Speech

My job consists of a lot of talking. I answer phones and speak to people face-to-face for 40 hours every week, and I've done so for many years. Whether I'm explaining the differences in the two wings of the property, telling people things to do in the area, directing people where to go to dinner, asking for information when making reservations, or making small talk during check-in, I spend a lot of my day speaking. Because I talk to people from all over the globe I've done my best over the years to speak as clearly and concisely as possible so that, even in the case of language barriers, guests understand what I'm talking about.

In the last few days I've had a couple people comment on how I talk. One lady checked in the other day and mentioned how nice and professional my phone voice was when I had made her reservation the week before. A few hours ago a guest from the Netherlands asked if I was from the US, and then thanked me, saying my accent was clear and easy to understand. It's really uplifting, especially considering I wasn't really great at talking for a long while.

I have vague memories of being four years old. They're the kind of murky scenes that almost seem like dreams, but I do remember seeing a speech therapist, though I didn't know what was going on at the time. When I was at an age where most kids would speak pretty normally, I had an expressive vocabulary of about ten to fifteen words. Apparently I communicated in a lot of whines and grunts for the most part, with a select few words here and there when absolutely needed. This understandably worried my parents, so they sent me in for a bunch of tests. Doctors didn't see anything abnormal with me developmentally, so they suggested a speech therapist. I remember hanging out at the preschool with a lady that had me play a lot of games and talked to me a lot, which apparently helped me expand my vocabulary and form words, so by the time I started school I was on the same level as the rest of the kids. As the story goes, I haven't shut up since.

As I grew up I participated in school plays, getting background roles as a little kid and some speaking roles with actual lines to memorize later on, so I learned how to speak clearly and project my voice. In high school, since they cut from freshman year until after I graduated, I got into writing. That evolved into speeches, so I took my memorization and projection skills from school plays, applied it to speech contests, and did okay with them. However, even though I could do speeches well enough, there was one thing I had a really, really hard time doing: talking to small groups and individual people. Public speaking terrifies a lot of people, but I found that talking at an audience is easier than talking to a single person. While I could orate to a room of people about some social issue, I couldn't order fast food without being a nervous wreck, or answer a phone call from a number I didn't know. The first time I asked a girl out I was 19 and I thought I was going to puke. I wanted to die during my first job interviews. Even though I was a decent public speaker I was still, at my core, really, really, painfully shy.

I want to write about how I came out of my shell and went from being an introverted kid to a social butterfly in some kind of spiritual awakening, but honestly it was just from the hotel job. Prior to the front desk I did maintenance work and kitchen work, which was fine by me because talking to people scared me and there isn't much human interaction while washing dishes or shoveling horse poop. I didn't know much about hotels when I first started, but since it was just a summer job I figured I'd roll with what was presented to me. I spent a lot of the time stumbling over words, nervously mumbling over the phone, and clamming up when presented with questions, but as the weeks went on I got a little more comfortable with talking to people. When the summer job got longer my people skills improved and my speaking ability gained more polish. Now, almost nine years later, not only is this the longest summer job I've ever had, but I can talk to pretty much anyone without much trouble.

Then again, it helps that I get paid for it. I'm still a nervous person and inherently introverted. Plus, half the time I think my voice really is annoying (the other half I think it sounds like my dad, which I guess is okay but it's still a little weird to me). Either way, I have to admit talking to people is a lot easier now than it was when I was a kid. I can strike up conversations with strangers without much trouble, make appointments without getting too nervous, answer phone calls just fine, and even order fast food (I still panic in the drive-thu though because people are waiting behind me and the clerk is waiting for my order and I always forget what I want whenever it's my time to order so I blurt out a random number and hope it's a combo I'll like).

Maybe it's stupid, but I'm kind of proud of myself for growing from a kid that didn't talk at all, to a kid that was too shy to talk, to having people impressed enough by my speaking abilities to tell me about it. Sure, it may have come from nearly a decade of having pretty much no choice but to get good with speech, but I'm still flattered when little old ladies come up to the front desk and say, "Are you the young man who made my reservation? You have such a lovely phone voice, you sound so nice! Thank you, Eric!"

