FastFood Idiot

No more than an hour ago, I lined up on queue Mc Donald's outlet at the PeopleSupport Center in Ayala, Makati for a quick bite. It was my lunch break, but it was very early in the morning as I am on the graveyard shift. I know I don't dress up for work and usually only come as I would if I'm just strolling in a mall, but I don't think I look that bad to be discriminated upon.

The soonest I got up next to the counter, the two crews smiled on me and asked what I wanted to have. As I was on the phone with my wife, I quickly told them I want their Cheeseburger Value Meal with an upgrade to large fries. The cashier sort of mirrored to me what I ordered but I didn't hear it the first time, so I said goodbye to my wife on the other end and verified with them what they were trying to tell me.

"Are you sure you want to have Cheeseburger Value Meal and not Burger McDo (which is of lesser value) instead?", one of the crews said, still flashing a seemingly painted on smile.

"You heard me right the first time", I said thinking they may be only offering it as they are maybe having a promotion with that Value Meal, "--I want Cheeseburger Value Meal with large fries and regular Coke."

Ever smiling, the other crew asked me again, "Are you sure you want large fries and not regular fries instead?", which ticked me right off. I demanded to speak to a supervisor or a manager, upon which they both have profusely began apologize to me.

"I don't know what's on both your minds or if you're insulting me", I said, "but let me just educate you that it is rude to offer a customer to downgrade from what they have originally ordered. If I were your supervisor, I would have terminated you from your job right there and then."

I'm not really the kind who discriminate on people, as we have been taught by our parents when we were young to be respectful of every single person we meet. Those people like the fast food crews from hell I just dealt with simply just makes me wonder what kind of parents they have had to have grown that way. Their parents couldn't have been any better, I think. It couldn't possibly for a reason that they were raised in a poor environment, as I have met people raised in slums but with utter respect towards others unlike these two.

This is not to rant because I have been insulted, I merely am just showing how people can be unwittingly rude because of their stupidity. Definitely, such a practice of offering a downgrade from what the customer originally asked is a big no-no in sales, even with food vendors that do have customers coming to them willingly. And, yes, even if they are as popular as Mc Donald's. This makes me wonder if these crews have been trained at all.

Similar thing happened to me with Jollibee in Farmer's Cubao some months ago. We were on our way home from visiting a relative in Laguna and decided to stop by in Cubao as it was already late to cook for dinner when we get home.

We ordered for two two-piece chicken meals with upsize Cokes. To our surprise, the cashier asked us-- "Do you want to have Sarsi instead (which is a cheaper cola drink), for you to make some savings?" I explained to then, apologetically even, that we both don't like the taste of Sarsi and confirmed with them I want to have Cokes with the meals. That said and done, they have issued us the receipt and they prepared our orders while waiting at the counter.

When they finally handed us our meals, we even thanked them as we're about to go to our table. As a habit, I normally first take a sip on a drink before having my first bite. I noticed the drink tasted different, so I took out the receipt to check on the drinks billed. It was, much to our dismay, a Sarsi. I hurried back to the counter and excused myself to the customer the cashier was attending to. I gave her the drinks and told her I did reiterate myself we wanted Coke and not Sarsi, then asked for her explanation why we ended up being served with Sarsi.

"Sir," she said, "we have billed you already for Sarsi, so we can't change it for you. We only did that because we though you may want to save some money."

I was fuming mad already, so I said, "Are you insulting me? And what right have you got to switch my preferences on me without informing me about it? Where is your supervisor?"
"Sir, she's on a meeting right now, I'm sorry," she said almost with teary eyes. "It will be taken against my pay if we change your drinks to Coke, sir, so if you please have pity."

"Well, to begin with, if you were not stupid enough to mess up my order, I wouldn't be demanding for you to change it back to what I wanted. I only will go if you change it to Coke. Or if you don't want to pay for it, get me your supervisor."

"Sir, we're not allowed to get our supervisor for such a petty complain," she retorted.

"You call insulting a customer a petty complain? It could cost you your job!", I was beginning to feel pity for her at this point. I paused for sometime to get composed. Indeed it may cost her the job if I push through with the complaint. Pulling myself together, I told her-- "Okay, let me pay for large Cokes and you go to hell with these drinks you have given us. But learn from this, you idiot-- do not discriminate your customers for they may be earning far more than even your manager on this site."

I did write Jollibee customer service about that incident, but they responded I need to provide them the official receipt, which I no longer have.

All in all, these things happened because they thought I could not afford to have those upgrades. Basically it is discrimination and maybe due to that I have darker skin tone than many here in Metro Manila. I could take indirect discrimination but not something as in-your-face as this. This strengthens further my observation that Filipinos are getting more and more stupid.

YES To Offshore BPO

US President-elect Obama have explicitly said in his speeches about his being against the offshore BPO industry. He view the industry to be anti-American as it provides employment opportunities to other countries instead of keeping it within the US soil. This pronouncements have sent ripples throughout the outsourcing world, especially in India, and have earned varying reactions ranging from concerns to affirmations.

For the past few weeks, I have been monitoring the situation and particularly am after the response of companies who outsource some aspects of their business offshore. None of them have issued a statement regarding Obama's apparent plan to give tax holidays only to companies who keep all their businesses and human resource needs within the US only. With the current economic condition of the United States, it is quite vague how the government can offer tax holidays; yet it still is something to ponder upon for those companies trying to project an image of being patriotic of sorts.

Well, tax holiday is not that big a break compared to how much these companies can save by outsourcing offshore. Definitely that is a huge factor to consider-- it is known that outsourcing offshore saves these companies at least half the cost of what they otherwise have to spend if they are to stay within the United States for the same services. The Obama administration will have to shell out something more than just tax holidays to entice these companies to return using services from within the US, such as lowering the minimum wage to compete with those offered in BPO giant India, or even the Philippines.

Another question to consider is will Americans be amenable to taking up such kinds of jobs, which they otherwise consider to be less desirable? Whether these companies admit it or not, the main attraction of outsourcing countries are that the human resource are more hospitable than Americans. Americans regards highly of themselves and would not take flak from say a customer raging about a service that was not much to their liking. Filipinos exudes in patience that they will try and continue working with a customer who's impossible to reason with even if the latter themselves have caused the trouble to begin with. Many Americans do consider working in a call center below their threshold, which on the other hand is the exact opposite here in the Philippines. Or at least this is the case for now.

Another thing that'll be hard to compete with offshore for the Americans is the persistence in the case of telemarketing services-- I have read somewhere that the main difference between American and Indian telemarketers is that it is hard to teach the former to at least give one rebuttal and the latter to stop after the third rebuttal. Teaching a certain demographic something it is not accustomed to can cost time and money as it can be likened to learning a new language, or even new culture altogether. It wouldn't be a good thing to invest to knowing that afterwards you still have to cover for higher salary standards.

All in all it boils down to that BPO caters to businesses, and business could only be mixed with so much politics and patriotism-- it still has to survive and be able to generate income. On top of priority of any business is to be able to operate at lesser cost and more returns. Such could not be sustained right now by opting to be inshore, it simply follows the logic of "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush"-- the infrastructure and skills are already set and running offshore, why risk on something you're not too sure about?

*picture taken from http://www.cca.com.ph/