Friday 19 November 2010

Working on my phone manner

Sorry I've been a bit quiet this week peeps, it's been a mental one if I'm honest that's seen me so tired I actually forgot to set my alarm clock yesterday…

But, today is Thankful Friday and I am very thankful that Onion Soup Mate is coming to visit from the Wild West erm… Country. Although she came up for my birthday, I don't feel as though I really saw her much so it will be nice to have a good girly gossip together.

I am also thankful for people in my life who are honest with me. I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of times where people just aren't. This frustrates me, particularly as my grip on body language means I can often tell if someone is lying.

A random example is yesterday in my dance class. A new person was there who claimed never to have Zumba'd before. Bit while claiming this, her body language screamed out fake shyness, and she proceeded to nail routines left, right and centre.

At first, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but when she was asked a second time if she was a complete beginner, her smugness gave her away.

Jealous much? Well, seeing as, after four months of Zumba, I still resemble a drugged-up newborn foal, perhaps. But honestly, would it have been so hard for her to tell the truth?

Anyway, the third thing I am thankful for this morning is my growing confidence on the phone – although that doesn't mean I'm hearing any better! But I have decided to be bold when my mobile rings and answer it.

And yesterday, I got that chance. But before answering, I googled the number to make sure it wasn't one of those terrible market research companies. It wasn't, but it was a Glasgow number, so I braced myself for a Scottish accent.

Naturally, there was one, and so I listened to the guy’s spiel for a few minutes, picking up one word, Halifax.

Now, I have a mortgage with Halifax so I therefore wanted to make sure all was OK.

Once he had finished jabbering away, I explained my deafness and asked him to repeat what he had just said slowly and more clearly. He took a deep breath and started again, at exactly the same pace as before.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘can I just stop you there. Is this about my mortgage?’

‘No,’ he replied

‘Are you trying to sell me something?’ I then enquired.

‘Yes,’ he answered, almost sheepishly.

‘I'm terribly sorry,’ I responded. ‘Being deaf, I never buy anything over the phone. But thank you so much for calling.’

And just like that, he was gone. How easy was that? No stressing all day about who that unanswered call was from. No worrying that it was something to do with my mortgage. And no getting frustrated. I felt so good about the whole thing, that it was almost as though I wasn’t deaf.

After 30 years, I’ve finally realised that I too can work on my phone manner. Work out how best to decipher exactly what is going on at the other end of the phone so I can get rid of them as soon as possible.

However, seeing as my phone only rings about once a month, it would appear I have rather a long time until I can practise this again. Ah well…

1 comment:

kim said...

LOL Maybe I'll start answering phone calls again!

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