They never call me by my actual name. Nothing I can say will change that, but it's close enough and I'm too flattered to care.

Smoking

I’m pretty sure this is the longest I’ve been without a cigarette in years.

My smoking habit isn’t something I talk about much. It’s kind of embarrassing because, yes, I know how bad it is for me and, yes, I know it stinks. I know it causes several varients of cancer, tooth decay, heart disease, and stroke. I’ve had various resources over the years to help me quit. It’s only been recently that I’ve managed to stop with any success, and it’s only because I got sick enough to start coughing up blood, but I’m rolling with it and supplimenting it with the resources I've had before.

Even though both my parents smoked when I was growing up I didn’t think about how the act of smoking and the smell of cigarettes was almost omnipresent throughout my childhood. However, when I was 15 I tried a few puffs off a cigar some friends had pilfered. That evolved to bumming cigarettes at parties and finishing half-smoked butts from my dad’s ashtrays, sneaking out in the middle of the night to burn them by Main Street when my hometown was asleep. By the time I was old enough I started buying my own packs, so I started smoking more. By the time I graduated high school and started going to college I smoked with fair regularity.

I mostly stuck with Marlboro and Camel in my late teens and early 20s, chain smoking while I studied or using them as an excuse to step away from parties. Graveyard shifts were spent smoking to pass the time. Long drives in my Jeep were easier with the rush of wind from the open window and thin, gray ribbons of smoke escaping. Nothing was more luxurious than a glass of red wine and a smoke. Mornings I’d wake up early to watch the sunrise over a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Nights I’d smoke before bed. It was in everything I did.

After awhile it was just something like a nervous twitch. An American Spirit cigarette hanging out of my mouth was a much a part of my personal identity as the way I speak and hold myself, so I didn’t think too seriously about stopping. The price for a pack grew and the number of people who smoked in my social circles shrank, but deep down I felt that didn’t matter; it’s who I am. Even as I grew more health-conscious all I did was switch to lights and cut down somewhat. Friends and family insisted I quit, and though I wanted to withdrawal symptoms and even the prospect of them alone held me back.

Then I recently caught the flu. I’d had colds and the flu before, and I just switched over to menthols thinking the menthol would help my throat and the smoke would dry out the mucus in my nose and throat, despite none of that actually working or making much sense. This time, however, I didn’t feel like smoking. The body aches, chills, and incessent coughing made the prospect of standing outside in the cold and wind less appealing than staying in a warm bed. Withdrawal symptoms intermingled with general illness, and I couldn’t tell what felt more miserable. A few days and a bunch of Tamiflu later I was feeling a lot better. It dawned on me that it was long enough for all the nicotine in me to have cleared itself out of my body, and that I’d done something I’d been meaning to do for years totally on a fluke. 

The last few years I've stopped smoking at work so guests wouldn't have to be offended by the smell. I stopped smoking in my car so I can keep the interior nice. When I have a race to run I don't smoke the night before so I can breathe easier. I decided to only smoke after work during the week and after dark on the weekends. After setting personal restrictions, not smoking for a couple weeks, and getting over the withdrawal hump, it's occurred to me that there's no reason for me to smoke at all. It doesn't really do anything for me except take $12 out of my pocket whenever I need a pack and answer a call of a need I don't actually have. It's a way to waste several minutes and spend some time outside, sure, but I don't feel like doing I need it as an excuse anymore; I'm an adult, I can go outside if I want with or without an excuse.

As stupid as it sounds, the closer I get to 30 the more I think about improving myself. I was a regular smoker for nearly my entire 20s, and a heavy smoker for part of them. Nearly my entire life was spent around people who smoked, and half of it was spent smoking. I wasn't even going to acknowledge my quitting publicly, but I feel like euligizing about it can put that part of me to rest. I know if I keep it up I can spend at least the rest of this year in better shape than I've ever been. I'll continue to hold myself accountable, ignore the little urges, and with any luck my nicotine habit will be a thing of the past.

Thanks to coughing up blood for getting me healthier than ever.