Electrical Wiring in India

[maggie~hamilton]

When you call customer service for assistance with your new computer, or want to make airline reservations, or receive internet tech support, and you get somebody in India who may be difficult to understand, maybe it's not totally due to their heavy accent; maybe the difficulty in understanding is also partly due to the wiring in India.......!

 

[maggie~hamilton]

 

[maggie~hamilton]

 

[liamwa]

Well all I can say, and please don't take offense is. HOLY SHIT!!!

 

[mielabor]

Unbelievable to see that mess. I also heard that the wiring inside houses is not much better. Someone told me that he had a bathroom with a light bulb hanging on bare wires only a few inches from the showerhead.

 

[tolivac]

Do they have an electrical code book and linemans manual anywhere?They would be better off to light their homes with candles than deal with the "HOLY SHIT" wiring mess.There is so many code violations there-Where to begin?Tear it all down and start over!

 

[toggleswitch]

~There is so many code violations there.

Actually, I'm thinking the LACK of codes/standards and good common-sense practices there may be the root of the problem.

So we should not complain when it costs us to "meet code"

ANSI- American National Standards Institute.

American National Standards Institute - ANSI Home

The American National Standards Institute - ANSI - facilitates and corrdinates the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system.

www.ansi.org

 

[toggleswitch]

Life: It's all just an elaborate illusion......

All kidding aside:

It is said that the belief in reincarnation leads to a "it's only temporary" attitue in SO many areas of life. It is possible that many don't care about "the details" to the degree seen elsewhwhere.

 

[sudsmaster]

I'm pretty sure that the call centers we might reach when we call a company's technical support are not in those areas with such dodgy wiring. Rather, they are likely in modern office parks with modern wiring, etc. They probably also have emergency backup generators to take over in case of an area power outage.

Just guessing.

 

[MrX]

India's very much in developing country mode though. Parts of it look just like Europe or the US, modern, neat, tidy and high tech. Other parts are complete chaos, falling apart or shanty towns.

Your call to indian call centres are most definitely in bland boring office buildings out in some business park though.

 

[petek]

Did anyone see that documentary called "Bombay Calling" which was about the call center business in India. It was quite interesting. It sort of followed the lives of a few of the young employees working at one of the centers. All very modern etc. Interesting too how they try to disguise their indian accents and sound either American, British, etc and use English names.. I had one the other day again from Bell.. it was Adam, but not Adam enough to completely sound Canadian/American but pretty good all the same.

 

[maggie~hamilton]

Um,

saying the calls to Indian call centers were hard to understand because of the horrendous wiring shown in the photos was humorous, not meant seriously. OF COURSE, the call centers are located in industrial-park, state-of-the-art concrete 'bunkers' with underground wiring, DSL computer connections, air conditioning, etc etc etc.

 

[sudsmaster]

I worked in Silicon Valley until mid-2002. I recall in the late 90's and early 21st century our building was packed with workers from India. A lot of them were on the phone, speaking in Hindi or whatever it was. Soon enough, the execs from "Wipro" were waltzing through, and then a year later nearly all the Indian workers disappeared. The next year, the building was shut down. Guess where a lot of the work went?

The Indian workers got trained - and paid - while in the USA, then went back to India to do the same work there. Mostly financial and manufacturing systems software programming and administrtaion, apparently. Unfortunately a lot of the other staff in the USA that kept the Indian worker's systems going lost their jobs in the process. The guys who run Wipro made out like bandits (it's one of the biggest India-based IT outsourcing companies).

Not that I miss IT all that much... lol...

 

[westyslantfront]

I am getting tired of dealing with companies that have outsourced to India as it is oftentimes difficult to understand their heavily accented English.
I worked for Lufthansa German Airlines for 26 years. When you call Lufthansa now, the call goes to Peterborough, Ontario after Long Island and Los Angeles offices were closed.

Ross

 

[goprog]

In general, I have to agree my experience with foreign customer
service is not satisfying. They sort of say the right things,
reading off their scripted responses. That may be alright for
people that don't think to look to see if their appliance is
plugged in, don't know how to program a VCR, etc. But after
being in "high-class" customer service for a few decades and
knowing what it takes to really care about and work with a
customer, I generally just don't feel I'm getting the same
back. I could go on, but it wouldn't be anything you probably
already don't know.

 

[maggie~hamilton]

"reading off their scripted responses"

There are few things more enraging than calling my DSL tech support when there is a "service interruption" to find out why. The calls generally go something like this:

ME: [after pressing 1 for this, 2 for that, 1 for this, 3 for that, 4 for this, 7 for that, 9 for this and then Star+69 for that, then going into the hold queue and listening to muzak arrangements of Barry Manilow hits for 30-35 minutes] I am calling to find out why I don't have DSL service.

INDIA: Very well, sir. First of all please allow me to profusely apologize for your inconvenience. Now, could you please verify that your computer and modem are connected.

ME: Yes they are.

INDIA: Ver well, sir. Let us now restart your computer and reinstall your "InternetNOW" interface software.

ME: There is nothing wrong with my "InternetNOW" interface software. The problem is that I do not have an internet connection.

INDIA: Very well, sir. Please allow me to profusely apologize for your inconvenience. Now, could you please verify that your computer and modem are turned on and have power.

ME: Yes, they are.

INDIA: Very well, sir. Now then, we need to verify the settings of your TCPIP interface.

ME: There is nothing wrong with my TCPIP interface. The problem is that I do not have an internet connection.

INDIA: Very well, sir. Please allow me to profusely apologize for your inconvenience. Now, could you please verify that your modem is connected to the telephone service jack, and that it is also connected to your computer via the Ethernet cable. You can tell the two cables apart because the Ethernet cable has a larger connector on it.

ME: There is nothing wrong with my modem cable or my Ethernet cable. The problem is that I do not have an internet connection.

INDIA: Very well, sir. Please allow me to profusely apologize for your inconvenience. Now, could you please verify that your phone service is current and that you have paid your bill.

ME: If there was a problem with my phone service, how could I be making this call to you?

INDIA: Very well, sir. Please allow me to profusely apologize for your inconvenience. Now, then, what we are required to do is erase your hard drive, re-initialize it, and then re-install all your software.

ME: [After ripping the phone from the wall, throwing it across the room where it shatters into a thousand little plastic bits] {{{*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM!!!*}}}

And So It Goes.

 

[toggleswitch]

Sometimes we just go too far.

 

[compactc9]

That is very very funny!!

 

[gansky1]

I remember similar snake-pit wiring in Bangkok - my sister thought I was crazy for taking pics of it. I should dig those out...

There is a reason they call them "developing countries" and this is a perfect example. That and elephants have right-of-way in the street traffic.

With the exception of maybe Japan, all drinking water must be purchased bottled or boiled - tap water is almost always unsafe for drinking. In one of the pics, you can see what looks like, and probably are, water tanks on the roof. These were common in Thailand as well. Water pressure can vary greatly from area to area, usually very low - even in the cities, so these tanks are used to store water. Gravity provides better pressure for the house than can be had from the street lines and in the tropical/warmer climates, actually raises the temp slightly.