There’s a Woman Making Bank Because She’s Teaching Gen-Z-ers How to Talk on the Phone…

I hate this generation. I really do. Don’t remind me that it’s also my generation. That makes me feel even worse.

What is it this time? Well… I guess you could say a new chapter has been added to The Idiot’s Guidebook: “How to Talk on the Phone Without Being Crippled by Anxiety.”

Yes. Seriously.

From the Daily Wire:

Mary Jane Copps is raking in thousands of dollars for teaching Generation Z-ers — who have spent most of their lives only using texts — to have actual conversations via telephone.

Business Insider published a report Monday on Copps — who has dubbed herself “The Phone Lady” — revealing that she charges up to $480 per hour for private lessons in phone etiquette for those who either don’t understand how to use a phone in the workplace or who have a phobia around doing so.

VeryWellMind defines Phone Anxiety as “the fear of making or answering phone calls (also known as telephobia)” and notes that it “is a common fear among those with social anxiety disorder (SAD).” Emotional symptoms of Phone Anxiety include: “Avoiding making calls or having others call you, delaying making or answering phone calls, obsessing about what was said after calls, stressing about embarrassing yourself, worrying about bothering the other person, and worrying about what you will say.”

“Gen Z have never had the skills given to them. In my generation, the phone was on the wall in everyone’s house, and we were taught to answer it and make calls at a young age,” Copps told Insider. “Now we have several generations that were never taught anything about talking on the phone, and people have removed phones from their homes.”

Copps said that her consultancy was designed to ease that anxiety and give clients the skills and confidence to answer phones effectively and with less stress. Toward that end, she charges up to $480 an hour for individual coaching and $365 for 30-minute webinars. Her program also includes corporate workshops, for which she charges $3,500 daily.

If I miss out on one more moneymaking scheme, I’m gonna scream…

I guess I have to start taking people’s stupidity into account when I’m brainstorming ideas that’ll allow me to retire early. This is actually brilliant, and I’m sad I didn’t think of it first.

Don’t get me wrong… I find it infuriating that there’s a market for this sort of thing, but this is a brilliant business move on behalf of Mary Jane Copps. Kudos, lady.

I did take issue with the comment about Gen-Z not having these skills “given to them,” though. Why are adults expected to draw young people a map for everything? The fact that there are people out there that think you’re required to show them how to talk on the phone is a little sad, no?

Of course, that’s a comment coming from the woman that’s somehow made this into a profitable business, so of course she would think that…

I think the fact that we coddle young people to this degree is a big part of the problem. There won’t be any motivation to accomplish anything if there’s someone around that’s always going to step in and either clean up your mess or do it for you from the beginning. There’s being helpful, and then there’s being so helpful, that you end up hurting them.

We need a little less baby treatment, and a little more sink-or-swim…