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"gewg_" writes:

from the clearer-than-that-brooklyn-accent dept.

Quartz reports [qz.com]

Last year, [...] Ronald Dillon [dnainfo.com], a longtime New York City Health Department worker [...] was suspended for 20 days without pay from his job at the agency's IT help desk--for talking in a "deliberately robotic fashion" when he answered phone calls. According to Health Department officials, Dillon had used a robotic voice on "at least five occasions" between February and April 2013.

Dillon offered a perfectly reasonable explanation for his robot-voice: His natural Brooklyn accent was often difficult for callers to understand. "They objected to the tone of my voice so I made it atonal", he told DNAInfo.

But the city judge who threw down the suspension said Dillon was likely bitter over being reassigned to the tech support job from his previous role as a project manager and supervisor. Dillon has an MBA.

So, that's where the story ends, right? Wrong. Dillon now faces another suspension--this one for 30 days--after he was caught still answering the phone like a robot.

"You. Have. Reached. The. Help-desk. This. Is. Mr. Dill-on. How. May. I. Help. You?" Dillon beeped and booped, in a recorded call [dnainfo.com] obtained by DNAInfo (robot emphasis ours).

After introducing himself, Dillon reverts to his normal speaking voice. While seemingly harmless, Dillon's failure to follow his directives was apparently enough to earn him another suspension, pending health department approval. The robot voice was reportedly so realistic that it made at least one caller hang up because she wanted to speak to a real person, not an automated messaging system.

Original Submission