If we get a call from someone who doesn’t speak English (you’d probably be surprised how many we get), we have to use a telephone interpreting service. This is a three-way conversation between the helpline officer, the customer and the interpreter. We can connect to an interpreter through this service almost immediately, for any language. And this service costs a small fortune for every call.
Now, I didn’t get one of these today, but one call I did get prompted me to explain the reality of how we deal with these calls!
It was a call from someone who originally came from Slovakia. The speaker was the son whose mother didn’t speak English, but his wasn’t too bad. He told me what she needed and I complied, but during the call he said his mother had telephoned five times over the last couple of days and requested an interpreter. The problem was that every time she was being connected to one, she was cut off. Strangely enough, this seems to be a common occurence for calls such as these. Any guesses as to why this might be? Faulty equipment, perhaps?
Nope, your first thoughts were correct. We cut them off! Most of them anyway, and a lot of helpline officers do it. The nightmare you have trying to sort out a problem whilst dealing with an interpreter who doesn’t have a clue how the benefit works is unbelievable. Of course, we all take the odd one of these calls in the correct manner, just not to make it too obvious to the little Hitlers in the back office. But it is amazing how many times I dial the wrong connection number and the recorded message tells me “this number is not recognised”, or as the connection is ringing my finger slips on the big red disconnect button. They shouldn’t make it so big! It’s very distracting.
Look, before you all start shouting the odds, don’t you think the lazy blighters ought to at least make the effort to speak our language before claiming our benefits? Half the time we do connect with an interpreter, we could do with an interpreter for the interpreter! It’s a bloody stupid service given solely so the big, fat, soft, lefty do-gooders can say we’re embracing diversity and report to the politicians that all their asses are covered. Bullsh*t! As far as they’re concerned, ‘everyone has the right to converse in their own language.’ Even if a Welsh person who can speak English perfectly (and surely 99% of them do), wants to speak in Welsh, we have to transfer them to a nominated Welsh speaker! Why? What difference does it make?
One day soon, I am going to learn how to say, “F*ck *ff” in every language!
Filed under: Joe Citizen, Language, Politics, Pure Bullsh*t | Tagged: benefits, bullsh*t, customers, foreign, interpreter, Joe Citizen, politics | 1 Comment »
Bureaucratic Bullsh*t 