Some people are afraid of heights. Others are afraid of spiders.
I am afraid of talking on the phone.
I am awful at it. Either I lose my train of thought and stutter, or I panic and start talking too fast and don’t make any sense.
Just the anticipation of having to deal with phone calls that I am loathe to deal with makes me sick with anxiety. Sometimes, it even drives me to the verge of tears. I have tried every trick there is to get over it, and nothing has worked.
And then, I sound like a crazy person, because it’s a phone call, grow up, get over it.
I don’t think I’ve always hated the phone. When I was twelve, I was content to spend hours on the phone with N.A; we had mutual crushes on each other, and I cannot tell you what we talked about for all those hours, but I know I thought it was important enough to campaign for my own phone line. My parents said I could, if I brought up my grades in Spanish and Math. Therein lay the dilemma – I couldn’t get my own line and spend unlimited time on the phone until I brought my grades up, but I certainly was in no place to bring my grades up when there was a boy who wanted to talk to me on the phone.
Luckily, he lost interest in me, I got straight As the first marking period of 8th grade, and I got my phone line.
Since then, the phone has been a primary form of communication (in high school, before AIM was the standard, and WAY before texting), a form of connection, (in college, to my friends who were far away) and a form of torture (carrying my cell phone around, willing it to ring when I was hoping that HWSNBN would call me.) But in college, other forms of communication became more important. AIM meant I could talk to several different people at once. Email was more convenient than picking up the phone. Making and recieving phone calls just fell out of practice.
It wasn’t until after college that phones started to make me nervous. I was temping at a company that to this day, I have no idea what they did. My job was simple: answer the phone, direct the calls. That’s it. Sometimes they let me put labels on files, but as a temp, I wasn’t allowed to do anything real.
Anyway, for whatever reason some of the people at this company (engineers? technicians?) were often recieving Important Phone Calls, and the person on the line would request that I page them. I’ve always hated the sound of my own voice, and having to do this several times a day was cringeworthy. Then there was the time — it was my first day actually – when I mistakenly dialed the number for the head of the company just because the delivery guy had his number on the receipt. Luckily, his assistant picked it up and explained what was what. In my own defense, I was only 21, barely out of college and naive to the fact that if someone’s extention is 01, then they are probably pretty important.
In search of health insurance, I did manage to land a full time job. Actually, they didn’t hire me at first. They hired Charice. But poor, unknowing Charice got promoted after two weeks there. As she said once “I sold out. Rachel got hired.” I was still a receptionist, except now I was a receiptionist with health insurance. It wasn’t too bad. Mostly, I just directed people to customer service.
Then I got promoted. It was awesome! It was to a job I actually wanted to do! It was more money! And I wouldn’t be tied to a desk, which to me, was at least 50% of the appeal.
The Friday before I was supposed to start my new position, my supervisor’s boss, without even bothering to pull me aside, told me “oh by the way, we don’t have the money to pay you. So we can’t promote you to that position.”
I was crushed. While it was probably a good thing (it motivated me even more to finish my grad school applications) I felt totally stuck as a receptionist.
By then head of my department liked me. He knew I was smart and felt bad about the whole promotion debacle. He started giving me projects. At first, I was happy at the chance to prove myself and I accepted the admin role in spite of the fact that the new title didn’t come with a bigger paycheck. And the fact that my extension was still 0, I was still tied to a desk, and there were beginning to be mumblings about my phone mannerisms.
It was May, because it was right before my birthday when the suggestion box had a note in it, for probably the first time in its existence. “The receptionist” (it read. not even my name. Just “the receptionist”) is a black hole of despair. would it kill her to fake some charisma ” While this incident is retrosepctively hilarious, I got written up and went on a quest to find out just who the hell cared whether or not I smiled. (the answer: 40 something washed up wannabee opera singer. I got him back though.)
It only got worse from there. Two years later, at the Job-That-Wasn’t, I had to make a lot of phone calls, to people who I could barely understand on the phone, on topics where I had no idea what I was talking about. Additionally, there were times when I was supposed to “pressure” people into getting things done. Mind you, Job That Wasn’t was a tiny company and I was on the phone with Big Important Company that could have cared less about my request, but that did not mean anynoe in my department understood any better why the request was going to take the standard 24 hours.
The last guy I dated refused to call to make plans, instead preferring a barrage of back and forth text messages. That was a little extreme, even for me. But that also didn’t mean my heart didn’t pound wildly whenever I decided to grow a spine, call him, and call him out for being kind of a jerk. (I have regretted most of these phone calls. Don’t keep the phone numbers of people you used to date in your cell phone)
Really, the phone has never done me any good these past few years. All it has done is given me the means to call boys that I shouldn’t call, given me a cell phone that I feel lost when I don’t have, and given various Powers That Be a means to torture me.
When you think about it, texting is kind of like a more advanced form of telegraphing. So clealy Thomas Edison had it right and Alexander Graham Bell ruined everything.
Says:
I feel you on that.
