hi, i’m jen, and i suffer from phone anxiety.

what’s that? you’ve never heard of phone anxiety? some people call it phone phobia (although i think “phobia” is a bit too dramatic for me). i’ve had it all my life, and until about 8 or 9 years ago, i had no idea it affected anyone else. i truly thought i was the only person in the world who got anxious using the telephone.

seriously. because, i mean really – how *dumb* is it to be afraid of the telephone? but i am. with friends and family and people i know well, i’m fine. but for everything else, i get a knot in my stomach and a tightening in my chest every time i have to make or take a phone call. everything from ordering pizza to making calls at work, makes me (to a greater or lesser degree) feel the same way people feel before taking tests or going on stage – it’s just that my stage-fright starts with a dial tone.

i have no idea where it comes from. i’ve never (to my memory) had any kind of horrible telephone trauma. there’s some speculation that it’s a form of social anxiety disorder, which makes some sense, since i used to be painfully shy as a child. but i really don’t know why i dread phone calls so much. also mysteriously, it has, over the past few years, gotten dramatically better for me. again, no idea why.

but still, if i had my druthers, i’d almost never make a phone call. i procrastinate, i avoid, i try to find loopholes via text and email and internet. i order takeaway food online. i let all unknown numbers go straight to voice mail. i call when i know they won’t be available and leave messages instead.

unfamiliar or stressful situations make it even worse. when i first moved to london, it was horrible. firstly, because i got my first mobile phone – and i detest mobile phones, with their expectation that you are constantly available, the horrible sound quality (am i the only one who really actually can’t hear people on those things?), and the extreme awkwardness of having a conversation in full public hearing of crowds of strangers. secondly, because i still had a hard time understanding some people’s accents (and them, mine). have you ever tried carrying on a conversation with someone with a heavy accent when you can’t see their lips? thirdly, because there is very different phone etiquette in the UK than in north america. brits start the conversation with lots of perfunctory social pleasantries, they never just dive right in. brits do not ever interrupt the other party. brits end the conversation with several goodbyes before they actually hang up, usually in increasingly high-pitched, saccharine tones (”okay then, goodbye! bye!! *bye*!!!”). i’ll never forget the first phone call i got on my mobile phone, was a recruiter with a heavy Scottish accent, calling me while i was in the london bridge station concourse, and in between accidentally talking over her, trying to find a pen to write down interview details, and trying to hear/understand her, i was in a panic. by the time i got off, i was drenched in sweat and had to go collect myself before waiting for the next train. hideous.

it got better, of course. but it never really leaves me. so i have coping mechanisms that i use, such as:

• rehearsal. i try to know in advance what i will say, i practice the wording. this works well for run-of-the-mill situations like ordering pizza, where i can fairly accurately predict how the exchange will occur: what i will say, what they will say in return, what questions they’ll ask, what my answers will be.

• batching. this is what i do for “errand” type phone calls (correcting the cable bill, making doctor’s appointments) – i set aside time when i know i can sit quietly alone and make several calls all at once. then i just try to get through all of them, like ripping off a plaster, and once they’re done, the anxiety that’s been hanging over me around knowing i have calls to make, lifts instantaneously.

• using notes and speaking slowly. this is what i do when i have calls that will require me to think on my feet, like speaking to prospective employers, or negotiating contentious issues with the phone company, or answering queries at work. i usually jot down some reference notes to have to hand, and try to slow down what comes out of my mouth, so that i have time to think ahead of what i’m going to say. it sounds more deliberate and measured, which also makes me feel more confident.

• using voicemail. even if i call back just a few minutes later, it makes me feel more in control, more prepared. answering the phone when i don’t know what to expect catches me off guard and makes me terribly anxious. it may seem rude, but i really am “sorry i can’t take your call at the moment”. i may want to be able to – but i can’t.

• revisiting phone calls that went well. replaying these in my head reminds me of what worked, that i will feel much better once it’s done, and that i am a capable adult who can handle a telephone conversation without having a meltdown.

however, probably the worst situation for phone phobics, is job hunting.

• there is a lot of telephoning involved. even in the age of the internet, there’s still a frequent requirement that you pick up the phone and speak to someone.

• you have to answer the phone even when you don’t want to, because the price of not answering is too great. you can’t afford to lose a job opportunity because of your phone anxiety

• where you spend most of your time trying to allay your phone anxiety by telling yourself that you’re *not* being judged by the person on the other end of the phone, in a job seeking situation, you are being judged.

