or Pig English 2

My company needed an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Writer. Why?
It’s fat and bloated.
It’s too expensive at $280 or so.
It phones home.

We purchased a package from Scansoft for $50. All was well.
Last week Scansoft became unregistered. When we called Scansoft, they wanted us to PAY for service because THEIR software doesn’t work. AND it phones home.

Yesterday I emailed one of our vendors (rhymes with hell), detailing our plight and asking what else was available. My response arrived today:

“Adobe will do exactly what you want. 99% of my customers use it.”

When my head stopped spinning, I called a coworker over to make sure I read that right.
Yup.

His head got dizzy too.

Rather than point out the obvious (which obviously wasn’t obvious enough) I again stated that Adobe was too expensive, too bloated, and spyware. Was there anything else available?

To their credit, the response was rapid. It suggested that if I didn’t like Adobe, they could certainly quote me a price on the Scansoft software that we were having a problem with.

THAT WE WERE HAVING A PROBLEM WITH.

My jaw rebounded from the floor and emitted an `oh my god….’
I was speechless (a very new thing for me).
Quickly I turned to a coworker, who verified that I always speak english.
He said that at no point do I lapse into Swahili, verbally or in writing.

I put a flashlight in his mouth, so when HIS head started spinning, I got a really nice strobe effect. At one point he looked a little like a very short lighthouse.

When we had stopped spinning, gyrating, sputtering, and generally shaking our heads in disbelief, he asked me if the sender of the email was Indian. Funny - I suspected she was, but asked him why. He stated that they’re borderline automatons, who don’t vary from the script (presumably under pain of death?). My experience parallels his.

Hmmmm… I wonder if we’re seeing a cultural variant of SRA (satanic ritual abuse). Over here, it results in multiple personalities and cult nonsense. Perhaps over there it results in Tech Support Zombies, who simply parrot what you said and continue to offer the same solution (you rejected weeks ago).

Let’s face it… if you’re reading this blog, we’re both speaking the same variant of Swahili.

AREN’T WE??????????