That call could have been an email
And other thoughts on life as an introvert who hates speaking on the phone
Sunday.
I can tell today is a beautiful day as a pale yellow light gets through the curtains. I’ve barely woken up but this is a skill I’ve honed after years in London: being able to tell from bed if the weather is worth getting up for. Most days it isn’t but today is not one of those days.
As I listen for external sounds and noises (a bit of distant chirping, no cars) to attune to the world of the living again from the cocoon that my bed is and from where I’m slowly unfolding to face a new day, my peace of mind is shattered by a flashing thought that I’ve been trying to push aside since yesterday afternoon. I have to call my internet provider to sort out why they’re charging me, once again, the wrong amount.
And with that the magic is gone and the Sunday is ruined before it has even started. The burden of that task is now hanging over my head like a Damocles sword, only that instead of a fatal blow it contains a fatal bill that is equally deathly. Living in the modern world is a constant battle, let me tell you. You exist to pay bills as there is little you can do this side of Occident that is free, which is the main reason you need to find a job in first place. So you have money to pay for the bills that you have to pay for because you are alive.
All this wouldn’t be an issue if you were dead, a voice in my head says, but the prospect makes my skin crawl so I’d probably stick to paying bills as on this sunny Sunday morning in North London, where the birds are chirping, a couple of menacing seagulls can be heard nearby and squirrels are running up and down the trees in the back garden unaware of the cat that is observing them half-hidden from top of the shed and ready to jump on them, being dead seems the most unlikely of scenarios when I feel so alive.
Until I remember the bill. And the call I have to make. And that I hate calls. And in particular calls that are about solving a problem because I am introvert who gets very agitated when having to ask someone to do things they had promised to do but didn’t because I also hate confrontation, and right now I can smell there’s lots of it floating in the air. All of a sudden death doesn’t look such a bad alternative anymore.
While I prepare the coffee machine and put it on the stove I start reflecting on all my life choices. If I hadn’t broken up with my ex, he could make that call for me.
Actually no, because I wouldn’t be in a new house with a new internet contract because we would still be together in our old house with our old internet contract that was working just fine and therefore there wouldn’t be a need to talk to anyone ever again at all because he’d do it for me. For ever and ever. At least that was my plan.
Not because he was a man, don’t get me wrong, but because he was, alas, an extrovert. Doing things that require a certain mindset for me to step into action came naturally to him, without any second-guessing. He just knew what to do, how, when, who to ask for help, where to find them and there was never hesitation. Only resolution.
Where do people learn to be this way? Where was the existential dread that consumed me every time I had to make a call that could go in so many unpredictable directions?
To help me get over my rejection of phone calls, he’d often bribe me with paying for any takeaway I wanted on condition I called to place the order. It goes without saying that I preferred to cook for an hour than speak two minutes on the phone with someone who could sort dinner for me.
In hindsight, I can see now that someone who spoke to his family on the phone every single day wasn’t the person to understand my struggles, phone-related or otherwise.
As I sip my coffee and try to distract myself with the book I’m currently reading, my mind keeps going back to the call I will have to make sooner or later to clarify the extra charge in the internet bill.
Being an an adult demands that you talk to someone for almost anything you need to get done. The more you talk to people, the higher your chances of things going your way and many times those conversations start with a phone call whether it is to have a chat about an exciting job opportunity, arranging a doctor’s appointment, or vetting someone for sex. However, as an introvert, the chances of me being interested in securing any of these things are inversely proportional to the time I need to spend discussing them.
This is why extroverts are more successful and efficient: they welcome every opportunity to have a chat, in person or over the phone, so whenever they have a problem they don’t spend their days gathering the strength to make a call and wishing A) for a real adult to take over of B) a major natural disaster that puts the world on hold and makes everything else irrelevant.
On the contrary: extroverts light up with every obstacle life throws at them and which requires the assistance of another person to overcome it as that’s an extra opportunity to listen to their own voice. Meanwhile, it’s been three weeks since I last call the internet company and I’m still trying to get my cortisol levels back to normal. I’m convinced extroverts are undercover sociopaths. It’s the only possible explanation for how unfazed they are by having to ring someone up and ask them to do things for them out of the blue.
They don’t even seem to mind if they have to make repeated calls if an issue can’t be solved at once. They almost encourage it. And then there’s me agonising I’ll be trapped in this Kafkian parallel universe where I spend the rest of my life making monthly phone calls until I die to solve a problem I’m promised it’s sorted only to discover it’s all a joke and I have to make yet another phone call.
When you are an introvert every phone call, especially those you must make because they are in your best interest, is extremely taxing for your energy levels so we learn to waste as few words as possible.
Take my current predicament. I know I have the option to break the contract if I’m not happy with the service I’m given, but the only solace I find in this situation is knowing that by staying with my current provider, despite their many shortcomings, I don’t have to elaborate when I’m on the phone with them as they are fully aware of what the problem is. They simply insist on not solving it.
That in turns makes me feel entitled in my righteousness and I can rejoice on playing the role of the introverted martyr and tell you all about it. Which is the sole reason you are reading this.
