Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 13 Apr 91 11:28:32 GMT From: Bill Martens Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Mystery Solved (was: Strange Phone Calls) Reply-To: Bill Martens Message-ID: Organization: Info Connections, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 291, Message 7 of 10 Lines: 25 Well, the bad calls from the secretary are almost as bad as my situation. I called a hotline of a major publishing company which operates in the U.S. and also in Japan which was answered by an English speaking person (amazing!). I told them I wanted a catalog on some of the books which they carry (computer and other technical books). I was told that a person who spoke English would call me back concerning the catalogs I requested (no problem). About 15 minutes later (while talking to the vice-president of the largest publishing company in Japan) a guy calls me from the previous company. (Great!) My next task was to ask this guy for the information (catalogs) which I needed for my company. But everytime I said something to him, he would come back with something in Japanese. So I finally asked him (in Japanese of course) if he speaks English to which he promptly said iie (no in Japanese). Well, that was the biggest waste of my time (and as it turns out the guy isn't even in the department which handles retail questions!) and I had put the poor vice-president of the other company on hold for this guy! Bill Martens Kioityo 3-12 Tokyo Japan