Do you get phone anxiety?

My contract at The Knot was extended again, and while fact-checking isn't the most exciting work in the world, I'm happy for now to have something that pays the bills. The job requires me to be on the phone a lot talking to different wedding vendors all over the U.S. Some people are nice, while others are downright rude, and go out of their way to make me feel like a sketchy salesperson who is trying to sell them a vacuum cleaner. (Hey lady, it's not my fault you haven't heard of one of the most popular wedding magazines in the world). I'm really not a fan of talking on the phone, but I have no choice but to suck it up and hope my friendly southern accent charms the pants off everyone I speak to.

This is an old-school pic from my first visit to London. I was obsessed with the red telephone booths! Too bad you can't see the sexy nude pics in the background--they are hilarious. I digress. So although I don't enjoy it, I do think I'm pretty good at talking to people on the phone. I get a tad nervous each time I wait for the person on the other line to pick up, but once I start talking, the anxiety goes away.

One great thing about my last job is that I had to do so many crazy ass things, it gave me the confidence to feel like I could do anything. One time I had to call 60 people in Barbados with Rihanna's last name to see if they knew anything about how she was coping with the Chris Brown beat down incident. It was pretty insane--especially because I had to deal with a bit of a language barrier. Their accents were so thick, I could hardly understand what they were saying, and I'm pretty sure I was the first Southern girl they'd ever talked to, too. There were a lot of "Huhs?" and "Can you please repeat that agains" throughout the conversations--it was funny! The experience helped me overcome my phone anxiety though, and I ended up getting some good scoop, too!

How about everyone else: Do you get phone anxiety? Does your job require you to be on the phone a lot? (Everyone of the male species should answer YES to this question. Otherwise, why would you TEXT instead of calling so much?!)