Can We Talk?

Late in the workday afternoon my desk phone chimes. I pick up the receiver prepared to spill my usual workday spiel in my, "I am a professional at work" voice: Good Afternoon, this is Deborah. How may I help you? or something very similar.

My daughter, who usually halts me at the beginning of the spiel, let me spiel out, at the end of which she said, "hey, what's up with the phone sex voice? Who are you trying to seduce?"

Laughter ensues.

We finish our conversation, her observation timely considering that earlier that day an office mate received a call from a vendor who commented on the "voice" of our automated attendant. My voice is the voice. The office mate said that his caller thought the voice was sexy, and asked if it were a real person. We both got quite the chuckle out of that...anyway, daughter and I finish our conversation and I move on with my afternoon.

About an hour later my mom calls. I pick up the receiver prepared to spill my usual workday spiel in my, "I am a professional at work" voice: Good Afternoon, this is Deborah. May I help you? My mom, who never stops me mid-spiel, had a very different reaction, "are you ill?"

Sexy or ill. Hit or miss.