Anyone tried dialing 135 recently? Go ahead, I dare you...

Well here's one for the books: I've just sat on the receiving end of a rather incomprehensible 5min. long monologue, after having dialled 135 (MTN's national call center number) as a long-term MTN client in dire need of assistance. When I made the call, I was already prepared for the time I knew I'd be spending waiting in the queue, but as it turned out, that wasn't going to be the problem. Make no mistake, the queing aspect was most certainly present, but what I didn't bargain on was that I'd be expected to learn Xhosa as part of this package! The automated answering service starts straight-out in full-blown Xhosa! No "press 1 for Xhosa, 2 for English, 3 for Afrikaans, .... (add up to 8 more)", just flat-out Xhosa for about a minute. Then came 25 seconds of English (the only 25 seconds of this monologue I could understand), followed right away by 5mins of pure Xhosa (it probably goes on longer - after not having heard a single other English word in over 5mins. I just hung up). Needless to say, this is shocking to say the least. We live in a country with 11 official languages. To not even be greeted by the *option* of listening to the rest of the "elevator"-style monologue I'd have to endure during the waiting period in a language I could actually understand... there simply are no words! Never before have I encountered a more direct way for a company to say to its clients "we couldn't care less about you" (or for that matter, their country's culture!). Well done MTN - A+, freakin gold star! You have successfully managed to set the new standard for racial generalisation!