So this morning I woke up pretty late, around 10 am, and about 2 seconds into my daily morning facebook check, my phone started ringing! I literally have like 10 phone numbers in my phonebook and none of them would ever call me, only text, so it had to mean that a possible employer was on the other end.
It was. And that was when the blundering began.
One thing about a foreign language is the difference between over the phone and in person. I am great at speaking Swedish in person. I know exactly what is happening, I can respond accordingly, sound pretty ok. All good. Over the phone? Whole different story. I was getting confused, couldn’t understand her questions and kept awkwardly pausing and thinking how to respond, which would prompt her to say “ARE YOU STILL THERE?!?!?!”
The worst was that she asked me if I would rather speak in English, so I switched and then was told that I had speak in Swedish in order to get the job so I switched back really fast.
Then the rambling began and wouldn’t end. At one point I stopped and mouthed to my boyfriend “WHAT AM I EVEN TALKING ABOUT!?!?” and he was like “NO IDEA.”
So have to write a interview script, practice Swedish over the phone, and become the kind of person who can answer the phone and sound normal in Swedish.
NBD
Caitlin
