The Phone Voice

I called a lawyer about a job and he said I have The Phone Voice. That was after I said, "I would like to be a lawyer" and he laughed, a cackle, and said I did not, in fact, want to be a lawyer. My phone voice is high-pitched, positive, lovely. Everything I am not.

Let me let you in on a secret. I have been in administration for a long, long time. I have sat in traffic on the way to work, forming my fingers into a gun shape. I have held the gun shape to my temple, and out loud, said "POW!" I have screamed in my car. Administration has made me reconsider humanity. I wonder, how is it people can do this, for minimum wage, and have - no, wrong word. Choose. Choose to have families? How is this a life? How would you want to continue it after administration?

The Phone Voice has followed me.

Once in administration I almost messed up. The girl I was training to take my job - I have quit many administration jobs - made me howl with laughter. Here's how The Phone Voice went, and how it's supposed to go.

"Hello, this is ____ (insert company), ___ (insert my name) speaking, how may I help you?"

But in that case, I laughed it into the phone. The girl was shocked. She said, you laughed! But of course I did, and isn't it all pointless, anyway?

Isn't The Phone Voice supposed to be mysterious, like, none of this is real? The administrator knows it, the client knows it. It's all a facade, a 9-5 play with acts that get divided up into chucks of time I call "before lunch" and "before I get to go home."

My The Phone Voice is a buttery drawl. It draws people in like flies. In my every day life, my voice is flawed. I stutter, mumble, slur my words. I never know what to say. But administration is different. There's a script, and all you have to do is follow it, follow the rules of the company, of professionalism. You become someone different.

The Phone Voice was not the voice that screamed in my car. I have never been rude on the phone, at least at work. I keep it together. But when I think of The Phone Voice, I think of that lawyer, and his words. You don't want to be a lawyer. His words. His tone.

That's not the tone of The Phone Voice.

The Phone Voice stays within the parameters of 9-5, and after that, I'll tell you to F off when I pass you in my car with my gun fingers at my temple.