• you’re being required to perform well via a medium which is your achille’s heel. in person, i interview great. over the phone, not so much.

• knowing all of the above only heightens the phone anxiety, and makes it that much harder.

it’s hell – no matter how much you practice, or how often you do it, job hunting for people with phone anxiety really is hell. imagine having claustrophobia, and having to spend significant time in lifts, or having acrophobia and having to interview in skyscrapers, just to land a job. the only way through it is through it – but it doesn’t make it any easier. so spare a thought for me as i struggle through it here in vancouver – just don’t call me about it.

cake – no phone

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why is it that it’s only on leaving something behind that you fully appreciate it?

i finished my job last week – and in the madness leading up to my last day, i found myself working flat out, to the point of exhaustion. everyone around me kept asking if i’d mentally checked out yet, and the truth was that i hadn’t because i couldn’t let go. part of it was an untimely confluence of crises that happened in the last weeks, but a larger part of it was pride – i was too proud to do a half-assed job even when most other people would have simply called it good enough and done. my colleagues kept telling me, “you can only do what you can do”, and they were right, obviously – but i was so afraid of letting people down that i couldn’t see my own limitations.

feeding into that last minute frenzy, there was a whole leaving chorus of “what will we do without you?!” intellectually, i know, of course, that no one is indispensable. in a few months, someone else in that job will have made their own mark, blurred my footprints. but it was nice to hear, nonetheless. because as much as i moaned about it, and stressful as it could often be, there were two things about leaving this job that made it so bittersweet.

first: that i was damned good at it. oh sure, there have been other jobs where i felt competent and capable. but there are very few jobs that really play to your strengths, and this was one of them. and being damned good at something gives you job satisfaction that tides you over even when other things at work aren’t great. i used to come home and complain/brag about how much i’d done – but i always had a secret sense of accomplishment that gave me a little smile. and people appreciated my work.

secondly: that i am leaving before i really want to. leaving a job because you’ve become bored, or resentful, or overworked, etc. is something i’m pretty familiar with. when you have that bitter taste at the back of your throat because you’ve come to hate something you spend so many hours a day doing – there are no mixed feelings when you finally leave. but there has been one other job where i felt i left before i was ready, and i’ve always kind of regretted that. i was essentially forced out of this job – and so i am ambivalent and heavy-hearted to have had to leave. i might not have ended sticking around for very much longer – but it’s hard to walk away knowing there was more you would have wanted to do.

and i suppose that those feelings are also reflected in my leaving london. as much as i may moan about it, and as stressful as it has often been, living in london has given me a sense of satisfaction and achievement. even in my grousing and bitching, there’s a hint of smugness in knowing that i am bitching about london – a city many would love to have the opportunity to live in, and which i have had the luxury of bitching about for eight years now. there’s a secret sense of accomplishment in getting here and living here that turns up the corners of my mouth ever so slightly. i may have had to gut it out at times, but i was damned good at london.

similarly, as much as i’ve wanted to leave for a while now, i do in some ways feel as though i’m leaving before the end. i haven’t wrung all the last drops of joy out of this experience yet. since the beginning of the year when it became clear that this move was in the cards, i’ve been looking at london with fresh new eyes. feeling it with the heart of someone anticipating the empty space it will leave. appreciating it in a way that i couldn’t when the years were just stretched out endlessly before me. the other day was my move-iversary, and i was remembering that initial honeymoon phase when everything about london seemed grand and even the mundane was new and quaint. all the little things that have become just so much background noise that i barely even notice them – except now that i know i will miss them, they jump out at me all the time. maybe even without this catalyst, i would be leaving soon anyway, and maybe it’s better to leave with fond memories and regrets of things not yet done, than with a sour lump of resentment. but i can’t help feeling that, like my job, my stay was incomplete.

“absence makes the heart grow fonder” – i’d never known the origins of that line, but it’s been spinning in my head for days. how apt then, that it’s an englishman who wrote it.

One of England’s more versatile writers, Thomas Haynes Bayly wrote novels, plays, poems, political articles, and songs. In 1844 a poem titled “Isle of Beauty” appeared in Bayly’s two-volume Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems. It is here that the following romantic words are found:

What would not I give to wander

Where my old companions dwell?

Absence makes the heart grow fonder:

Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!

as people keep reminding me, you can only do what you can do. and so, dear london, dear england, dear isle of beauty, goodbye – for now.

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