I still shudder when I recall responding to a broadcasting internship opportunity, during which I had a massive brain fart and kept saying the wrong callback number, then stopping, trying to correct myself, and giving the wrong number again. This repeated about 6 times before I just hung up…
August 28th, 2009 at 8:29 amSays:
People reading your post take more than your personal dislike toward Alexander Graham Bell, a Canadian and father of the modern telephone, versus a born American and ally of not only communication, but modern telecommunication, Thomas Edison. Unlike Bell, an ally of sound and a profound elocutionist, Edison supported growth and prosperity through American research and experimentation. During a time of research and growth, industrialization and American ingenuity, Edison’s use of American materials, support an American idealism and pragmatism no longer seen or envied today. Edison’s excitement in STEM areas: science, technology, engineering, and math energized American society like no other. We see it today as young people text versus pick up the phone and use new technological devices such as computers to email, instant message, and comment on numerous websites. It is instant communication through words we see today. We gravitate and hold on to words not sound as a means of communication. Out of curiosity, how many elocutionists exists today? Do you hear young people excited to speak in front of a crowd of people? Unlikely. We have seen more and more people explore new methods of communication, integrating texts and writing into all facets of presentations. Is Rachel right then: was Edison right? Mass communication supports Bell’s initiative to listen and hear; but Edison’s thought process and introduction of new technology has left the world wanting more. Whether or not you agree with Bell’s initiative or Edison’s technological growth, we owe it to both, but Edison’s vision and patent is more obvious in modern society.
Hmmm….or maybe I’m speaking out of my butt and a Jersey girl loves the fact that he grew up in New Jersey. Something to wonder.
August 28th, 2009 at 10:49 amSays:
The advent of voice mail, or I should say the answering machine originally, was probably the worst thing ever in the history of stuff. Sure having a conversation with an important person is panic-inducing, but for anyone with performance anxiety, leaving a voicemail is probably the most daunting assignment imaginable. I picture the person totally at ease in his office, awaiting a poised, professional, and pithy message, only to be amused repeatedly upon numerous playbacks of my derailed train of thought and total loss of voice. I cannot leave anyone a voice mail in fact. Even when calling friends about meeting up later in the day I am pleading with them to answer the frigging phone. That’s it, I say, this ass hole gets a text message. While taking messages and directing calls totally sucks the big one because it also requires some technical knowledge and conversational skills, I say leaving voice mail has it beat because it’s a one man show. Either way, the phone needs to go the way of the dodo.
August 29th, 2009 at 8:19 amSays:
I’m awful at leaving voicemail messages. Someone somewhere has a message of me starting off making relative sense, before rambling about just witnessing a bird being hit by a car…
September 1st, 2009 at 10:22 amSays:
Just found you via 20SB. Great post!
September 17th, 2009 at 10:35 amYou have no idea how relieved I am to read this and see that I am not the only one! I absolutely hate the phone. It seems as though we are in the beginning stages of generations who grew up with the fabulous technology better known as the internet. I rarely even used the phone in high school! All of my conversing was done via ICQ (remember that?) and msn.
As for work, I refuse to answer the phone unless it rings for me. To make that a little clearer, we do have a receptionist, however when she takes breaks/lunch/leaves early/has a day off, the phone goes on what is called ‘night line’ and rings on a certain few phones throughout the building. Thankfully it doesn’t ring on mine. However, there is a way to still answer it. I get pushed all the time to answer it or sit in for the receptionist, but I flat out refuse. When asked to call someone to ask about something, I always tend to use email as my form of comunication over the phone.
I don’t know why I’m like this. When it comes to my boyfriend or immediate family, I can call and talk for hours. Anyone else = no can do.
Says:
I don’t like talking on the phone much either. Especially if it’s with someone important, or I’m calling someone for the first time. It’s the lack of visual clues that’s the problem. Face to face is a lot better.
September 17th, 2009 at 1:09 pmSays:
I definitely understand your issue with phones! I was the same way – I could talk for HOURS as a tween/teen, but became phone-a-phobic during college (but only for work related things). But, once you’re in a real position and not a receptionist position, and the phone calls are for you specifically, it becomes much, MUCH easier. I think receptionist type positions are nerve wrecking and cause phobias. They’re too general and impersonal. Plus there’s all the phone rules – about how certain people need to be paged, others don’t take phone calls, others may yell at you for transferring a call, yadda yadda. The stress, I believe, causes the phobia.
September 17th, 2009 at 1:16 pmSays:
I used to work as a receptionist for several years and I HATE talking on or answering the phone. So does my other friend who is a receptionist. I don’t even like ordering pizza on the phone. Now I have a desk job where I can ignore my phone and it is HEAVEN… until it comes time to call people back.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pmSays:
I know how you feel. Have a week left of Reception work and then I’m phone free. oh JOY!!! For more about my feelings on the subject, read my post “Thank you for calling…” at http://www.loveand-stuff.blogspot.com
September 18th, 2009 at 10:28 amSays:
Ah the phone is such a scary thing since the whole sms thing has taken over our lives!
Phone phobia is real!! telephobia.
The only way i can think of you being able to work through the fear is by possibly using skype or something video based so you can see the other person? it may help to get used to it again.
Goodluck!
September 19th, 2009 at 5:30 pmSays:
OMG I have the phone phobia as well and blogged about it recently as well. It is the most ridiculous feeling in the world, yet I haven’t been able to shake it either. Texting has saved my ass many times!
March 7th, 2010 at 2:51 pm