codeman38: For most people, making a phone call...

codeman38:

For most people, making a phone call is like this:

Pick up the phone.

Make call.

For me, it goes a little something more like this:

Ensure that I’m in a mental state where I can process auditory information and respond in reasonably real time.

Ensure that I can find an environment with absolutely no distractions - I can’t hear if there’s even a moderate amount of background noise.

Contemplate whether I’m in a clear enough mental state to make a regular voice call, or whether I want to call via a relay captioning service. The latter means that there’s a 3rd party on the line hearing the conversation and transcribing what’s being said— which also means that anything such as confirmations of credit card numbers and other such secure information will be heard by the operator.

Keep procrastinating, trying to see if there is any way to do the same task online.

Finally, after a lot of procrastinating, make the call.

If calling via a captioning service, explain that there’s a delay while I wait for captions to catch up. If not, explain that I’ll be asking for repetition. Feel awkward either way.

Generally have no clue about phone etiquette, due to a significant lack of experience, and end up coming off to the person on the other end as some sort of uncouth fool.

After the call is over, find a quiet, dark room to stim, because I need to release all of that stress. Possibly take a several-minute-long break after the call to decompress as well.

And people wonder why I prefer to do business online whenever possible!