I hate phones

The title is fairly self explanatory, but as I am not one to make a point without then expounding upon that point at great length, I'ma talk more now. Phones have long been my nemesis. I was never happy with phones, not since I was young. I only spoke on them when I had to and then only for brief and terse converations. This has not improved. My goal for any phone call is to make sure it is as short as humanly possible, and currently my average phone call length is well under a minute per. That's far too long in my book, but there's only so much one can do when someone who likes to chat on phones calls and there's no polite way to tell them to fuck off.

There are many factors that led to me disliking phones, not the least of which being my painfully long lived career in phone tech support. Working as a phone support technician was probably a mistake, since I didn't like phones even before I started that job. Not that I was bad at my job, mind you. I was actually reasonably good at what I did, not only by being technologically knowledgeable, but also because of my thick skin when it came to angry callers. I had exactly one incident where I lost my temper with a client, and while that was a rather spectacularly inflamatory incident it was still the only one of its kind and my boss really didn't give me any shit for it, which was nice of him.

The problem with phone support (other than the assholes) is keeping up with the calls at one moment while desperately staving off boredom at the next. Of course, when you're like me and you spend most every second of your boredom dreading the next time the goddamn phone rings, that makes your day long and your hatred for phones grow. So those four years spent manning phones really didn't do much for me other than make me bitter and even more short tempered.

In case you're wondering, I revile phones as much now as ever. I vastly prefer text messages, emails, and the like to do my communicating. So if you call me and wonder why I seem so hurried or even impolite, it's not because I don't like you (well, probably anyway), it's because I don't want to be on the phone. Best way to use a phone with me? Use the phone to set up impromptu in person meetings; use email or texts for everything else. Yeah, I know it's weird, but it's just one of the many things that make me a very singular man.