The Devil’s instrument.

I can recall a time in my past when I didn’t mind using phones. After over 5 years in a support position, however, where my regular routine has been to sit waiting to pick up phone calls, I hate the things with a passion.

Not only do I despise having to use the instruments, if I hear a phone ringing it immediately fills me with a flight or fight response. I get tense and start to feel stressed. I’ve turned the ringer on my phone at work off. If I’m sitting at my desk, I’ll see the light flashing instead. So I’m aware that somebody’s trying to contact me – but at least I don’t have to put up with the sound that now reminds me of an emergency alarm and some terrible disaster that requires me to drop everything else I’m doing to deal with it.

I now also have a sense of disdain when it comes to phone communication. I can think of hardly anything at all that’s so urgent that it requires I be contacted immediately – and I now associate any phone call with a demand for instant attention. Almost anything that needs communicating can be communicated by leaving a voicemail or by sending me an email. In some sense, I feel as if I’m dealing with post traumatic stress – and the sound of a phone ringing always sets is off.

If I’m on my own, I almost never answer the phone. I don’t give the caller the satisfaction of knowing that they can control me by having me pick up at their whim. Almost every time the phone does ring, I’m in the middle of something else anyway. I don’t see any reason to interrupt what I’m doing to pay attention to this other thing. Whatever it is, it can wait for when I’m finished what I’m doing and want to deal with the communication.

I’m aware that most people don’t feel this way. It’s a side-effect of what I’ve been doing with my professional life over the last few years. I’ve spoken to others in the same field, and they all feel exactly the same way. The more you have to deal with waiting for phone calls as part of your job, the less you ever want to deal with them in your personal life unless it’s a necessity. Others in the field also understand when I explain all of the above things to them.

If I lived on my own, I would still have a phone – but I’d leave it unplugged. I would only plug it in if I needed to make a call, or once a day to check for messages anybody might have left. If I didn’t have a phone at all, that also wouldn’t bother me. In some ways, I’d be grateful to not even have the option.

Michelle doesn’t understand this. I’ve tried explaining it to her, as has somebody else I work with and who gets it, but it’s not something that she can appreciate. As she can’t understand my reaction, she laughs and thinks that I’m just lazy and making excuses. This is the furthest thing from the truth. I am quite sincere in my position here. If we’re doing something together and the phone rings, I will ignore it. Invariably, she will always ask me to see who it is. As soon as she asks me this, I start to feel that sense of panic I’m familiar with at work – and stressed out over the fact that I’m now being told I have to deal with this immediate, interruptive, demand on my attention. It’s not good. I’m also aware of the fact that my reaction has been growing steadily stronger over the past year. After being told to look at who’s calling, I will increasingly frequently snap at her and be in a bad mood for longer periods of time afterwards.

The same thing happens if she answers the phone, it’s for me, and she passes it over. I can positively state that I almost never want to speak to that person right then – and for similar reasons as above. Worse, is when she picks up the phone and passes it over without saying anything herself – thereby preventing me the choice of not answering, and putting the burden on me to deal with the person at the other end right away.

I’m going to have to come to some sort of agreement with her over this – if only in order to manage my sanity and make sure that our differing approaches to the phone don’t negatively impact our relationship. Perhaps even something as simple as making sure that the phone is always in reach of her so that I don’t need to be forced to deal with it myself. And if it’s for me, letting me know who it is but not just picking it up.

I don’t generally have a problem with the phone if it’s Michelle or Glen calling. Those are the only two people who, most of the time, I’m happy to talk to right away. (Although there have still been a few times I’ve let even them go to voicemail.) And I have no problem at all with the phone ringing if I’m actually expecting somebody to call. In that case, the call has been planned ahead of time – and there’s no feeling of panic or urgency when it happens.