For those of you who are familiar with the Meyers-Briggs test, I am an INTJ, though a number of the criteria are close to balanced. For those of you not familiar with it, that means I tend to be introverted, intuit things and see the big picture, value objectivity, and plan things well in advance. One of the habits of INTJs is that we tend to have only a few close friends, who are often INTJs themselves. So it came as no surprise to me that, when I took a job that required making collection calls (phone communication being typically anathema to INTJ folk), the response was overwhelmingly along the lines of "Holy crap, WHY would you do that???"
For what it's worth, I even asked the same question of myself, because I hate talking on the phone. It's impossible to use or gauge reactions to nonverbal communication, such as body language, facial expressions, gestures, and the like. Instead you have to rely on tonal inflections, which are very easy to fake. There is also the problem of communication lag, or feedback, or bad connections, which make conversations awkward and halting, situations that INTJs typically avoid like the plague. Last but not least, you're talking to people you don't know (awkward), about fairly personal issues (money and medical history), and there's a good chance that, once they figure out who you are and why you're calling, they're going to hate your guts and be rude just to get rid of you. Why would someone choose to do that?
In my case, it was because I knew it was a problem for me, and I wanted to fix it. I had let my dislike of talking on the phone build for so long that it was close to a phobia, and the only way to get over it was to just do it. Over. And over. And over. Until it wasn't a problem anymore. I had also realized that I'd become too hung up on wanting people to like me, as opposed to wanting people to respect me. So, I took the job. And guess what.
It sucked.
For about the first month, I had no clue what I was doing. People were rude as anything to me. One of my most memorable calls was when a rather forceful matron didn't want to give me any leeway as I was trying to get her to agree to make monthly payments for an MRI she'd had done more than a year earlier. She said she would send money in "when she could," and when I asked when we could expect the first payment, she said (verbatim), "Did I stutter? I said when I could," and then hung up on me. Ouch.
But I'm not one to give up on something, so I took a deep breath to calm down, repeated to myself that the next person I needed to call had done nothing to me, personally, and made the next call. And as time went by, I got what I needed: practice in awkward situations, the experience of calls to truly nice people who'd simply forgotten to pay their bills, and telling myself over and over until I actually believed it that a) these people's opinions of me made no difference to my personal value, b) I was in control of the situation, even if that meant accepting a bill wasn't going to get paid, and c) each person deserves to be treated as if it's their first call, because they had no control over how the last person I spoke to treated me.
It has helped, a lot. I feel incredibly more confident, I don't look at the phone in dread anymore (although it's still not my favorite mode of communication), and I'm getting better at treating everyone politely. Granted, sometimes that means a polite letter that they're being sent to a collections agency, and a few times, I've had to politely tell someone to shut up and listen to me (and amazingly, it's worked!), but it pays off. I've had one of the highest rates of success that the office has experienced, and the highlight of my time there was when someone called in to pay their bill, and thanked me for leaving a nice message about their bill, instead of a snarky collections call. He said he'd had a pretty awful day, but coming home to hear "please," "thank you," and "have a nice day" in a respectful tone of voice are him smile, pick up the phone, and settle his account. And hearing him say that made my day, too.
So, was I happy about calling? No. Did I want to call people? Heck no. Would I do it again? Probably not, unless I absolutely have to. But! I know I can. And I know I can do it well, effectively, and with minimal stress and anxiety to me and (hopefully) the people I call.
Mission Accomplished.
For what it's worth, I even asked the same question of myself, because I hate talking on the phone. It's impossible to use or gauge reactions to nonverbal communication, such as body language, facial expressions, gestures, and the like. Instead you have to rely on tonal inflections, which are very easy to fake. There is also the problem of communication lag, or feedback, or bad connections, which make conversations awkward and halting, situations that INTJs typically avoid like the plague. Last but not least, you're talking to people you don't know (awkward), about fairly personal issues (money and medical history), and there's a good chance that, once they figure out who you are and why you're calling, they're going to hate your guts and be rude just to get rid of you. Why would someone choose to do that?
In my case, it was because I knew it was a problem for me, and I wanted to fix it. I had let my dislike of talking on the phone build for so long that it was close to a phobia, and the only way to get over it was to just do it. Over. And over. And over. Until it wasn't a problem anymore. I had also realized that I'd become too hung up on wanting people to like me, as opposed to wanting people to respect me. So, I took the job. And guess what.
It sucked.
For about the first month, I had no clue what I was doing. People were rude as anything to me. One of my most memorable calls was when a rather forceful matron didn't want to give me any leeway as I was trying to get her to agree to make monthly payments for an MRI she'd had done more than a year earlier. She said she would send money in "when she could," and when I asked when we could expect the first payment, she said (verbatim), "Did I stutter? I said when I could," and then hung up on me. Ouch.
But I'm not one to give up on something, so I took a deep breath to calm down, repeated to myself that the next person I needed to call had done nothing to me, personally, and made the next call. And as time went by, I got what I needed: practice in awkward situations, the experience of calls to truly nice people who'd simply forgotten to pay their bills, and telling myself over and over until I actually believed it that a) these people's opinions of me made no difference to my personal value, b) I was in control of the situation, even if that meant accepting a bill wasn't going to get paid, and c) each person deserves to be treated as if it's their first call, because they had no control over how the last person I spoke to treated me.
It has helped, a lot. I feel incredibly more confident, I don't look at the phone in dread anymore (although it's still not my favorite mode of communication), and I'm getting better at treating everyone politely. Granted, sometimes that means a polite letter that they're being sent to a collections agency, and a few times, I've had to politely tell someone to shut up and listen to me (and amazingly, it's worked!), but it pays off. I've had one of the highest rates of success that the office has experienced, and the highlight of my time there was when someone called in to pay their bill, and thanked me for leaving a nice message about their bill, instead of a snarky collections call. He said he'd had a pretty awful day, but coming home to hear "please," "thank you," and "have a nice day" in a respectful tone of voice are him smile, pick up the phone, and settle his account. And hearing him say that made my day, too.
So, was I happy about calling? No. Did I want to call people? Heck no. Would I do it again? Probably not, unless I absolutely have to. But! I know I can. And I know I can do it well, effectively, and with minimal stress and anxiety to me and (hopefully) the people I call.
Mission Accomplished.
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