#157 Distraction

Read a story the other day. It was about a call center that was helping victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In one way it was good. It was an experienced call center, used to handling thousands of calls daily dealing with software compatibility problems with a major computer operating system. The bad thing was; it was based; in you guessed it; India.
I’m all for making the world a smaller place and reaching out to non-English speaking peoples the world over. But I do think in emergency situations where a good grasp of the vernacular can make the difference between life and death, and a possibly higher insurance claim, that speaking with someone who knows American English as a first language may come in handy.
Case in point: Recently a young lady ran in to my car. She had taken a little bit of a shortcut across a painted traffic island instead of going up to the corner of said island and taking a full right turn. It wasn’t an easy distinction to describe—a painted traffic island versus say, a curb or something. It required an ability to communicate the distinction to someone else in a way that was convincing. She cut across, she took a short cut, she made a bee-line instead of turning her car at right angles. Hell, even the policeman on the scene didn’t get it at first. And he saw the positions of the cars. He viewed the painted traffic island as flat and therefore cut across-able. I had to remind him that if it’s painted on the pavement, it’s just like it’s ten feet tall. You ain’t supposed to cut across it.
Anyhow. Later, on the phone, my insurance adjuster sounded as if he was from Cambodia. Worse, his accent made it difficult to communicate with me. At one point during the taped deposition, he asked if at the time of the accident there had been any destruction. Well yeah, I replied, I already told you, to my left front quarter panel. “The destruction of your left front quarter panel caused the accident?” he asked. No, I replied, the destruction was caused by the accident. It took us a while to sort it out. “No,” he asked, “destruction, was there any destruction?” I finally figured out that he was saying distraction. It’s going to be a long insurance claim.
I feel for the poor victims of the hurricanes, who already have enough BS to deal with because their weasel-ly insurance companies are even now trying to deny claims by saying it’s flood damage not hurricane damage. I hope they don’t have their claims denied because the adjuster decides there ruined homes are only an example of the distraction caused by the hurricane.
America ya gotta love it.