Outsourcing

Lately I've had a run of emails from most of the major banks in Australia, all wanting to improve my banking security and update my personal details. That's so nice of them, really, and surprisingly so: I don't even have have a bank account, I use a credit union.

Today's offering was helpful too, but had just a hint of the big stick about it (my emphasis added):

Please Note – if you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporally suspend your ------- online banking account.

Thank for your Co-operation
------- Bank Management Stuff

Temporally suspend? I'm not even sure what that means. But I do appreciate the fact that the stuff just want to help. It's kind. It's nice. And it's outsourced. The stuff are in Fez/Fes, Morocco. I checked the source of the email (View > Message Source) and then went to www.DNSstuff.com and put the IP address (the four-part number from the message source; appears in square brackets) into the IP Information box. I sometimes check my own address here too, just to see which town I'm near today. Not long ago it was Sydney, which - being hundreds of kilometres away - requires both a leap of imagination and a large movement of the earth. Fantastic!

But anyway. Unless today's email was also from hundreds or thousands of kilometres away and was in fact from an Indian call-centre after all, it came all the way from Fez/Fes, Morocco, not all that far from Casablanca and - what! Listen! Is it? Could it be? Yes!! The refrain of outsourcers everywhere!

RICK: If it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?
SAM: My watch stopped.