PART I - The Morning
Just floundering here. Nothing new to report. Nothing new happening in Trueself’s world. All continues status quo. Life sucks. I continue to overthink every little thing. I continue to struggle with the phone phobia.
How I hate when I finally work up the courage to do a little thing like calling a hair salon for an appointment, making sure to call during their open hours, only to be told by their standard closed hours voicemail message that only cancellations can be left on voicemail and please call back during their business hours. Great. Thank you. For nothing. Now I don’t even know how a “normal” person responds to this situation. Keep calling back in hopes you’ll get a real person? Well, sure, I could do that except that it takes me literally hours to get myself built up to a place where I can make that call, and once flustered by a nonsensical result it takes some more time to get back to that place where I can make that call again. Actually, I could almost do it right away easier than waiting until later, but I’m afraid turning around and calling back right away would just garner the same result.
So now here are all the thoughts and questions running through my mind (remember I overthink everything):
• I hate them for not answering the phone.
• Now I want to just give it up and go somewhere else.
• I can’t give up and go somewhere else because last night I promised a hair stylist that I met that I would make an appointment with her.
• Why did they have that stupid “business closed” voicemail message when I called? I specifically waited more than an hour after their stated opening time to call just to avoid crap like that.
• What do I say when I call? I’ve practiced several scripts in my head. They all make me sound like a complete dork. Maybe because I am a complete dork.
• Why couldn’t they just answer the damn phone when I called?
• If I don’t make that appointment I’ll never be able to go back to a certain group where I met this hair stylist.
• I am wasting way to much time stewing over this.
• Can I call back yet? Is it too soon?
• Will their phone show my number on their caller ID display leading them to (God forbid) call me back?
• The whole mess just makes me want to cry.
Okay, there’s more, but you get the picture. All of these thoughts just rolling through my lil’ ole’ brain, not just once, but over and over and over. It becomes so consuming I have trouble concentrating on work. Then again, I worry that if I put it out of my head to concentrate on work I never will make that call. And I need to make that call. If you were to see my hair now you’d understand. . . really.
PART II - The Afternoon
So at 3:30 p.m. I finally got the gumption (5 hours after my first failed attempt) to call the hair salon again. This time, lo and behold, I got a real live person. . . and she was nice to me. . . and she set up an appointment for me for this Saturday. . . and everything went just fine. . . and I only sounded like a dork once, when I mispronounced the name of the stylist I want to see. I knew that was going to happen. We have only met online so I’d only seen her name not heard it before. That bugs me because I hate HATE HATE when people mispronounce my name (which is why I don’t go by my unpronounceable formal name). I could just kick myself. Oh well, one instance of dorkiness isn’t all that bad I guess. I lived through it. At least when I go to the appointment on Saturday I won’t mispronounce it to her face. I now know it’s an “aw” sound not a short a sound like I had guessed, and unlike some who meet me and consistently mispronounce my name I will take care to pronounce hers the proper way from here on out.
Well, it only took living here a bit over six months for me to finally call a hair salon for an appointment. Wonder how much longer before I can make that call to get the brakes on my car serviced? Will it be before they fail completely and send me careening across the flat plains of the Midwest with nothing to stop me but the occasional collapsed bridge? Let’s hope.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
A GREAT Man (**snort**) wrote this in the comments a couple posts ago...and I quote:
"Stop. Breathe. Masturbate (always works for me!!!). Chocolate helps.
Everything will be there when you get back. Then choose ONE thing. Do just THAT! (I don't CARE how many things you have to do. Only do ONE!) Call it good. Heavily reward yourself. Repeat tomorrow and successive days until finished.
8/07/2007 3:23 PM"
See? You DID it! Now "get busy/happy" eat some chocolate, talk to BJ, etc. "Like a chaaam it voiks!"
TS, I used to be like you with the phone thing. I based it on my crippling shyness. But it's truly intriguing to me how you can so easily go to meetings with a group of women you have never met before and have no problem with all that entails, and yet can't handle a routine and non-threatening phone call. Have you ever explored what's behind this?
Al - Yes he is a great man, and it's good advice. I took all of it last night except the chocolate part.
Fiona - It is intriguing to me too. I would much rather talk to someone face to face than on the phone. That's part of it, but only part. Meeting a group of women I've never met before is okay because 1) we're all there for the same reason, 2) I can choose to speak up when I want and be quiet when I want, and 3) it isn't that it is easy to walk in but it's better than telling people I'll be there and then not show up and have one more group of people I can never communicate with again.
Yes, I've explored it some and still am in that process of trying to work through it. Talking about it openly, albeit only in cyberspace, is a huge step in the process. Anything we can talk openly about has got to be less scary than those things we keep hidden out of fear and shame.
I know all about the vagaries of name-pronunciation. My 'real' surname is really quite simple - 5 letters, Anglo-Saxon, but something like 90% of the people who call us 'cold' on the phone pronounce it wrong.
And, when I say my name to people, I always spell it for them, and 3/4 of them have already written the standard spelling error (our name has a long 'a', and they invariably want to write 'ay') before it registers with them that I said something else.
(sigh)
I get the same way on the phone, but it's not as bad as yours. I am SUPER shy too...so that does not help. I wonder what does cause it?
Post a Comment