Is anyone else out there who really, really, really objects to dealing with an Indian-based call centre every time they want to talk to their bank or some other corporate giant?

It’s not a racist thing and it’s not about the fact they are taking jobs away from Australian workers.

Sure, I object to that but it’s not at the front of my mind when I’ve rung my bank or phone company with a simple inquiry, only to be greeted by someone with a very strong Indian accent calling me “mate”.

Let’s get one thing straight.

If I’m meeting you socially or ordering a hamburger, feel free to call me mate.

If you work for my bank or phone company, I’ll settle for “sir” or “Mr Bathersby”.

What really gets up my nose is the number of times the language barrier turns a simple query into a major drama.

Instead of a simple answer, it seems we now have to spend 15 minutes going around in circles while the person on the other end works out exactly what I want and I try to translate what they are telling me.

We went through sheer hell a few years back because of exactly that scenario.

We needed to increase the limit on our credit card, which was achieved with little drama with someone in Australia.

But then, just 12 hours before we needed to access the money, we had a reasonably simple query about previous statements and this time our call went through to India.

My wife had the pleasure of going around in circles for a good 30 minutes with an Indian man named Bruce (yeah, right), during which time he found it impossible to get a handle on what was a really simple request.

In the end, my wife demanded to speak to his supervisor or someone in Australia but Bruce refused, claiming he was the ultimate authority in the whole wide world.

It was impossible to argue with that sort of logic so she gave up in disgust and said something along the lines of: “Look, don’t worry about it. Just cancel it, okay!”

Big, big mistake.

Twelve hours later we went to get the money and the ATM wouldn’t hand it over.

So we rang the financial institution again and, you guessed it, we were put through to India where a man, who claimed his name was Darren, told us the card had been cancelled the night before.

“But we didn’t cancel it,” my wife sobbed.

“I am sorry mate, it says here you rang and cancelled it,” said our new Indian friend.

“We didn’t cancel it and if you call me mate one more time I’ll catch the next plane to India and rip your bloody head off.”

A force to be reckoned with, is my wife.

But there was no way around it. At the push of a button, some idiot on the other side of the world had come very, very close to causing a complete disaster.

I don’t care if he was feeding four wives, seven children, 36 in-laws and a goat.

I also don’t care if the financial institution concerned was saving 93.75% of its outlay on staff by relocating its call centre to India.

All I care about is the fact we wanted some normal customer service and we didn’t get it.

Maybe the only thing worse than speaking to an Indian call centre is speaking to one of those automated, voice-recognition answering systems that pretends to be human.

I’ve got news for them. Even an idiot like me knows he’s talking to a computer.

The type used by Telstra in its directory assistance call centres are bad enough but at least you can get a laugh at times when you ask for Joe’s Fish Shop and the computer asks “Did you say Johannesburg Women’s Health Centre?”

But the ones I hate are the systems which ask you a series of questions as they lead you through a labyrinth of choices, only to find the service you want is either unavailable, out of order, engaged or currently being relocated to India.

They do have one thing in their favour.

At least they don’t call me mate.