Stuttering When Speaking On The Telephone

This blog post follows on from my previous post called "Stuttering Up The Career Ladder".

So much to my annoyance I have been promoted; yes one of the only people in the country who did not want to gain promotion. I had basically been handed the promotion, even though I had not applied for the position, due to the fact that I had worked at the lower grade for a record four years.

My main fear was answering the telephone; just to say "Good morning" would be difficult enough as I had no real confidence in my ability to say words beginning with "G". I also knew that it would be a struggle to make the telephone calls - for obvious reasons.

I was working in an open plan office which did not exactly help as I was unable to "hide" anywhere.

So how did it go Steve? I can hear you saying.

Not good would be the understatement of the year. I had built it up and worried about it for so long which really did not help the situation. My stuttering was basically at its most severe and it was extremely tough.

Yes people did laugh and my poor team leader did not know what do. "Am I able to sack a person who has a stutter for stuttering? He probably thought to himself.

On many a night I would struggle to fall asleep as I was just so stressed and worried about going to work. This was one of those "Catch 22" situations - the less sleep I have the worst the stutter would be on the next day. The fact that I knew I needed the sleep made it all the more harder to do!

I wanted to quit work but really did not want to go through the interview process again. I was stuck and in need of help.

I will continue with "what happened next" in my next post for those of you who are interested.

Steve Hill