Cold Calls

 Will Pass, Colorado State University

Winner - Foot In Mouth

For several months, I have been helping with an epidemiological research project that requires me to make hundreds of phone calls. I love speaking with new people, but I believe the telephone to be an imperfect tool, incomplete as a connection between two people, as it leaves us without the nonverbal elements of conversation, which I have read account for 55% of communication. And I’ve got to say, if this were a class, I would probably deserve a 45%.

Half of the calls are to veterinary clinics, which immediately put me in touch with two kinds of receptionists. The first are kind, sweet talking, and helpful. I can hear them smiling through the phone. Oh thank you, I say, when they look into a patient’s records. Thank you for helping, thank you for smiling, and thank you for not being the second kind of receptionist. You see, the second kind of receptionist hates me. I’m not a client, and I’m not a veterinarian. I’m a veterinary student calling from across the country in the middle of a busy workday. I’m asking for information that will in no way benefit the clinic being called. I’m annoying. I’m unsavory. Basically, I’m mange.

“You want me to do what?” she asks.

“Just, um, please look and see if Roscoe ever had a surgery at your clinic?”

Silence for a moment. Have I asked her to throw herself into traffic?

“Hang on,” she says flatly.

(Then comes the on hold music. This is a story unto itself, but if you’d like a taste, please find a Kenny G song and then play it loudly through a tin can down a string. Sit like this for 5 minutes and reflect on life choices.)

“What’s the owner’s name?” she comes back on, speaking quickly.

“Jeff Poblieniaski” I say, cursing him in my mind for not being a ‘Smith’.

“What?”

“P-O-B-L-I-E-N-I-A-S-K-I”

“No Poblionaffi.”

“Niaski.”

“What?”

“Poblieniaski.”
            We continue in this fashion for a few more revolutions. I can hear dogs barking in the background, and the receptionist’s sighs grow heavier as our conversation continues.

Several endpoints occur from this interaction. The first is that I get a definite answer about the dog’s history. The others are that the file once did exist but now does not, or never, ever, existed.

“No Poblieniaski. No Roscoe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, OK. Well thank you for your time.”

Click.

I’ve got a say that most receptionists are extremely helpful and good-natured. But the unfortunate reality is that we often remember the most difficult interactions with people the most vividly.

I also make calls to owners about their pets, which, unfortunately, are typically deceased.

“I was hoping I could ask you a quick question about Sophie?”

“Sophie’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Well it was four years ago.”

“Oh, well, OK.”

Awkward moments like this are common, and I do my best to express sympathies, as sometimes emotions are still high. Other times, people just seem to pick up the phone looking for a fight.

“Listen,” one owner said, “You called last week and left a message, and I didn’t call you back. Take me off your damn list! We don’t want any!”

This is before I can explain that I am not actually selling anything at all, and I wonder if my message was that unclear. I suppose my intentions are usually a bit lost on most people, and for them, it’s easy to dismiss someone like myself over the phone.

Negative interactions like these are the minority, but they stand out in my mind. How is it that people can be so rude and confrontational over the phone? Perhaps their mindset stems from interactions with pushy telemarketers, or simply that it is easy to blow off some steam when you don’t have to look another person in the eye to do it.

Of the hundreds of calls I have made, however, one in particular stands alone.

It was around 6:30pm on a Monday – a time I felt appropriate to call someone at home.

I looked up the number in the hospital records for an owner named Natasha and dialed. No answer, so I left a quick message explaining who I was and how I had a quick question about her dog, if she would be so kind as to call me back. I always attempt to be as polite as possible over the phone, as I do understand that my phone call is something of an inconvenience.

I awoke the next morning to a missed call and a voicemail. The call was from around 2:30am. Certainly this wasn’t somebody about research. Maybe a friend out at the bars? I put the phone to my ear.

What I heard was a heavy Texan accent, speaking slowly and gravely.

“Whoever called for Natasha last night dialed the wrong number and woke me up. I don’t appreciate it. If you’re a veterinary student, I hope you can read prescriptions, and write out prescriptions better than you can dial a phone. You got any questions you can call me back. Time of this message is zero-two-three-two hours. Thank you.”

2:32am? He had called me at 2:32am to tell me that I had woken him up? Apparently, calling someone at the late hour of 6:30pm is serious business, and also dialing a wrong number requires severe reprimand. I couldn’t help but feel like this guy really wanted to wake me up and give me a piece of his mind.

I felt an anger rising up and hopped out of bed. I was about to dial him right back and give him a piece of my mind, but then caught myself and took a deep breath. Did I dial the wrong number? I checked on my computer and the number was as listed for Natasha. I had called the correct number as the records showed.

So what to do? Just let it go? I decided to call him back, not out of spite, but simply to speak with such a soul who would go out of his way to punish someone he didn’t know for something rather innocent.

I decided to call him back, while hoping to still take the higher ground.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

“Hi there, my name is Will. I’m a veterinary student at CSU. I called yesterday, but I think I may have had the wrong number.”
            “Yeah you did,” said the raspy Texan drawl. “And I don’t appreciate being woken up.”

“Well I apologize for waking you up, but it seemed like it was early, and this is the number I have listed for Natasha. Do you know anyone named Natasha?”

“I do not know Natasha. I have no idea who Natasha is. I do have two things to tell you though. No, three things. I have three things to tell you,” he paused.
            “And they are?”

“One. I appreciate you calling me back and apologizing. You are an upstanding young man for doing so. Two. I do not know anyone by the name of Natasha. And three. There’s a little girl out there with a dog that still needs contacting.”

I almost laughed out loud at this last one. I pictured in my mind an old settler holding a whiskey jug, sitting on the porch complaining about all the little whippersnappers out there these days. Anyone under the age of thirty would by all means be a little boy or a little girl.

“Well thank you, sir,” I replied. “I’m going to do my very best to track her down.”

I felt like I was being sent on mission to find a little girl who ran away from home.

I hung up the phone and had a good laugh, made a few notes in Excel, and then dialed the next number.

“C’mon sweet old lady,” I said aloud, listening to the phone ring.