This is going to sound very silly (especially when you consider that as part of my job I take calls from people all the time) but I hate to make phone calls!!!
I get myself all worked up, and will put off making the call for as long as possible always preferring to find another way to talk – thank goodness for Facebook, email, twitter, semi-fore, smoke signals..
When I finally pick up the phone to dial the number I feel slightly nervous and the entire time the phone is ringing I will run through various ways to start the conversation “Hi, it’s ….” “Good Morning, I am hoping…..” If the phone rings for a while I will even figure out their responses and have the entire conversation over and over. For example:
ME: “Hi it’s Lauranne, is Mary there?” (I don’t know a Mary so that chances of this conversation happening for real are pretty slim!)
Poor Person who has answered the phone to me: “Sure I will just get her.”
Me: “Thanks”
(Poor Person who has answered the phone goes to get Mary)
Mary: “Hello, it’s Mary”
Me: “Hi Mary, it’s Lauranne, how are you today?”
All seems pretty simple right? And it is, until Mary answers the phone. This I can’t cope with and instead the phone conversation will go…
ME: “Hi it’s Lauranne, is Mary there?”
Mary: “Hi’ it’s Mary.”
ME: “Oh,…um… Hi Mary….um…. it’s Lauranne” (and then I will pause for a stupid amount of time, mutter a few umms and once I kinda growled down the phone – I don’t know why!)
It’s even worse if it’s an answer machine:
ME: “Oh, Hi…um… it’s Lauranne, I just called to see if Mary wanted to join me in a three legged race this afternoon… but as we are setting of now and you’re out I’m assuming not… um… unless you get back in time that is… then you could join us… but that would depend on you and what you’re doing and clearly you are out at the moment or screening my calls…um…did I mention it was Lauranne….um…so yeah…call me…. oh wait you might want my number it’s…um…what is my number…. oh don’t worry I’ll text you”
or another of my favourite tricks when dealing with an answering machine is to start to leave the message and then just forget to talk…. for quite a while. I have done that quite a few times, in fact I have just done that to some poor work man who’s number I had the misfortune of finding online.
Perhaps I’ll stick to email!!
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