When My Phone Rings, Something Inside Me Dies

Answering phones and making calls in a Paris office-- with literally no corporate phone experience (I'm just an amateur phone-answerer) in ANY language-- is the scariest ffn thing I've had to do here.

That includes walking home by myself after 4am near the Gare du Nord with creepy bums following me; riding in taxis around the Arc de Troimphe; and being force-fed goat cheese (blech, by the way-- I am one of the least picky eaters you'll find, but that fricking warmed lump of barnyard smell makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck).

Anyways.

I'm generally pretty bad at talking on the phone in English. I always feel like I need to rush and get my message across right away. Also, I think a speech impediment develops whenever I need to call people professionally-- when I have to call private swim lessons over the summer, I always say something stupid and then start flubbing words.

Now add in the fact that I have to call tired, harassed people in my second langauge, and I think it's pretty obvious how well most of my phonecalls go.

I think what's so frightening about French people talking to me on the phone is that I can't read their expression or their tone. In person when I don't understand someone, I can watch hand movements, hear pitch of voice, or ask him to say it again and then carefully watch his lips. Also, on the phone, you get glacial politeness with the meanest treatment ever. Seriously, if someone talked to me in the US the way I've been talked to here, they would have gotten either some prize-winning sarcasm or a dial tone.

Instead, I'm forced to splutter through my prepared speech as the person on the other line sighs audibly. Several times, I've called offices within my company's holding, and gotten outright aggression. A woman once told me I was wrong (as in: "you're wrong", not "wrong number"), that there was no one here by that name, and hung up on me as I was explaining.

And that's another thing-- when someone has the wrong number, you don't say, "Excuse me, but I think you have the wrong number." Instead, you say "Vous vous êtes trompé le numéro." Which roughly translates to, "You're a fucking idiot who is incapable of handling a phone properly without screwing something up." But of course, this is said with the most correct politeness you could imagine.

I've also just had people completely lose their shit and yell at me over the phone. For example, I called another company last week, looking for a fact sheet. The man heard my name and who I worked for, and then started yelling about how my company had called him 10 times about the same thing. "J'EN AI MARRE!!" I was so shocked, it took me a second to answer. During the silence, the man must have assumed I didn't understand: In halting English, he started translating.

"You peeeople make me seeek!"

I finally interrupted him to snap in French, "FINE! I understand! And it's not my fault no one told me the other intern called you 10 times about it!"

No one in my office blinked an eye at me yelling over the phone at a business associate, and that's when I realized I was starting to fit in. Because that is what people do here. Normale.