Phone anxiety
So I've had two incidents this week of extreme phone anxiety. Both understandable, but I hope I can figure out how to quell this in the future.
On Sunday, I participated in my first democratic, grassroots, citizen-type initiative. I went to someone's house for a 'phone party', sponsored by Moveon.org. They supplied the info. We supplied the people. We were to call lists of unregistered voters in "swing vote" states to get them to register to vote. A noble goal. One stat they provided was that Kerry now leads the polls among Americans in general, but not among registered voters. (Don't know if it's true, but makes you think.) We called many people in Florida, mostly women.
It was frustrating, calling all these people who didn't want to be bothered (knowing I hate receiving phone calls at home, and almost never pick up the phone). One woman even said, "Honey, I just got off an 18-hour shift, and I am dead tired, so I don't want to talk to you right now." I didn't expect anything different. There was, on the other hand, the nice old lady who could barely hear me, who asked me which office I was running for (!), then said, "I live in a nursing home with 400 people, and we're all registered!" and was quite cheerful.
I ended up registering 3-4 people...the only registrations for our group of about 10 callers. I was ok with that (the others praised me highly. =)) But after a while on the phone, I found myself getting jittery and deeply anxious -- in that way that I know signals that I will have a meltdown if I can't make myself relax. So I stopped for a while and addressed envelopes instead. I'm not sure if I can do it again. But I feel like I want to do *something*, and it's so hard to figure out how to be effective.
I heard that about 15,000 volunteers were doing the same thing I was that day, and about 10,000 voters were registered. That's significant. That's cool. I'm just not sure if I can handle doing it. Sigh.
Today's phone incident wasn't nearly as bad (because it was shorter!) but it was time-consuming. I needed to change some hotel reservations for my group before we leave for Brazil next week. So I braced myself for a phone call in Portuguese by first translating everything I thought I might need to say, or what they might say back to me. Kind of fun, but it took over an hour, considering I'm not that knowledgeable in Portuguese, and I'm nervous about sounding stupid, or not being able to communicate. Finally, I made the phone call, which went fine, and I got our dates fixed, and he even complimented me on my Portuguese. But he also said I should call back at 8am their time tomorrow, to talk to the accounts person.
Taking into account (1) how tired I am today, (2) the two-hour time difference between here and Brasilia, (3) and how tired I knew I would be if I had to be at work at 6 am tomorrow morning to make yet another call in Portuguese, I think it was understandable that I immediately got headachey and a little panicky.
I left for a concert at the Early Music Festival in a hurry, forgetting my checkbook, and thus deciding after arriving there not to see it after all. Instead, I went home to relax and have some introvert time. Feeling much better now. And better yet after my decision to delay that call until some other time. Worst that will happen is that the bill will get screwed up and I'll need to pay with my own credit card and get reimbursed down there, instead of charging it direct to our department. That's not nearly so bad as having to get up before 6 am.
Well, I guess I'm proud of myself that I did both things. It's just so difficult to be a well-rounded communicator when you're a booky introvert.
On Sunday, I participated in my first democratic, grassroots, citizen-type initiative. I went to someone's house for a 'phone party', sponsored by Moveon.org. They supplied the info. We supplied the people. We were to call lists of unregistered voters in "swing vote" states to get them to register to vote. A noble goal. One stat they provided was that Kerry now leads the polls among Americans in general, but not among registered voters. (Don't know if it's true, but makes you think.) We called many people in Florida, mostly women.
It was frustrating, calling all these people who didn't want to be bothered (knowing I hate receiving phone calls at home, and almost never pick up the phone). One woman even said, "Honey, I just got off an 18-hour shift, and I am dead tired, so I don't want to talk to you right now." I didn't expect anything different. There was, on the other hand, the nice old lady who could barely hear me, who asked me which office I was running for (!), then said, "I live in a nursing home with 400 people, and we're all registered!" and was quite cheerful.
I ended up registering 3-4 people...the only registrations for our group of about 10 callers. I was ok with that (the others praised me highly. =)) But after a while on the phone, I found myself getting jittery and deeply anxious -- in that way that I know signals that I will have a meltdown if I can't make myself relax. So I stopped for a while and addressed envelopes instead. I'm not sure if I can do it again. But I feel like I want to do *something*, and it's so hard to figure out how to be effective.
I heard that about 15,000 volunteers were doing the same thing I was that day, and about 10,000 voters were registered. That's significant. That's cool. I'm just not sure if I can handle doing it. Sigh.
Today's phone incident wasn't nearly as bad (because it was shorter!) but it was time-consuming. I needed to change some hotel reservations for my group before we leave for Brazil next week. So I braced myself for a phone call in Portuguese by first translating everything I thought I might need to say, or what they might say back to me. Kind of fun, but it took over an hour, considering I'm not that knowledgeable in Portuguese, and I'm nervous about sounding stupid, or not being able to communicate. Finally, I made the phone call, which went fine, and I got our dates fixed, and he even complimented me on my Portuguese. But he also said I should call back at 8am their time tomorrow, to talk to the accounts person.
Taking into account (1) how tired I am today, (2) the two-hour time difference between here and Brasilia, (3) and how tired I knew I would be if I had to be at work at 6 am tomorrow morning to make yet another call in Portuguese, I think it was understandable that I immediately got headachey and a little panicky.
I left for a concert at the Early Music Festival in a hurry, forgetting my checkbook, and thus deciding after arriving there not to see it after all. Instead, I went home to relax and have some introvert time. Feeling much better now. And better yet after my decision to delay that call until some other time. Worst that will happen is that the bill will get screwed up and I'll need to pay with my own credit card and get reimbursed down there, instead of charging it direct to our department. That's not nearly so bad as having to get up before 6 am.
Well, I guess I'm proud of myself that I did both things. It's just so difficult to be a well-rounded communicator when you're a booky introvert.