I’ve been living away from my native Australia for the last seven years. In the last four years I’ve had very little contact with other Australians, I basically don’t know any where I live in Barcelona.
I had a funny experience yesterday when, after purchasing something online, I got an email from my bank in Australia. My transaction looked suspicious, could I please contact them to confirm it’s okay, and instructions to reverse charge the call if I’m overseas.
I called up a number and got onto the reverse charge service in Australia and instantly got a funny pang of homesickness hearing a complete stranger’s australian accent.
I friend of mine once said that she suspected that the boarder control staff were specifically employed for the strength of their australian accent, I think that that Telstra may do the same with their call centre staff who answer the international reverse charge calls.