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Hate answering the phone? Newsable’s here to help.
Newsable is brought to you by BNZ. Listen to today’s episode in the player below.
When I was about 10, I rang my mate Jesse. Wanted to ask if he was keen to hang out on the weekend.
I picked up the phone, dialled the number. Ring ring! Someone picked up.
But it wasn’t Jesse. It was his mum.
“Hello?” she said.
On reflection I could’ve anticipated this. After all, she lived in the house too. Not unreasonable to think she might pick up the phone.
But I panicked. I failed to improvise. I was struck dumb.
After several agonising seconds I decided to simply hang up. No evidence, no crime, I reasoned. But another problem emerged seconds later: they had caller ID.
I took the inevitable lecture from Jesse’s mum in sullen silence. She was right, of course, it was desperately rude of me to behave the way I did. But I also felt like I didn’t have much control – it was like I had stage fright.
Mercifully, 10-year-old Emile wasn’t unique in this regard.
This is called ‘telephone apprehension’. And yeah, it’s a thing: a 2019 survey of UK office workers suggests 40 percent of Baby Boomers and 70 percent of millennials get anxious when the phone starts to ring.
And that’s where Mary-Jane Copps comes in.
Mary-Jane is affectionately known as ‘The Phone Lady’: she offers practical tips and advice on conquering your anxiety when the marimba ringtone starts to play.
Speaking to Newsable from her home in Nova Scotia, Copps says these fears are actually remarkably common.
“Talking on the phone has a lot in common with public speaking”, she says.
“People can get nervous, right? And especially if it’s something they don’t do very often.”
Copps says while younger generations get a bad rap when it comes to phone-phobia, it’s actually existed for decades.
“But I think all generations that have spent too much time putting words on a screen have anxiety about having a conversation on the phone.”
Copps says her simplest tip is to create an agenda ahead of the call you’re about to make.
“You can say, ‘OK Emile, there’s three things we want to accomplish in this call, and the first one is …
“So you can grab control of the conversation, and move it through by creating this mini-agenda.”
And the best way to end a call?
A simple goodbye, she says – maybe with a tone of finality in your voice.
Sometimes, simpler is better.
Newsable is Stuff’s daily news podcast, wrapping up what’s worth talking about in a short package every weekday morning. You can find new episodes and more detail on our stories here or in our newsletter. Make sure to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
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