Australians Abroad - The Return of the Native

That it took four days to repair, and only after numerous complaints from the thousand or more people within the compound says much about the laid back attitude here. The Filipino sense of time (I call it "island time") can be disconcerting for those who like things done in a hurry. (Is there is a word for "hurry" in Tagalog?) Many Filipino friends laugh at the Australian sense of urgency about completing tasks
Judy Bryant, Mail from Malaysia, June 17th

How often do we expats see the inefficiencies in other countries and attribute them, not to basic human inefficiency, but to some aspect of the culture we find ourselves in. It happens, I think, constantly. Whether we are in Manila, Malaysia or New York, the constant battles with locals never ceases to amaze and frustrate us.

When on hold to Dell Computer Corporation, Texas from New York, I've felt like screaming. What's with these people? Why am I forced to wait in a telephone queue for what seems like hours, only to be told at the end of the canned music, that I must dial another number. What's with this lack of "customer service", and why do so many orders get lost and why is there this apparent "don't care" attitude at the other end of the line?

We visit home, normally in holiday spirit and it all seems so happy, relaxed, efficient... But what if we visit home as an outsider? What if we visit, not just to go for dinner parties with friends, but on business?

The answer my friend is written loud and clear. Suddenly we find that those very annoying things exist at home and we can no longer find any consolation in saying to ourselves that New Yorkers are hopeless, Filipinos have no sense of urgency or that Malaysians are happy go lucky. These traits are alive and well and living in Melbourne.

When I read one of Tony Lee's letters about a telephone company in Malaysia, I thought how similar his experience seemed to many of mine with Bell Atlantic in NYC. How hopeless these people seemed. Well folks, just try getting Telstra to do something right the first time.

We had contacted Telstra from New York, in order to set up the new Melbourne phone number with two directory listings. It's over three weeks now and there's still only one listing. Well I think there's a listing. When I set up my BigPond account, the BigPond salesman said he could find nothing at all listed at our number. But he added that that wasn't unusual and as long as we got dial tone we should be happy.

Telstra has apparently "changed procedures" for getting a second entry in the White Pages since we placed the order. The salesperson who organised the new phone number was not told, and only found out after I phoned to ask why it the account had only one name listed as having a White Pages entry. At the time of writing the mistake is still not corrected.

Or take the order from Gateway Australia. You'd think that an order for a $7,000 PC would somehow be treated with a bit of respect. When the monitor blew up on day-one we weren't too worried. Several phone calls, some being up to one hour on hold, and five days later, we still have a non-working system. No one from Gateway has returned a call. The replacement monitor was found not to be in stock and no one even bothered to phone us to tell us it was not even at the warehouse, for the days we waited at home, waiting for it to be delivered. As I write this, we still don't know when we'll have it. When I contacted the salesman who took the order about a month ago, he was unshaken, apparently unconcerned and said there was nothing he could do about it.

Then there's been the ISP experience. It seems almost impossible to find a reliable and reasonably-priced ISP in Melbourne. So far BigPond is looking the best. OZEmail kept crashing and after the first experience at OZEmail tech support, when I was told that having a network card in the PC could "cause all sorts of problems", I started to lose all faith. I could go on and on. Certainly the attitude when things have "gone wrong" has been a lot better than the general attitude I've come across in New York, and in all cases but that of Gateway, the customer service people have been apologetic and tried to remedy the mess immediately. But nevertheless, business type dealings are fraught with difficulty. Arrangements have to be double-checked and no one's word can be taken for granted. Efficiency and excellence in service are not commonplace.

So if you are feeling a little homesick, my advice to my fellow expats is this; if you are in NYC, contact Bell Atlantic. If in Malaysia, call the telephone company. And if in the Philippines, spend a while in a village. It's Australia All Over.