Outsourced

I've accepted the fact that if someone needs to call Microsoft for product support (and you can bet someone, somewhere, at this second does need Microsoft product support) that when they dial the number and someone answers, they are not speaking to you direct from Redmond, Wash. More like New Delhi, India. Or at least some remote location here in the states. Major corporations often outsource these kinds of jobs. It's cheaper. It allows them to focus on other things. It's a common business practice. Fine, I get that. But there's some places that when I look up the phone number in the phone book, I expect to be talking to someone at the address listed in the phone book. Like when I order a pizza. Apparently, I was wrong.

I decided I wanted Pizza Hut yesterday because I hadn't had anything from there in a while. It's not the greatest, but it's a good choice if you want a place that piles on the pepperonis. I look them up in the phone book to find quite a few locations around town, all listed with different phone numbers. I find the one that's in the shopping center directly across the street from me and call to make my order, which I plan on going to pick up at the store. So I wait 15 minutes and head over. When I give them my name, the woman just kind of stares at me and asks what phone number the order was under. So I give her my phone number and she proceeds to type it in on the computer only to discover that no such order is at the store or was taken by the store.

The story goes on, but here's basically what happened. Apparently, when you dial any one of the different Pizza Hut phone numbers in Corpus, even though there's many different numbers, they all are answered at one single, mystery location. The order is then relayed by computer to whichever location you called. But calling the number for the specific store you want to use apparently didn't matter to whoever was answering phones yesterday because they sent the order to the store on the other side of town. The lady actually at the Pizza Hut store made it sound like this was a common problem. Two pizzas were made for me yesterday. I paid for and received one. So whatever money they are saving by not having someone answer the phone at each location, they're losing in wasted pizzas. Thanks a lot, outsourcing.