Return of the Cold Call

Throughout my assorted careers, I cordially hated the cold call. Even at my first real job, clerking in the Dayton's Department Store Gourmet Shop, walking up to a customer fondling a fondue set made me feel very shy. As a radio reporter, calling anyone for an interview, or even just opening the mic to go on the air, would sometimes make me tremble. And let's not talk about television news. Please. Watching that red light on the camera come on the first few (and also last few) times was enough for this lifetime.
Everyone always tells hereditarily shy people to think of the worst thing that could happen, which, in the case of a radio news story, would be the interviewee hanging up, after calling your mama a few choice names. Unfortunately, that happened to me a few times. Expecting the worst and being happy with whatever happened instead never seemed like a reasonable strategy to me.
Anyway, decades later, I still get jumpy over making certain phone calls, and I never send out an email on impulse. I plan what I say on the phone, and I type slowly to prevent missteps. However, my communication nerves may be getting better.
Over the past few weeks, I've sent off emails to two eminent living philosophers because I couldn't find the actual journal articles they wrote on topics in one of my upcoming papers. In both cases, the notes were polite, solicitous, and respectful -- much as you would expect from a lady who is risking having to re-write a 12 page paper if she can't find the right journal articles. Amazingly, both philosophers responded within an hour with attachments, urls, and personal notes.
Is this cool, or what? No wonder dedicated sales people like their jobs: when a cold call pays off, it really does.
Of course, this could be what the pros in the ethics game call beginner's luck. Never mind. I'll take it, and hope my luck holds until the end of the semester. That would be six-and-a-half weeks.