Usually.
If I don’t know the person I’m calling, or if I’m at all nervous about potential rejection, I am deathly afraid of telephones. In high school, this led to some long drawn out sessions while I tried to gather the courage to call someone up to ask her on a date. I remember writing down different scenarios, making notes about what I could say, just in case something went wrong. Yeah. I was that kind of guy.
I no longer make notes, but I still am terrified of phone rejection. What’s up with that? How can I go from being this phone-confident person to being this guy who can barely bring himself to hit the numbers? I try to avoid calling customer service reps unless I’m really angry–that’s the only way to really combat the nerves that I’ve found, but it’s not like I can get angry any time I need to call someone. Maybe I’m the Incredible Hulk of the phone world . . .
I assume I’m not alone in this regard. Anyone else have any phone horror stories they’d like to share?
You’re definitely not alone. I can spend hours on the phone if I’m talking to my mom, my sister, or a select few friends. Otherwise, I’m pretty phone-phobic. The worst is when I’ve finally psyched myself up to make a call, and prepared what to say, and the person isn’t home and I get an answering machine. I’ve been known to hang up in situations like these, rehearse what to say to the answering machine, and try again. The worst is if I do that, and then the person picks up the second time. It completely flusters me, and I end up feeling like I don’t make any sense, because it’s not going as expected. Just awful. I was thrilled when pizza places started allowing internet orders. Yay for pizza without having to actually talk to a person!
Ooh–answering machines. I hate those things. I usually hang up and don’t leave any message at all. I’ll just call again later. 🙂
I used to work as a concierge at a 5-star hotel, which is basically making reservations for people: airline, limo, restaurant, snowmobiling, whatever; yet, I absolutely hate ordering pizza on the phone, or any other type of take-out. I don’t know why, I just do.
Pizza I’m okay with for some reason. Although I definitely would prefer ordering it online.
Hello fellow phone-a-phobe.
Congrats on your fb announcement.
Thanks!