Wow, this has been a busy week. I picked up a brief gig at Motorola. As usual, I received very little information about the job– just that I had to read things in English. Turns out, I had to test voice recognition on four mobiles. First off, “testing voice recognition” wasn’t like reading off ten names. No. It involved reading five pages of names on four mobiles, each under three different settings. Fucking A is right! Setting 1: conference room. Setting 2: a bus stop. Setting 3: cafeteria. So, not sure if you’re up on Motorola phones, but THEY SUCK. Beyond their cool-looking Razor, all their other stuff is crap. Take it from me: when I first moved here, I bought a E380. Nice and small form factor but cheap, odd-shaped plastic buttons and a horrible user interface. I was always getting lost with the user menus. So one phone we tested had a relatively swift voice response system, but the other two? Forget it. In robot voice, “Please say a command or name. Sorry, please repeat. Please say a command or name.” The voice prompt was SUPER slow and then if it pulled up the wrong name (which happened a lot), I had to instruct it to cancel and then go back. Pressing the buttons didn’t do squat. God. It was a hair-pulling experience. Think it took an hour to read two pages.

Yesterday, we went to test the phones at the cafeteria during lunch. That didn’t last long, because after ten minutes, two authorities came over and started grilling us on what we were doing. What the hell were they thinking? That we were spies or something? Four women in office dress plotting a coup? Because we weren’t technically eating there, they kicked us out. Didn’t care to hear our explanations, just insisted quite hostilly that we leave. Immediately. Fuckers. So we ended up at my favorite MNC: McD’s. I was forced to consume their tasty yet surely toxic food. Same deal today. No wonder I feel bloated and gross.

I must say, I did luck out with mobile number 4, a Samsung (a competitor!). That thing was kick ass: slim, responsive, super accurate. Reminded me of my awesome Samsung back in the States. Can’t afford Samsung here. It’s damn pricey, but geez, the Koreans are getting their shit straight. If John and I move back to the States, I think we outta check out the Hyndais too.