All of my confidence went after that phone call

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(Image posed by model, courtesy of Iulian Catalin via Canva)

As part of our End the Phone Call Nightmares campaign, Olivia Durning writes about the anxiety of speaking on the phone with a stammer, and shares a particularly bad experience at work.

As someone who stammers, I have experienced a lot of anxiety around making and answering phone calls — both in my personal life and professional life as a nurse. Gathering the courage to make a phone call when you have a stammer is a significant-enough task, but when the person on the other end is not considerate or understanding of your stammer, this can increase anxiety ten-fold and make communicating effectively very difficult.

I have always found phone calls difficult — mostly because I find it helps my fluency if I can see a person's facial expression. Also, they'll visibly see when I am stammering or having a word block, so I don't feel as pressured to get through it. But with phone calls this isn't possible. 

Gathering the courage to make a phone call when you have a stammer is a significant-enough task...

One of my worst experiences was several years ago when I was a second-year student nurse on placement on a surgical ward. I was given the task of paging, or bleeping, the on-call doctor to request intravenous fluids for a patient that myself and my mentor were looking after. Typically, this process involves bleeping the doctor and waiting by the phone for when they call you back to ask what you need. 

My mentor knew I had a lot of anxiety around the phone and supported me by making a little script, so I knew what to tell the doctor when the time came. However, when the doctor called back, I began introducing myself and the ward I was calling from but then I began to stammer, and I got a word block before I could say what I needed. The doctor said over the phone, quite bluntly, "What was that? I didn't catch it. Is the phone signal bad?" He wasn't aware I was in the middle of a word block as my blocks are silent. After a few seconds went by, I managed to get out a couple of syllables but now I felt rushed to speak so the stammer was more severe. Eventually he said, "I can't understand you. I've got patients to see, I don't have time for this. Call me back when you can speak properly". Then he hung up on me. 

The phrase "speak properly" is something I carried with me for a long time through the rest of my nurse training.

It had taken me so long to pluck up the courage to make that phone call; so much preparation and encouragement from staff around me. All of my confidence went after that one phone call. 

Eventually, I would have better experiences that would increase my confidence, but that one conversation had a huge impact on me and the phrase "speak properly" is something I carried with me for a long time through the rest of my nurse training. 

However, nowadays, although I realise I cannot go back and speak to that doctor from the past, I can increase awareness and understanding around this topic in the people I encounter today. I also know that if a student nurse ever plucked up the courage to call me as a registered nurse, I would give them the respect, time and patience I wished I'd received when I was in their position.

Have you had a recent phone call that went badly? Fill out our short form and tell us about it. We need your experiences to show companies what the problem is.

Why not tell your employer about our free online phone call training?

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