Phone troubles

I've never liked using the telephone. And it's for reasons besides having a speech impediment: I hate not being able to see the face of the person I'm talking to, and it makes a conversation less personal. I use both my house and cell phones only for necessities, like making appointments and talking to tech support.

Every time I pick up the phone, I become a little nervous. I know it's hard to understand me in person, but speaking to someone on the phone presents a whole new problem. I think it's easier to comprehend someone when you can see their mouth move and their mannerisms while they're talking.

A few weeks ago I had to call Verizon to fix a billing problem. I had to repeat my account number almost seven times because the representative couldn't understand me. Eventually she just put me on hold and transfered me to another department, who then told me they couldn't take care of it and gave me the number for the first representative I spoke to. It got so frustrating that I just hung up.

It's because of experiences like that that makes me do almost everything in person or online. I always choose to use live help chats over calling tech support; instead of calling my high school to ask for a transcript to be sent, I actually go to the school and ask for it in person; etc..

Another problem I have with phones is the new way of patching you through to people. I've only used it once or twice. Instead of pressing a number to get what you want, you have to say it. Last time I was forced to use that system, they had to patch me through to an actual person. But I imagine I'm not the only one that has a problem with that; people with heavy accents probably get frustrated with it too. And that goes with using the phones too.