Do you want to hear something crazy? Let me tell you… I hate talking on the telephone. And I work in telecommunications.
Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
There’s just something about talking on the telephone that grates on my nerves. I don’t know if it’s the frustration I feel by not being able to see the face of the person I’m talking to or what, but I really don’t like the sound of the tinny voice on the other end of the receiver.
It’s not because they have a tinny voice, mind you, but the audio quality of a telephone conversation really bites. You’d think with all these leaps in technology over the past 100 years or so, we’d have progressed beyond the tin-can and a string sound that we still have today.
Analog, digital, wireless, landline, VoIP, they all sound the same to me. Like a two tin cans and a string.
Maybe I’m a little frustrated because I basically talk on the telephone for a living. Perhaps it’s because I’m asked unbelievable telephone troubleshooting questions at work. “I’d like to move my telephone to the other side of the room, could you let more wire through the wall?” “How do I press ‘0’ with a rotary phone?” “The power’s out, how come my cordless phone doesn’t work?” It goes on and on.
I seem to get into positions of employment that occasionally frustrate me. One job I worked as a radio commercial copy writer. I hate advertising. I despise it. But then a salesperson would jot three words of what the business is about and I was suppose to write 60 seconds of an exciting, engaging, commercial, “make it pop.” One guy handed me a piece of paper that said “memorials, President’s Day Sale.” What the hell was I suppose to do with that?
“This weekend we’re celebrating the birthdays of two fine presidents: Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. They’re both dead and gone, and you will be too someday, better put a downpayment on your headstone during their President’s Day Sale. With Prune Valley Memorials, your headstone will be stylin’ and will last longer than theirs ever did. Make a statement and make it pop when you’re six feet under.”
I do tacky well.
I’d continue this post, but I just got a, wait for it, phone call as I’m on call this week. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
