Why Do I Hate the Telephone?

The telephone has never been my friend. Before the mobile age, I was the regular teenage girl calling and being called all night. I’d spend hours on the phone talking to Fiona or before her, Claire. Although, I can only recall my friendship with Fiona being as strong on the phone as it was in person. As my high school education drew to an end, my phobia of the telephone began to creep in.

Like most fears, it took me years to realise it. During my last years of high school, my friend Emily and I would write letters to each other in the evenings rather than call. Some of those letters I still have. She was quite prolific.

And there it is. The reason I hate talking on the phone just happened. Work. Work is what changed my relationship with the telephone. No longer is it a means to casually catch up on gossip and news, no longer is the ringing the hopeful, friendly sound of someone you love. No, now it’s shrill cry demands your attention toward the unpleasant, rude, obnoxious and hurtful people of the world.

First it was the Tupperware mother’s that owed money to the company. Nineteen year old Leni was entirely ill-equipped to be a debt collector. It wasn’t long before I simply pretended to have called these poor women rather than put myself through the torture of asking people why they hadn’t paid their bill. Moving to work reception at an architect firm seemed like a better choice.

Sure, builders weren’t regularly rude or hurtful but boy could they be condescending, eh love? Sweetheart, darlin’, me luv, me darlin’, angel; the list was endless. Twenty year old Leni was self conscious enough with her awkward manner and large breasts, then add audible ogling from builders, developers, contractors, site managers; it’s an equally long list. It was a no win situation. If I had met the caller than I hated him being able to accurately visualise me and if he hadn’t I hated that I most likely wouldn’t live up to their expectation (or least my very very low self-esteem did).

Returning to study seemed like the best option. I couldn’t work full-time so I found myself in a job that all but nailed the coffin of my telephone trust shut. Telemarketer. Once you have spent 8 hours a day calling strangers, getting back on the phone to have a ‘chat’ filled me with dread. But I was wrong because even the worst Jerry Seinfeld wanna-be’s encountered during their dinner time (it always failed to slip their minds that it was also my dinner time and calling them was never how I would choose to spend it) nothing could prepare me for the hideous, hideous customers I met working in the call-centre of a low-cost airline. If I wasn’t being abused for my part in a hurricane or gas leaks, then I was being subjected to the absolute dumbest of the dumb Australia could offer.

Now, I like to think that I am a tolerant person. I once argued with someone when they told me they hated stupid people. “You can’t hate people for having a smaller IQ than you!” I exclaimed, “It’s beyond their control.” She replied that should could and that she would, much to my disdain. That said, having to answer questions such as “Is Hawaii part of Australia? ” wore me down until most of my shifts were spent with my head in my hands lamenting the realisation that the general public of Australia were remarkably, remarkably, stupid.

It was a few years in hospitality that drove me back to the office. During my time away, I will be honest and say that I did notice my aversion to the phone. Fortunately, by this stage text messaging let me communicate without having to actually speak to anyone so it’s absence from my life was easily ignorable and I did such a good job that I totally forgot why I hated it. That’s how I found my way back to reception. Despite all the terrible people, smart ass responses and ridiculous questions that plague me for the best part of a decade, I am once again a slave to the shrill and unavoidable cry of the telephone.

But all of what I have said doesn’t hit on what I hate the most. For the terrible, smart ass and ridiculous people’s greatest crime was their disembodied voice. It’s the haunting voice that floats down the line that causes me to tense up the most everytime I pick up the phone.