Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Outsourcing Out Of Hand?

Today, I'm writing mostly about odds and ends. Actually as per usual I write more about odds. Sorting through things in a box that I hadn't opened yet, including some bills,(good thing I bank on line)I discovered a phone book, titled "The Local Pages, of Idaho,LLC." Well, over the course of a year, I get Spokane/Coeur d'Alene white and yellow pages, Coeur d'Alene, the black book by Hagadone Directories, and now this.

I peeled the plastic wrap off gently. Actually, there is no gentle way to peel plastic off from anything. It requires anything from a knife or scissors, to heavy equipment to get at these gems. Having gone to the trouble of extricating this book, I opened it. This is where I believe outsourcing has gone too far. Some dingy alleyway mud hut in Calcutta, India, scored big time on this one.

Just inside is a coverage map. An excellent idea. In looking at the map, however, I noticed just north of Athol, an arrow pointing north with the cutline, "to Carymore. Which most of you know is "Careywood." Page five revealed what appeared to be a county map which actually included Kootenai, Bonner and Spokane counties. The only problem is that they apparently, in the quest for ever cheaper labor, didn't hire a copywriter. I perused the "counties" map carefully. Yes, not an aberration, but more. North of Careywood, (this time spelled correctly) was Coclalis, actual spelling, Cocolalla. That takes care of my neck of the woods, but Post Falls and Dalton Gardens probably would prefer their spellings, to Dalton Garden, or Post Hills.

I guess leaving the L out of Marshall, Wa is OK since it's small and doesn't need two L's anyway. Oh, and I forgot that Russian settlement north of Spokane, Chattarov, instead of Chatteroy. One can only wonder who will answer the phone if you actually use this book as a serious reference?

2 comments:

Word Tosser said...

Ours was deliver by throwing it in the ditch in front of our house, on a snowy day. I saw them do it was they slowed down. So I went out to see what they threw in the ditch. They were heading down the road to the dead end... when I was coming back to the house. I looked out my window, and saw, they must have thought they missed my house, as they threw another one... in the ditch.
So much for service... and it is a deep ditch.
I went on line and wrote, I hope they didn't pay much for their books to be delivered, as not too many people want to get down in the ditch to see what was thrown there, taking it for garbage. Which according to your description, I wasn't too far off.

PinkAcorn said...

Since I'm from Cocolalla I have to say that it's been called a lot worse...and when I do tell people where I'm from I usually get a laugh or two.