I have a weird fear/ anxiety of talking on the phone. I put off phone calls as long as humanly possible. I break out into a cold sweat. Words kinda slur out of me like a drunken sailor. Needless to say, I text or email whenever possible.
And yes, I do understand the importance of telephones. They provide a fast, simple and cheap way to communicate with the world. Their use is practice and essential for all types of environments and situations. But I just don't like 'em.
Today I went to work expecting a day just like any other day. Everything was going swimmingly for the first half-hour or so until I got a call about staying later. See, the way they trick is by asking you if you want to pick some more hours. Who wouldn't say no to that? I rarely ever do, and today was no exception.
But you don't know what you're signing up for. They don't really tell you until after you agree in what room you'll be staying or even how long. Today was no exception.
Our preggo secretary called in sick today. She and the baby are OK but someone had to answer the phone. So guess who got to play Pam Beesley-Halpert for the day?
For the most part, Pam's portrayal does not begin to demonstrate the complete boredom I experienced today. I had a useless computer sitting on the desk in front of me that I couldn't use because I'm not an authorized full-time employee. So there it sat, just taunting and teasing me for 5 hours. That bitch.
But I much preferred those moments of quiet time to the anxiety-ridden moments when I had to answer a phone and talk to a human being. And due to my anxiety, I have avoided telephones like the plague and have therefore never learned how to work a lot of a standard phones functions like putting on hold, transferring calls, etc. And unfortunately, all of these things are highly important to a secretary, who acts like the hub of all incoming and outgoing phone calls.
5 hours later, after a couple botched transfers and a scavenger hunt through the hospital, I came out of the office unscathed (besides some shaken nerves). Even though it sucked at the time, I'm glad I kept at it and saw it out until the end. I've fallen into such a routine lately that it was good to step out of my comfort zone and shake things up. And it temporarily diminished my fear of phones - what a life improvement!
After work tomorrow, PDubbs and I will be packing up his apartment for our 4th move of the summer out of our 6 total. And after that, we'll get to enjoy the last couple of weeks of summer before classes start again. Where has the summer gone? Scratch that, where has this year gone?
Hope everyone is having a perfectly lovely week. Anyone have any exciting plans for the weekend?
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