Sleeping in my seat

September 21, 2017 by

A few months ago I was on a plane and having to speak in order to make things more tolerable. The other day I was on a flight and had to speak just to get my phone back.

I was on a small plane, two seats on each side. After we reached cruising altitude, it was time for a bathroom break. When I got back, someone was sleeping across both of my seats. I looked at the guy in the row behind me who just put up his hands. It was pretty odd, and pretty funny. Fortunately the plane wasn’t full, so I went to the back and found two empty seats and sat down.

But my phone was still in the seatback pocket of my original seat. On the window side. Meaning I’d have to reach over a sleeping stranger to get it. That would be the course of action for Old Stuttering Me. New Stuttering Me decided to flag down the flight attendant. She knew about the seat change. Ah, but could you please try to get my phone for me?

I suppose I could have left it go until the end of the flight. But then I thought, what if I get up there and it’s gone? I don’t really even know what the sleeping person looks like. And besides, it was a good chance to speak and, if need be, stutter through it. I did fine, bumbling through some words (planes are kind of loud, actually) but ultimately conveying my needs.

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately Tagged With: , , ,

Nice camera you got there …

September 11, 2017 by

So today is a special blog post – number 300! As most of you know, this blog started out strongly, started to wane, completely waned, came back somewhat strongly and is now on some sort of steady schedule that I change every month.

But 300! I’m guessing I’m well past 120,000 words on stuttering by now. I am, of course, still stuttering. I’m trying to get more brave, trying to experiment here and there, and trying to speak up when I can. I’m also not being bothered by my stuttering as much, even if it’s in front of a dozen+ people in our office.

Today’s post is about a spontaneous chat I had with someone the other day on the soccer field. I coach my son’s team, and as we were walking to the field, I noticed someone with a huge Canon lens. They’re easy to spot since they’re white — and since I’ve got one as well. He wasn’t using it, just had it down and was chatting with someone. After our game was done, and we were walking out, I spotted the camera man again. He was talking to someone now, holding his camera by his side.

I seriously didn’t think about my stuttering the entire time. I was genuinely curious why on earth he had this lens — who did he shoot for? It’s a pro-grade lens, so he couldn’t be a hobbyist like me, right?

I walked up to the pair and said excuse me, and asked if it was a 400. Yes, sure was. Then some small talk about the camera, I also have the same setup, who do you shoot for, oh, just for myself, some other small things, and then that was that.

On the outside, it would almost seem like a pointless conversation. What was I hoping to learn? Did I learn anything of value?

That didn’t matter to me at all. I had an opportunity to talk to a complete stranger about my hobby, something I know quite a bit about. And I got to practice my speech for free.

So as far as I’m concerned, no conversation is ever pointless if you stutter.

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately Tagged With: , , , , ,

Thanks for the call

September 5, 2017 by

I had to send out some documents to several different companies a few days ago. I sent them all two e-mails — one with a smaller PDF, and then one that had a link for an FTP of a larger file. I knew the e-mail addresses that I had were good, and I could have followed up the next day with yet another e-mail asking if they got everything.

Well, no. I decided to suck it up and call them all. I waited about two hours and started to make the rounds. This is something I never really had to do, and I never really saw the point of. I mean, e-mail, right? Always seems to work.

I called up the first one, introduced myself, stuttered a bit, and then said I had sent some documents across about two hours ago, and well, did you get them? Yes, we have, and we’re looking at them. Then I just … started talking. Telling them more about what was going on, the project at hand, and reiterated some points. Again, points they could have read in the documents.

But none of them seemed to mind.

They all listened, asked a few quick things, agreed with others, made comments.

Then I remember at least two of them said at the end of the call, “thanks for calling.”

Wow.

Ok. So let’s recap — I didn’t die because of my initial stutter. I confirmed that they received the e-mails. I got to sort of introduce myself as the point of contact. And, they were even grateful for me reaching out.

So there we go. Positive experience despite the stuttering. I’ll definitely be doing that again if it comes up.

Filed Under: Stuttering on Lately, Work Tagged With: , , , ,