I’ve been told that my phone voice is now unmistakably male and that it has been for a whole. Indeed, when credit card companies call (because they always have to call) looking for Nancy, I have to pretend to hand the phone over to Nancy for them to believe me. And when I’m “being Nancy”, I revert to a voice that is as feminine as possible . . .I probaly sound like Nancy with a cold. But I “pass”. And it hurts my vocal chords.
Soon, I won’t have to pretend to be female anymore . .. if this bloody name change paperwork can finally come through!
Heh. My cissister is a very low alto and is *frequently* asked if she can put her wife on the phone. Or they’ll say “Oh, we have you down as ‘Gabrielle’ not Gabriel!”
It seems to me that people whose business it is to work on the phone should make tact their business.
It is a pain in the ass isn’t it Jacky? It won’t be long before it all changes for you. People in jobs who deal with the general public should be acting in a professional way but sometimes you just have to pull them up when they get it wrong. Usually an apology follows. For quite some time I got ’sir’ but I always corrected them by saying, ‘It is Miss not Mr’. Once in a while I would say, ‘Sorry but I have a sore throat’. It gets better though but it is still a pain in the ass!
Shirley Anne x
gnatalby: Yeah, well I used to work on the phone and I can relate to how tricky it is sometimes to try to “guess” someone’s gender based only on their voice. And I know how insulted people can be if you get it wrong.
Shirley Anne: Thing is, they are getting it RIGHT actually. They identify me as male. Thing is, all my paperwork is under Nancy still as I’m still waiting for my name change documents. So rather than tell them my life story, I choose to pretend to call Nancy to the phone and alter my voice a bit so that they will believe that it’s Nancy on the phone and not some guy pretending to be Nancy.