I’ve been spending a lot of time on the phone this week, mostly for business-related conversations in which I would like to appear poised and in control, a person to be reckoned with. However, my speaking voice is that of a 14-year-old girl (Is your mother home?) and I have the world’s worst timing. I talk at the wrong place, or stop talking at the wrong place, or ramble into a verbal ellipsis in which the question I was asked recedes into a gentle and faraway joke I can’t recall. Cue the nervous giggle.
Isn’t it possible, in this day and age, to do away with the phone conversation? Could I send an email, a letter, a smoke-ring missive? Could we talk face-to-face? Scrabble it out? Can I sign my answers from across the room, or fly a tiny airplane with a banner trailing behind: Dinner Tuesday, 7:00 Mimi’s. How about a text. A tweet. Graffiti on the wall. A crayoned Valentine cut from red construction paper with a glued-on doily and a sackful of candy hearts tied with a ribbon.
Anything. Anything but the phone.
Telephone. Friend or foe?
Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth
Most of the time I hate talking on the phone, too, unless it’s my daughter or my sister. I can never tell in advance when, but sometimes I feel close to nervous breakdownville, as if it will suck out my soul or something. On business calls, I’m afraid of saying something weird. In person I can just shut up. On the phone people keep asking, “Are you okay? Are you there?”
Lately, a couple of people have suggested Skyping. They’ve got to be kidding.
People keep suggesting Skype for me too, and they get the same reaction. If I’m this inept on the phone, can you imagine what a disaster I’d be with a camera on me AT THE SAME TIME? Jesus. I’m breaking out in a cold sweat.
Forget your lack of confidence with verbal exchanges. You write beautifully, and that is enough.
Give that man a candy heart.
XO
The next time you have to use the phone for business, try putting on a costume. It couldn’t hurt and maybe the disguise will help shield you from yourself. I’m thinking a mask, like cat woman.
I have no problems with the phone, especially now that we have caller id. Hehhehheh.
Hmm. You might actually be on to something. Cat Woman calls the electric company. She has to be better than plain-faced me.
I hate the phone too. Especially if I am trying to sound organised. I don’t. I have to make notes, then I doodle over them, or lose them under papers. But not everyone replies to business emails and sometimes a call is the best way to get in someone’s ear. Hate it too.
Maybe we could stage a comeback for the telegram.
Frenemy. I prefer e-mail and texting–it’s better if I can see and organize my thoughts before I send ‘em on their way.
(guess how many times I edited this comment before I hit post?)
Four. (I continue editing after I hit post, which is entirely ineffective except on my own blog.)
Good guess.
remember when you were 15 and would pull the phone into your bedroom with the cord all the way from the living room through the hallway and under you door b/c there were no cordless phones and it’s not like your parents would let you have a phone in your room! You would talk for hours to some boy and then as soon as you got off the phone, after swooning, you’d call your best friend to retell every detail, every joke, everything he said, “…he’s sooo cute and he acts all tough at school, but he’s so sweet. really. you wouldn’t believe how nice he is.” all the time lying on your back with your feet up against your bedroom door b/c the phone cord only went so far. i loved the phone then.
no i screen my parents. i can’t text worth shit. and last week i had a phone interview and was upstairs when the phone rang. instead of being a normal human who would answer the phone and then ask if they could hold a minute while i switched to my office phone, i raced down the stairs and into my office, losing my breath. the first five minutes of the conversation, i sounded like i had just sprinted from my house to the neighbors.
The phone cord was great fun. I would twirl it around my ankle, round and round, then unwrap, round and round. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The disadvantage to the corded phone was that you couldn’t get away from your parents while you planned that romantic getaway with the boy from fifth period–who really did sound much sweeter on the phone.
I hate the phone.
I have a friend who is a poet with a weak, quavery voice. Her dad is a voice actor and gave her a book on vocalizing. (This also helps against infamous poet voice.) You’re supposed to say “Hm” noncommittally to find your natural range, and that is the range you should read in. This probably works for the phone too. I find that I have to make myself read out loud in my lower register.
Aha! A vocal coach. Why the hell didn’t I think of that. My ‘hmms’ are much lower in pitch than the rising-octave-panic-stricken mess I become over the phone. My husband always says, Just talk. Well, yes, but when I get excited I turn into a cartoon character.
I’m gonna buy that book. Look out, Kathleen Turner.
Foe. I get really distracted when I can’t see someone’s face especially if it’s just someone calling to chit chat.
Me too! I never know when it’s my turn to speak, and end up stepping all over the other party.
