So have
you ever thought about how weird telephones are?
Seriously,
I think telephones have got to be the most awkward mecahnisms of communication
out there. It's certainly the most intrusive. You can be in the midst of
something: a nice meal, a great movie or quality time with your significant
other and the shrill ringing demands your attention. There's something
about that sound that, no matter what you're doing, creates an odd compunction
to distract you. Maybe you're too engrossed to care, maybe you drop what
you're doing to check caller ID, maybe you pick up the phone instinctually.
But whatever the case, it's an intrusive interruption without the normal
social graces.
And
making phone calls is even worse. I mean, there is no way to assess whether
you're interrupting someone or not. If you send someone an email,
generally you know that they can get back to you at their convenience.
If you're on AIM or ICQ, you know that if someone's busy, they're likely
to have an away message. If you're at a bar, you can tell when someone
is busy and when they're not. But with a telephone, you enter blind. I
hate making telephone calls for this reason.
When
on the phone, there's always this hurried feeling. This feeling that alternates
between self consciously worrying that I'm interrupting someone and hurrying
to get all the information into a call.
Yet,
for some reason, I so much prefer receiving a phone call to an email. It
seems so much more personal, so much more thoughtful. Even though the ringing
of a phone drives me nuts, I really love it when friends call me.
An
even further dichotomy is I have had a fair amount of jobs involving the
telephone...tele fundraising, marketing research, customer service call
center...I actually really like working over the telephone. It's detatched,
it's even relaxing to a certain extent. It's very peculiar.
Go figure.