Wrong Number...?

There was a hilarious moment today during one of our Summary Meetings with the head of sales.  We are now in discussion with one of our subject matter experts regarding some new content we plan to ask him to author.  It's uncharted territory for this team, so it was decided we should set up a conference call.

"Have you been in touch by phone?"  asked my colleague.

"Uhhhhhh...."

The image of me three weeks ago making my first phone call to this professor flashed into my head.  I valiantly had kept repeating, "Hello?  I am your editor?"  "Hello?"  "Custom book?" while the receiving party just kept asking, "WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT?"

Apparently, there was some issue with the accent.

"He's ... um ... difficult to communicate with by phone," I finally said.

My four Indian coworkers looked at me for a moment before they simultaneously realized what I had been trying to speak around.  Then they burst out laughing.

"It's ok," the sales boss reassured me.  "People from that state are hard to understand even by us.  You know Hinglish? What they speak is worse."

"I'll bet he was pretty surprised to hear an American on the phone, though," my colleague added.  "We had one group of subject matter experts terrified last month because they thought we had flown you in especially for their project, and they hadn't even signed their contract!"

It's true; I'm not sure how many of my authors and customizers are confused about the accent at the other end of the line.  Gamely, no one has mentioned it so far.  When I start transitioning myself out in a few weeks, though, I can name at least two or three professors who will probably respond, "OH!  Yes!  I was WONDERING!"