Fingernail on 12/9/2007 at 09:26
Quote Posted by Tonamel
And that just makes sense. But what I'm saying is: When it comes to something like, say, technical support, I'd rather sit on hold for twenty minutes waiting for a guy in India to answer the phone so that he can ask me if I've tried turning the computer off and back on again than send a support ticket by email and then get on with my day.
I just don't use email. 98% of the emails I do get are either from the Sound Design mailing list (which I only read), or they're ToDo List update notifications from my work.
To be honest, I have to go 9 emails into my inbox to find one that's actually from somebody, and they only sent that because it has a song attached.
And that article on introversion, whilst interesting, seems to be rather a severe and black-and-white look at the whole thing. There must be degrees as there are degrees of everything. I can recognise what he's saying about needing time alone (although not as a sort of time-out from social contact). The reasons I spend time alone are fairly practical - because I want to do things like play music, sing to myself, listen to what I want - which other people frankly just get in the way of, or it would piss them off if I broke into song in the living room. I'm not talking about idle humming or whatever, I mean actual focused listening and writing where what I don't need is someone sitting there not wanting to hear me mess around with music, and who I don't want to hear my endless works in progress.
And there are some people I can make small talk with, and some I just can't. But I think that's about having enough points of reference, and also a slight feeling of failure if I can't move a conversation beyond the weather. It does take two to tango, after all. I mean, it's easy enough to keep a conversation ticking over if you just keep asking open questions, but if I find myself
having to prop it up in that way there's a certain point at which I think, "we just don't really click on some level". I'm also not too much a fan of being the only one cracking any jokes. That shit gets tiring. A shared sense of humour goes an awful long way.
I'll give you an example. My flatmate brought a friend of his round, who I'd never met before. At some point it was just me and this guy in the room together and what he told me was that he'd just bought some trainers from a shop, they were the wrong size, and the shop wouldn't let him return them.
a) I'd never open a conversation with something this mundane unless I honestly had nothing better. This is the sort of thing I bore people with as a joke.
b) Where the fuck am I meant to go with this? Some sort of expression of sympathy? Should I dig into the depths of my memory for some time when I wasn't able to return something? I don't carry that kind of thing around in my "readily available memories" bag. The option most likely to prolong this exchange would be some kind of question but since he's already told me the brand of trainers, where the shop was and when this happened, all that falls into my head is something like "so, you shop often?" or "what's your favourite type of shoe?" which is the kind of thing, again, I'd say as a joke except this is one of those situations where it could quite easily fly over his head. I can't remember exactly what I went with, something along the lines of "damn, better luck next time IN WORKING OUT YOUR OWN SHOE SIZE AND MAYBE TRYING THE FUCKERS ON BEFORE YOU BUY"
c) Dude, know your rights.
Perhaps unsurprisingly there aren't that many people who I'd consider great to
just talk to. There are plenty who are good to spend time with and hang around, though, and I like little groups of people.
Aerothorn on 12/9/2007 at 12:15
I'm totally there. Calling tech support scares the shit out of me so I generally don't do it.
BEAR on 12/9/2007 at 14:05
My job involves me talking to alot of people I dont know on the phone, as well as face to face, so its been a fairly good experience for me. I was a little irritated by the phone stuff in the beginning but you get used to it, although you do get the occational pissed off person but you get used to handling that too.
I get tired of my cell phone when it rings 20 times in a day, thats for sure.
henke on 12/9/2007 at 14:22
Interesting, but man that guy is full of himself.
Scots Taffer on 12/9/2007 at 23:56
Most writers are!
Chimpy Chompy on 13/9/2007 at 07:38
Quote Posted by mopgoblin
Although for me it's more about the way people always expect you to answer a ringing phone, and then when you do answer they expect you to stop whatever you're doing to talk to them.
Actually flipped around that's part of my problem. When calling someone you're descending out of nowhere and demanding they drop what they're doing to talk to you.
Of course if its someone that's going to be taking money off you at some point (like the Solicitor) then they can damn well co-operate. But, again, if you're not too socially confident it's still something that can bring a little hesitance.
Quote Posted by driver
Then again, you can't judge body language or the like via MSN or e-mail, so maybe that's not it at all
Thing is tho, an email isn't a realtime interaction, it's just firing off parcels of information. So I don't really get any hesitance or fear of awkwardness there.
Chimpy Chompy on 13/9/2007 at 10:54
Can you at least save your little crusade until the thread has had a few more days and no-one really cares anymore?
Rogue Keeper on 13/9/2007 at 12:22
Yes, actually I can post a new thread about it! :idea:
Seriously, you can ignore.
