IT employees for the Health Department of New York City are very diverse, but would you ever expect to hear a robot?
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One IT worker says he was suspended for 20 days because people were complaining that he talked like a robot while offering them help over the phone. The man’s tone was so spot on that one customer thought “there was a new automated answering system and had hung up when she heard ‘the robot’ answer the phone because she needed to speak to a human about her issues.”
Phone recordings show that the man talked in the phony voice at least five times between February and April 2013. His boss told him to stop repeatedly, but he did not heed the warnings. He was originally given a 34-day suspension, but it was later reduced to 20days. The man has defended his tone by saying that he wasn’t mimicking a robot, he was just slowly reading from a script his boss instructed him to follow when dealing with customers.
The man claims that due to his Brooklyn accent, customers have a hard time understanding him. So, he speaks slowly and articulates the words to avoid confusion. He also claims that he’s not a people person, and the tone of voice was meant to appease his boss.
The administrative judge who oversaw the disciplinary meeting thought otherwise! The judge claimed that the man was just a disgruntled employee who didn’t like his job. “There is a difference between speaking slowly and distinctly and speaking so robotically that callers did not believe that they were speaking to a person,” the judge wrote in her decision.
Sounds like this guy was in the wrong job.