If I were an extrovert ready to take action when needed, where would the friction be? Introversion is the only acceptable personality trait for anyone interested in creative writing. Anything can be a source of inspiration and everything is a cause for conflict.
If we add to this compelling drama that confrontation is not my natural habitat -especially not on the phone- and that I hate repeating myself when I was perfectly clear the first time, you get a recipe for disaster. I’ve said it for a long time and I’ll keep repeating it that every introvert should be allocated a functioning extrovert to help us do life admin. It’s in everyone’s best interests. Mine mostly as I am not the person I would ask for help to solve my own problems but I have no alternative.
Not to speak of whether I’d be able to understand the accent on the other side of the line, which is another kind of anxiety as a non-native speaker. I already have to ask people to repeat themselves more times than it is acceptable when making calls in my own language.
Nothing good can come out of an interaction where I’m focusing on getting the accent right to avoid messing up my own password as failure to correctly provide the first and fith letters of it -or was it the third and the sixth?- will result in an abrupt end of the call that will force me to start over. How can we claim to live in a civilised society when this method of torture is still being used with total impunity?
Sending an email could eliminate the language barrier as well as help me put to good use all those passive-aggressive one-liners others have employed with me in the past when there was no need to choose violence. Given that I’m the wronged one here, I’d love to be able to communicate with my internet provider in this way and maybe even copy in someone higher up - the ultimate sing that you mean war- in an email that simply reads “As per our latest correspondence, please fix the issue stated in the attached file.”
Unlike a call, an email has structure and I can think over what I want to say in order to be more persuasive and effective. A phone call is uncharted territory. I don’t know what I’m going to be told, but I have to repeat it to make sure I’ve understood it correctly while figuring out what the fuck the person on the other side is trying to tell me. Whoever thought phone calls were the easiest way to deal with customer service was a relative of the person who came up with Chinese Whispers.
The challenges don’t end there.
Even if I managed to understand everything that is being asked of me and provide satisfactory responses, on the phone I can’t gather the courage to stress how much I want a problem to be resolved in a way that conveys both maturity and disappointment at the poor service I’m receiving without feeling tears welling up because, honestly, I find it very unfair that this is happening to me, an introvert who never bothers others with calls and now is forced to make them.
What terrible things have I done in life to deserve this? Is this some sort of XXI century Dante’s Inferno where I have to spend eternity re-enacting the opposite of the only thing I’d rather avoid?
While focused on manifesting a personal assistant who can do life admin for me (which may happen sooner than expected thanks to AI), my thoughts wander towards the biggest extrovert I know with a talent for talking people into doing what she wants them to. My mum.
I’ve spent my childhood seeing her glued to the phone sorting out issues promptly and without hesitation.
Back home, I remember the phone ringing at all times as my mum’s favourite passtime was talking on the phone. Since I was a child who loved silence I must have developed a form of PTSD as a result and that’s why all my devices, whether personal or for work, are permanently on silence -which is the only possible setting if you ask me- and why I get very triggered by a phone ringing as well as by people talking on their phones. As you can imagine, in this day and age, I have the joy to relive my personal Vietnam every time I step out of the house.
Today, on top of the landline phone, my mum also owns three mobile phones for no other reason than she managed to get two for free when changing mobile contracts. If you asked me to describe hell I’d probably tell you it’s a place full of phones and suspiciously similar to my house in Spain.
Because I’ve been exposed to endless hours of hearing my mum speak on the phone, I can tell you she knows how to influence people and win them over. She can be very empathic and she is much loved by her friends for this quality, but unlike my introverted self, my mum can turn on at will an impressive lack of self-awareness when it serves her goals. And that, my fellow introverts, is indeed a powerful weapon to face conflict without fear.
One time we received a mysterious box from Telefonica, the national phone company.
It contained a gigantic modem and all the necessary cables to instal an internet connection, but we had no computer at the time so my mum thought it was a mistake and forgot about it. Until she received the next phone bill in which she discovered she was being charged for an internet service she wasn’t using. She had just got home from the supermarket when she opened the bill and without wasting a second, she called out my sister and I to get the shopping bags in the kitchen as she stomped towards the phone, bill in hand, and eyes on fire.
Two minutes later she was asking someone on the other side of the line if they could please explain to her why on earth she would order a modem when she didn’t even have a computer. She demanded to know why she had been sent something she hadn’t requested which was now taking up space she needed -it was a tiny box quickly put aside where it didn’t bother anyone- and which was causing her the trouble of having to return it and pay for, which was beyond belief -she was quite right here.
All of this, she carried on, could have been avoided if the phone company had been more competent in doing their job instead of trying to trick poor customers like her into paying for services they hadn’t asked for hoping they wouldn’t notice. She said the least she could do in this instance, when she had been treated not only disloyaly but also taken for a fool, was to terminate her contract at once because this was unacceptable customer service. And of course she meant to speak to the local consumer rights office to fill out a formal complaint and alert other customers of the practices of Telefonica.
