When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
What do agents actually do? I hear this asked a lot. One client once ventured a guess: you talk on the phone all day. Yes, it’s just like being in Junior High. When I was an editor, the editor in chief once stopped my office with the phone bill in his hand. He was waving it around and said that I spend more time on the phone than all the other editors. I shot back without hesitation explaining that I’m a top gun and everyone should be logging as many hours as me. He accepted it and departed. That was a close call. Of course, now phone time is largely spent doing email. In fact, I’ve grown phone-phobic. Though there are times when you have to pick up the phone, which can be to intimidate, console, take a temperature or gossip.
This is Part One of a Five Part Series on what agents do. Or until I run out of steam. Tomorrow: finding clients
What do you like about the phone?
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Betsy Lerner 
What I like best about my phone is getting text messages 😀
Ha, good one…
I loathe the phone. I am essentially phone shy. Talking on the phone is a fucking time warp. I am not talking (no pun) about the marvels of texting, or the mini-miracles of apps (a flashlight! a songbox! a calculator! a restaurateur! a traffic guide! a scrabble game!) — but rather the actual physical act of having to answer the phone and dole out time in real time (which is not usually on my side) anytime, anywhere, just because it insidiously reaches you when you least want it to. (Yes, one can press the ignore button, I know and I do).
Sorry to bitch. An exception: I do love talking to my kids. But then again, they text.
One thing I truly like about the phone? Call Block. LOVE IT.
Another thing I love? Caller ID. Especially when it’s my agent calling.
🙂
Still smiling about the junior high reference. So true.
The phone?
I have a ying and yang kind of relationship. Up and down, in and out, good and evil on the line, makes for a need and loath sort of thing.
I fucking hate the phone. God knows why. I have two really good friends (women), and, yup, they hate the phone, too. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be friends. I’ve broken up with so many women friends who like to talk on the phone. I JUST CAN’T DO IT. But …. I’m very good at it, when forced. Excellent, in fact.
I find the phone is good for the kind of back-and-forth conversation that’s tough to pull off in an email or text. And it’s great to occupy me on long car drives–when I grow tired of writing in my head.
I don’t much care for the phone. Email has spoiled me.
I think I may be one of the last people, under 90 years of age, to not only have a flip-phone, but prefer it to the other devices. My contractors may craft a good fib in a text message – but I can hear the deceit in a voice assuring me that “we are on-schedule”. And I prefer hearing laughter to reading LOL or those horrific little symbols. Anyone want to try out my fountain pen, too?
My wife prefers a flip-phone and uses same. As for contractors, you know “we are on schedule” means “please don’t visit the site and see how screwed up everything is.”