested" and was abt to cut the call when she heard the almost-in-tears voice from the other end "ye kay hai maam! koi sunte hi nahi ho!  sab log bina sune hi kaath dete ho!" {what's this maam.. no one even listens (to what I am saying) Everyone just cuts the call (without hearing me out)} a little taken aback but not wanting to hurt the person more, my friend asked the person to tell abt the offer which he gladly went on abt for 5 mins at the end of which my friend very politely replied that she really was not interested and that she already had another credit card. The caller thanked her for listening and finally disconnected..
  6. The desperate caller - This is my personal favorite!!!
    This is the caller who seemingly has to meet some targets and tries to do everything in his power to sell you something.. or in my case, anything! "Good morning sir, am I talking to Mr. Vivek?" "Yes" "Sir, are you working for X company?" "Yes" "Sir, I am glad to inform you that you have been selected for a free savings account  from Y bank" "Er.. I already have my salary account in Y bank" a slight pause later "hmm. Sir you already have a salary account?" "Yes" "which branch sir?" "M.G. Road branch" "ok sir, what abt a current account sir?" "I already have one which was opened along with my salary account in the same branch!" "ok sir, then how about a free gold credit card from Y bank?" "But I already have a free platinum card from Y bank" "eh.. sir.. what abt a demat account?" "But I don't do trading so I won't need one" that I believe was the final straw coz I could make out that he was really getting desperate "sir, come on, you can take a demat account and it ll be just 100rs. per year.." And even though I pitied the person, I had to politely refuse and disconnect the call..
Now that you know the different types of callers, try and fit the next call you get into these categories.. And while I sometimes feel these ppl should be fried in oil for the kind of pain in the wrong places that they are, I can't help but pity these ppl's job.. Think abt it.. having to call hundreds of ppl most of whom would be rude and still keeping a happy mood.. I wonder how these ppl manage not to commit suicide! Next time you get a call, be a bit empathic and say NO in a polite manner.. after all, there are just doing a job like you and me!

As for me, I have gotten so used to the calls, I have actually come to this stage:


Thursday, April 21, 2011

GIDS

When my SIL suddenly called me up on Tuesday evening, I knew something was wrong.. But things were worse than expected.. She wanted me to attend some 2 day developer summit on her behalf.. somewhere near Mathikere (I stay near ITPL which meant it was a good 25+ kms away).. Now, the distance, the short notice and the almost total ignorance on what to expect, factored very heavily in making me want to say no.. And knowing a few seminars/ summits which were more of a brand promotion rather than dissemination of knowledge, I was a bit weary about going. But for some reason I agreed.. Maybe it was an intuition (Maybe, I just needed a break from work!)

And am I glad that I decided to go! Fast forward 12 hrs - I made sure I could leave office for two days and hurriedly took an auto at around 9 to JN Tata Auditorium (the gates were supposed to get closed by 9.20).. After trying to find the shortest route and realizing that the auto wala took the longer route and getting stuck in stand still traffic, finally managed to hurriedly reach a little before 11. I was half expecting to get kicked out but was let in with a tag and a complimentary bag. I found the nearest hall and went in, imagining things to be very much similar to the many training courses that I had attended.


But I was in for a surprise. The session that was going on was by a person by the name Scott Davis on HTML5.. I had heard abt HTML5 and knew that most of the browsers were supporting it. But that's were my knowledge stopped.. The next one hour or so was just pure learning fun.. I don't remember having so much fun getting to know something new.. atleast, none in the recent years..

And the day just changed completely after that.. I came to know that there were a number of sessions going on in parallel and I could attend any of them.. So I attended the session on Designing User Experience for Multi-screen Applications with Flash, HTML5 & CSS3 by Harish Sivaramakrishnan. It was very informative, especially the part on CSS3 and Adobe AIR..

Soon it was lunch time and I started going to the various stalls put up in the vicinity by the sponsors.. There was so much information available within a hand's reach and there were numerous contests and goodies too.. And the lunch was simply excellent (something that I usually find the organizers neglect when the technical organizing is good. Kudos to the Organizers for that).. A tasty meal, a complimentary Red Bull, a quick visit to the stalls and it was back to sessions.. But instead we were greeted by a magician.. An illusionist to be precise.. And he brought the spirits back with his wonderful acts & wisecracks and had the audience in splits with his quips!

Then it was a series of sessions starting with an informative session on jQuery, another light but meaningful session by Scott Davis on Microformats and Sematic web followed by a wonderful session on javaScript by Venkat Subramaniam! By the end of the day, all that learning frenzy left me exhausted but thirsty for more!!

Finally here was a Summit, which had relevant and related topics, wonderful orators, a good management of events, excellent arrangements in terms of audio, video, seating (& eating) and goodies to make us feel good.. Thanks to saltmarch media and the sponsors for this wonderful Developer Summit. I am eager to sleep off now and get up early for the second day of sessions on my favorite language - Java.

To sum up the Summit: GIDS - Genuinely Informative, Doubly Satisfactory!

G I D S