And India—my horror of picking up the phone is only outweighed by my instinct to give in in a phone-ringing stand-off. I think evolution will weed me out of the genepool for that alone.

Unfortunately, at work there is no receptionist, there are no direct extensions, there’s only one voice-mail box, and half the phones can only pick up certain lines (mine, of course, works fine for all of them). Supposedly we all answer the phone, which in practice means that whoever most hates the sound of ringing answers it most. That person seems to be me. Every time it rings, I grit my teeth and count. If it hits the third ring and everyone else is still playing deaf, I have to go for it, otherwise the voice-mail kicks in and callers assume we’re, well, about as flaky as we actually are. Ah, anarchists.

I’ve always had difficulty with the phone, even though I delight in email or talking in person. There’s something very demanding about the phone in terms of performance. It has to do with coming up with the right things to say on the spot, but also with the lack of nonverbal communication which seems somehow to cut the communication in half. Written communication doesn’t bother me by its lack, I suppose because people tend to be a bit more careful in what they say when writing?