Happy Talky Talky

I have worked a couple phone jobs between college and where I work now. I don’t usually mind talking to people face to face but I don’t like talking to them over the phone. The first job I had in college was working as a telemarketer (gasp) for a credit card company, which I hated! I went back to that job a couple of times because every time a job wouldn’t work out I would use them as a fall back. The hours were horrible, I don’t like begging people to take something I don’t believe in, and I don’t like being leashed to a desk for hours at a time.

When I moved to Utah I worked briefly as a credit collector where I spent 8 hours a day calling people to pay their bills. I got a small commission based on the amount of debt I could collect. It was a soul draining job.

I soon moved to the company I work with now and once again I was leashed to the desk for hours at a time without time between customers calling in to yell about their cable bills. Once again I hated it but because there are opportunities to advance I started looking for other positions to advance too. And I did. I moved 3 positions, each better than the last, in less than 9 months. I now work in recruiting where I still have to talk to people on the phone but it is more on my schedule with my agenda.

I say all that to say this: I hate talking on the phone.


BUT


I do understand more and more why I can’t text everyone that I want to talk to.
There are so many nuisances that come with text messaging: you wait forever to have someone text you back, the text doesn’t send, you don’t realize you got a text back, “tone” can be misinterpreted and not all people want to carry a unlimited texting plan or any texting at all.

It is really difficult to fight via text. Sidenote: I have done this recently but honestly didn’t care because fighting via text was better than hearing the guy’s voice, whiney and nasal…HORRIBLE combination. (I like men that sound like men)

On the other hand texting is better for me in most cases and this is why: I have a self diagnosed hearing problem. No, I haven’t seen a doctor for it but if I don’t have the phone up as loud as it can go and firmly pressed against my ear with no background noises I can’t understand a thing. So, my cop out is texting allows me to “hear” everything.

A good friend of mine, C+W, is frugal (NOT stingy) and doesn’t carry a texting plan beyond so many a month on her phone. We don’t text. We tweet at each other and once in a while when it just can’t be said via tweeting we will talk. And I don’t mind in the least. I feel like we understand each other because I will have an hour phone conversation with her but she doesn’t call every day just to check how the weather is. I LOVE that about this girl.

Another good friend of mine, RSL, doesn’t like to talk on the phone but carries unlimited texting so that is our chosen form of communication and it works. She has an inner ear problem and learned to read lips when she was younger so that she could catch the conversation. I need to learn that art because conversations with background noise drive me crazy in trying to hear. We do so great at texting. Once or twice a week we will have our check in chats. 10-15 texts and we have caught up and know what is going on.
Both forms of communication work.

I have been thinking about this because of an application that came through work. We are an office with four phones, each capable of ringing in 4 different phone lines. We don’t have texting or instant message so we all people and require them to talk on the phone to us. But this application was very presumptuous.

This is kind of what our phone information field looks like on our applications:
Main: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information:
Secondary: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information:
Mobile: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information:

The applicant put this:
Main: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information: see cell number
Secondary: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information: see cell number
Mobile: ___-___-____ *yes *no additional information: TEXT ONLY, don’t call

I don’t know why the applicant thinks that a professional HR office would text her to let her know that we received her application. We had to laugh about it and roll our eyes. Needless to say we haven’t contacted her to work in a call center taking phone calls for 8 hours a day.

So what are you? Are you the texter? The talker?

Want to talk?