This is a correction of the previous post, ‘write,’ not ‘right.’  Ann can spell, she’s actually an exemplary speller but we all have our off moments.  So Ann knows she’s not alone in getting something wrong, here’s a wee story:

At one point I was teaching English conversation skills from home.  I had put up flyers in various places and would get phone calls from different people.  Having moved from the UK the year before, I was getting used to some differences.  One of them was the volume of sales phone calls each day…

One day, I picked up the phone, heard the halting English, the distinct foreign accent and thought “call centre.”  The quality of the line seemed to indicate, call centre in foreign country, the person stumbling over my name said, telesales to me.  I launched in, ready for a short and decisive battle, “Look, I’m not interested, never will be interested, and if I was interested, I still wouldn’t be interested!”  The young woman on the receiving end of my tirade, stammered a bit and then said, “ahhh, I don’t understand, is this English class?”  Now I wanted to die, well maybe not die but to crawl into a hole, a deep hole, and sit there quietly to deal with my humiliation for a long time.  I couldn’t though.  Instead I apologised for the misunderstanding, attempting to explain call centre, telesales and frustration to someone with first grade level English.  I gave up and eventually, when she came to me for classes, I gave her the vocabulary to understand and we laughed about it.  Awful though.  So, for Ann and anyone else out there feeling embarassed or humiliated about something, you’re not alone.  

Thanks Ann, you made me smile and gave me a nice break from character development!