If I feel comfortable with the person or the situation, telephony is no problem; if I don’t, it can be like blundering into a strange room in the dark.
I do think men have the advantage over the phone. My husband has a very deep, slow voice, the kind of voice that sounds quietly authoritative at all times. He can be an octave over his normal range and still sound like a high school dean.
Recently, my phone life has evolved into a tolerable thing. Caller ID, call screening, cordless, “oops, sorry, dropped call,” and no screaming kids in the background have made my chatting life 100% better. Still, I prefer email, esp. for work/writing stuff. Please don’t take away my editing/delete option. Foot-in-mouth syndrome is eradicated with that.
Hope the move’s progressing well. I picture you in “just do it” mode!
I can still manage a bit of foot-in-mouth, even by text. (What’s that, foot-on-fingers?) But I’m with you on the screaming children. Phone conversation has improved exponentially since my kids left toddlerhood.
I’m definitely in ‘just do it’ mode. We’ve got six days until the truck arrives, and today is my husband’s last day at work, so he’ll be in that straight-ahead mode in which obstacles subside like the two halves of the Red Sea. I know it’s very weak-chick of me to say so, but thank god for men. Especially when you’ve got a marble table and two armoires to consider.
I love it when the guys in my life kick it into gear for the heavy lifting. I’ll do as many beer & pizzas runs as needed, just to avoid feeling like a pack mule. Being the weak-chick on occasion definitely has advantages. Things sound good, though. Can’t wait to hear how it goes.
There are very few people I enjoy talking on the phone with. For some reason, one of the phone calls I dislike the most is ordering Chinese food. I don’t know why.
Is it a difficult accent? I used to have one hell of a time understanding our Indian doctor at the oncology practice where I used to work. I needed him to be in front of me so I could read his lips, and even then it was hard. He was very sweet, though, and would repeat as necessary.
No, it always goes smoothly. I just don’t like it for some reason! I think I wouldn’t like ordering pizza either, but now I can do that online, so I’m not confronted with it. I am a coward!
I have a young sounding phone voice, too, so I get you.
I seem to have lost the art of phone conversations, but since I’m back to work and phones are an essential part of what we do, I’m relearning.
The truth is – I act. I take a deep breath, smile and project. I pretend I’m Kathleen Turner who will never be mistaken for a 14 year old girl.
That’s not to say, with the exception of a few friends and family, I don’t sigh heavily when my phone does ring.
My respect for you, already pretty fucking high, went up another notch. Phones at work? My nightmare scenario, and you are doing it. I couldn’t be more impressed if you were screaming out bids on the floor of the NYSE.
Phones. Ugh. I just don’t get it. I don’t have a cell phone and I don’t check the land line every day. I wonder if it’s because I, like you, sound like an 11-year-old. I”m much better in writing. (Or at least that’s the story I’m sticking to.)
Love the photo– talk to the ass.
This is the first in a series of increasingly lewd photos designed to lure August back into my clutches. Bring on the naked chicks. If that doesn’t work, I’ll post another pornographic short story, or a rant on the success of the Shades of Grey books.
I detest the phone. I think it’s the lack of seeing someone’s expression. If I had my way, I’d communicate via e-mail and text until I could meet in person.
I’ve also developed some abhorrent habits such as hanging up without saying goodbye. I’m on the phone all day at work, and in my business, you do what needs to be done and hang up. It’s horrible.
I would probably laugh my ass off if you hung up on me without saying goodbye. I’ve wanted to do that so many times. It’s decisive, it’s bold, it’s positively cinematic!
I am most excited about the business-type phone calls you describe. Could it be moving-related things? Maybe. And yet I hold out hope that you are just being coy and more details are to follow…
I’m not a phone person either. I always think back to my most disastrous answering machine message experience. I was 11, and had befriended a way cool 13-year-old (she was so sophisticated! An older woman! A TEENAGER!). I tried to call her and got the family answering machine. I was totally caught off guard and unprepared. My message went something like this: “Hi, um….I was wondering if you wanted to go for a trail ride on Saturday. Julie. This message is for Julie. Um, Saturday is good for me. If it is for you. If not, okay. Um yeah. So Saturday for a trail ride if you can do it. Ummmm. Goodbye. OH! This is Laura. Laura Walter? Calling for Julie? Goodbye.”
That message right there essentially sums up my entire personality.
I’ll bet the mother of the house heard that winsome little message and wanted to pinch your cheeks. Adorable!
I hate phoning people. I will now get Husband to do it, pleading that he has Man Voice and therefore they will Listen To a Man and he should give the orders. I dial the number and hand him the phone.
Obv. this wouldn’t work in a job situation.