I don’t know what was said on the other side of the line, but when my mum hung up she immediately dialed up another number and had a very cryptic conversation which resulted in her, my sister and I being at the house of one of my mum’s friends ten minutes later to pick up a massive desktop computer.
It turned out that the call with the phone company had ended with my mum being offered a year of complimentary internet service so here we were getting our first computer. My mum’s friend had already offered it to her, but not having an internet connection she didn’t see the use - until that day.
Once that first complimentary year came to an end, my mum made sure to call the phone company every time an offer for new clients came up from a competitor or from the same company and she threatened to leave unless she was offered the same price. She demanded to be treated with the respect she deserved as a loyal customer -albeit one ready to jump ship the moment a better deal was available- and she would keep calling until she got not only a discount but also some extras in the form of new landline phone, a new modem, or more free minutes for the same price.
Her argument was always the same: she couldn’t believe a loyal customer wasn’t given a better treament than someone who had just joined. What was the incentive to remain when she could be treated better somewhere else than staying where she was? She definitely knew how to use her exroverted confidence for evil.
The funny thing is that 90% of the time my mum would have paid the initial price on something or accepted whatever was on offer without haggling, but she has a talent for spotting when someone has room to negotiate and she doesn’t miss the opportunity to get a good deal.
As she always says “In order to be a good seller you need to be sure what you’re selling has no match and people won’t go to a competitor easily, and that’s not the case most of the time, so why should I be expected to pay for something as it were my only choice without even trying to get a bit more of value for money?”
With those words of wisdom resonating in my head I decide it is time to face my fears head-on.
What’s the worst that can happen in this call? That they don’t solve my problem? The thought gives me shivers. I’ll have a mental breakdown if I have to call these people again in April. And that’s knowing I’m asking for something that has already been agreed on and I have proof of. I don’t know how my mum could just pick up the phone and ask for things she knew damn well she wasn’t entitled to and still get them.
I take a deep breath to prepare mysel. After making sure I have all I need at hand and dialing a few numbers I am directed to an assistant who introduces herself as Zara. She asks how she can help me today. I’d like to reply that by giving me the courage to have this conversation like the adult I’m supposed to be, but I realise I can’t sound defeatist if I want this issue to be solved once and for all.
This is the time of truth.
Like Paul Atreides on his way to fulfilling his destiny I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
“I have been charged incorrectly for the second time in a row in less than a month after having been promised this issue had been sorted. I have the emails to prove I renewed my contract for a much lower rate and I’m still waiting for the refund I was offered after you charged me incorrectly the first time. This is not the kind of service I’m expecting and I’m honestly wondering whether I should cancel my contract if this is the best you can do for me as a customer.”
I can’t believe I’ve said all that with an even voice. I could even pass for someone my age if I didn’t know myself better.
Zara asks me to hold the line as she checks some details internally. When she gets back to me on the line she confirms the wrongdoing I’ve been victim of due to the company’s lack of internal communication in updating my new contract, which hasn’t been updated on my customer account and therefore it has caused the company to charge me incorrectly again. She is very apologetic. She’d better be to make the anxiety I’m going through worth it.
Zara promises to personally update this information to ensure this mistake doesn’t happen again as she is aware that charging me a third more of my agreed bill twice in a row doesn’t reflect very well on their customer service. She also offers a full refund for the two times I’ve been billed incorrectly, all of which she confirms by email shortly after our call is over.
I put my phone down and as I look out of the window, closing my eyes and taking in the warm early morning sun, I’m invaded by a feeling that takes me a while to name. After excluding hunger -I haven’t had breakfast yet- I establish it must be pride.
I’m impressed with myself for having tackled this conversation first thing on a Sunday morning when I could have spent my day in more familiar territory, for instance consumed by the anxiety of having to make this call on Monday, which would have prevented me from doing anything else the rest of Sunday other than worrying about making a call the following day.
There’s no denying that life as an introvert can be quite thrilling.
While I have managed to overcome dread and anxiety, I still spend the rest of the day and a good part of Monday checking my client account. The site says there’s currently an issue and I can’t make any changes at the moment, which I take as a good omen as I trust Zara is updating my contract. And if she isn’t I’m so damn ready to call them again and demand an explanation for their repeated incompetence. I can even push for another discount, why not.
Luckily that is unnecessary as on Monday evening my account finally reflects the right contract and the refund that I’m expected to receive at the end of the week. This means next month’s bill will be virtually waived, which it’s the least they can do after so much injustice and the trial of making phone calls I’ve been through.
But all’s well that ends well, I tell myself.
I have acted promptly and stood for my rights as I knew this was not how I should be treated and that I deserved more. Life has rewarded me for it and I feel great about myself.
Who am I becoming?
A worthy daughter of my mum, that’s who.
(But please don’t call me if you can text me and mute your phone around me. Thanks.)
Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
‘There’s no denying that life as an introvert can be quite thrilling.’ Such a great way of looking at the positive aspects of overcoming those challenges! A funny & inspiring post.