"Just transfer me to someone with critical thinking skills please."

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - they are really not very creative. One of the most irritating thing is that the indian culture teaches them that if you're uneducated you're totally worthless. As a result of that, if they dont know how to do something they often try and blag it or make it up rather than simply explain that they dont know.

So you should make it clear to them........ if you dont know, tell me you dont know.

They're never trained; they have no fucking idea what they're doing.

They just follow a checklist in about 5 pages of "Choose your own Tech Adventure #232: Cheap Hosting Support Team!", and when they fail to do that, they try like hell to either: A) keep you on the phone and tell you how much you matter and this will be taken care of, or B) "accidental drop."

HAHAHA well at least they give you a random answer.
I have a friend that works in the mainstream, he was in india in their outsourcing company to tie up a couple of projects and he told me whenever the workers was in doubt about something they would just sit at their desk and wait untill a superior came over, if the superior didn't know he would wait for his superior. Why?? they are tought they can't disturb the boss, they just need to wait untill it is their turn
And anything they are not trained to, they are not allowed to have an opinion about

lol thats not just an Indian trait, if you live, do business in Asia you know thats how it pretty much works around these parts...the hierarcy system is ingrained into people. If you are ever in Hong Kong and in a bank or big store, ask the person to speak to their manager and see the fear in their eyes.

They don't have to be outsourced or overseas to be incompetent.
I tried to buy one pound of yellow American cheese at a very upscale supermarket today.
The moron took two minutes to figure out how to put on her gloves - then asked "1/2 pound of white American?" I said, "no, one pound of yellow." She took the cheese over to the slicer, and then looked over at me and said "1/2 pound, right?" I said, "No, one pound."
She eventually gave me the cheese, and then I asked for "One pound of roast beef." She said "1/2 pound, like the cheese, right?" I looked at the cheese, and saw she had given me 1/2 pound, not one pound. I tossed the cheese back on the counter, and said "No, ONE pound, like the cheese was SUPPOSED to be." She said "I'm sorry sir, we get confused sometimes, we have a lot to do here."
I said "yes, but all you had to keep track of was 'yellow' and 'one pound," you asked me twice and I told you were wrong twice, and you still gave me the wrong thing."
She said "I'm sorry I don't have the mental capacity that you do, sir."
I said "me too" and left it that that.
And this is in Southern California, where they get paid $20 and hour AND full benefits to do that......
Jeez.

You made the mistake of not asking for "Smoked Cheese"



long time no see Mr. Smoke!

DK!!!!!
How the hell are ya???
Or is the more interesting question...."Where the hell are ya?"

Now that is fuckin classic..Lord help us!

When I was doing enterprise support we had to support products we had never seen that only ran on proprietary mainframes that we could not get access to because the company would not sell them to us due to the fact that we were competing in some markets. Those were the fun calls.

Chase bank outsources its HR call center to India.

You work in a bank in the US, and you have a question about your employment rights etc and some dude in India answers it. Weird.