Do you cringe when the phone rings?

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It may sound weird, but the only jobs I have ever had have been either telemarketing or phone CSR jobs, yet when the phone rings at home I cringe at the thought of picking it up and talking to somebody. I think it may be that in telemarketing and customer service most responses are trained/memorized. I actually find it easier to talk to strangers on the phone because I can just fall into my telemarketer act, while I seem to display the same awkward verbal traits of AS while talking to a friend or family member. Is this "fear of the phone" something that is common among people with AS?

Yes, I feel extremely anxious when I hear the phone ringing. The ringer sound stresses me a great deal. There will be a person on the other end and I will have to have a conversation with them. A lot of the time that feels like a huge task. I am expected to be social all day at work, and then to come home and have to keep being social. It's just too much.

I find I am quite stressed from the time I get home from work, till about 8.30pm at night because at that time I know that it would be unlikely that anyone would ring for a chat. After 8.30pm I can relax, until tomorrow

I hated whenever the phone rang, also to mention that its ringtone was really annoying. We don't have a landline anymore and everyone's on their mobiles nowadays anyway, so.... yay.

I don't cringe at the thought of answering the phone, but I do hate how loud the ringer is. I have a phone in my bedroom, and I turn the ringer off...but sometimes when nobody else is home, the phone in the kitchen will ring but my music is too loud for me to hear it

I hate answering the phone at home and have for a long time.

I worked as a CSR at a cable company, and I loved it. I can still recite the script after 15 years.

Since I live by myself, I can keep the ringer shut off most of the time. I can screen the call by listening to the message on the ansering machine. For some odd reason I get a lot of sales calls sometimes 2 or 3 a day so keeping the ringer off is one way to cope.

But yes, if I've left the ringer on I will jump through the ceiling when it goes off. I've even been known to jump when my cell phone goes off.

The sound of a ringing phone makes me panic.

it really depends who the caller ID says

Definitely! The sound of our phone ringing is enough to send me running to the door! I get very panicked at the thought of who could be on the other end and what they might want to talk about. Most times I let it go to voicemail, or I get my other half to answer it and tell people that I'm not home, etc....

I can definitely relate to that. While doing telemarketing and customer service I excelled at my job for some reason. I can still recite a few scripts from numerous companies I have worked for after quite a few years. I think part of it made me feel less socially awkward because people actually looked up to me as the "knowledgeable one" in the call center. They didn't know that I was able to retain information well (maybe due to AS), yet was unable to keep up a conversation in real life. I was usually busy so when people at work would try to engage in small talk I could always play it off as having to stop a conversation to do my job.

Yeah, I was really good with the tech support and repair, and even sales. But when talking to co-workers, I was all "So, what do you think of vampires?"

I tried to get lots of tech support jobs after that because it fit my personality/aptitudes so well, but interviews and I never seemed to get along.

I loved the whole "just read the script" aspect of telemarketing, but I hated the whole "ripping people off and taking most of their money" aspect of it.

I have an irrational fear of talking on the phone, and I hate the loud noises. As a kid, I used to hide telephones under piles of blankets so I wouldn't have to hear them ring.

Now, I only have a cell phone. When somebody who gets text messages calls me, I ignore their call and send them a message.

Yes, I cringe when the phone rings. I try to find a ring tone that doesn't affect me as much. High pitched tones are the worst for me. It's not only phones though. Just a while ago I picked a song on my MP3 and felt a little "seize" when the song started. It wasn't on loud and I knew it was coming so I don't know why I react that way.

I hate modern, high pitched ringers on phones, so I bought myself an old fashioned cream colored desk phone with a real ringer. While I much prefer this ringer, it still makes me jump severely every time it goes, and I can't set it any lower. It sounds downright cozy when I am several rooms away, though. What I really like is if I forget to turn the ringer off before bed, I can't hear it when I am wearing ear plugs! Modern, high pitched ringers could penetrate my ear plugs easily.

We both jump first and cringe afterward. It is all cringe when we MAKE calls, though.

I am so glad for answering machines and caller ID. Neitrher of which my sister will have anything to do with.