Apparently I've forgotten how to give good phone. This is a bummer. I used to be great on the phone. Now I'm either annoyed by it (think telemarketers) or interrupted by it (when I'm trying to concentrate at work), or I have no idea what to say to keep a conversation going (personally).
This is not how I expected things to go. I remember being a teenager - I practically had the thing glued to my head. I had the PERFECT after school/weekend job - working as a receptionist at a car dealership. I got PAID to talk on the telephone! Is there any better job (other than maybe in sales with a 50% discount at your favorite clothing store - did that too) for a teenage girl?
It was perfect. I got to talk on the phone as much as I wanted (the phones slowed to a crawl after 6PM), and had time and quiet to do my homework.
And eventually from there I went into technical support. Again - I got paid to talk on the phone all day. And I was good at it. Ok, not really so much at the technical part, as at the phone part. I talked people down, got them calm, figured out what they really needed and made sure they got it. All in all, I gave good phone.
As if that wasn't enough, then I got to be a geek and put phone systems in remote offices. That meant I got to research different phone systems and recommend which one we needed for the size of office, type of traffic (i.e. sales office versus engineering office), etc. And I was responsible for administering pagers and calling cards too. All in all, I had many ways to give good phone.
From there I went back to being in tech support (although external now instead of internal). And then I got to manage other tech support people, and talk customers down when they were pissed off that something hadn't gone correctly. And I got to do that for internal folks too (oh my god, we're going to lose millions in dollars of sales if XYZ aren't done - it's ok... calm down... take a deep breath...).
Then I got to do my favorite phone geek think - administer the phone system that we used for our customers. Woo hoo - I get to help figure out whose call goes where, and move the call center, and move it again, and put in new call centers, and all kinds of fun stuff. And I ordered my life around voicemail - I checked voicemail before email when I got back to my desk after meetings.
And I loved all of this, and I was good at it. I have a nice phone voice. Hell, I'm the voice of customer support for our company. So what went wrong?
The last few years all of my interactions have been in meetings that are face to face. I no longer have entire working relationships with people I've never met before. There are still people out there in the world that are convinced that I'm a 6 foot tall blonde girl (ha!) And somehow over the last couple of years, I've forgotten how to give good phone. I've even forgotten how to give good phone to friends and family.
If you call me at work or at home lately, you're likely to get me as somewhat snippy (thinking you were going to be a telemarketer), disinterested (you called in the middle of my favorite tv program - yes, I know I have tivo), or insanely chirpy and you can't get me off the phone.
I kinda miss giving good phone. I had a girlfriend who I used to talk to on the phone at least every other day or so. We'd be on the phone, and we'd watch our favorite tv shows while on the phone with each other, and then talk through commercials, and then back to watchintg tv. That's good phone when you're both on the same wavelength about that. Now I can't even be bothered to get my cell minutes over 15 per month. Sigh...
Posted by cshell at February 17, 2004 09:42 PM