Posh Telephone Voices

I like to think that I do not change my speech when on the phone but in reality I probably do make some slight alterations depending on the person on the other end of the line. It may just mean slowing down a little or using a few more socially accepted pleasantries. However, I have not yet reached the stage in life where you feel the need to be overly polite and over the top, with every word rising on the final syllable. The 'mum telephone voice' which is of huge amusement to many is not for me and will never be. I am not even sure when the 'Mrs Bucket', I mean 'Bouquet', intonation would be necessary these days. I suppose if you are the one doing the phoning and are trying to sell something then maybe, but as the person answering the phone I feel that being less polite is often more affective these days and if you can sound a little aggressive then all the better. Why is this the case? Well the simple answer is that we so rarely actually speak to people we like and care for on the phone. I spend my days messaging and whatapping folk or in the current climate, zooming or teams meeting! In reality the phone only ever rings to sell me a funeral plan, suggest I have been injured in an accident or heaven forfend, that I have been mis-sold PPI. The most annoying thing is when you dash across the room to reach the landline only to hear the silent pause of the automated call. If you are lucky you manage to hang up before the blurb but the system still recognises that you have answered. Unfortunately, if you hang up too quickly or worse still do not answer then you will still appear on the list so will keep getting calls from the same number. This I have worked out! Similarly, if you are too slow to hang up you are stuck in torment. Why does my brain find it tough to hang up on a robot? Even worse is my inability to truthfully tell a low paid telephone sales operative that I do not want to buy anything over the phone. One of the reasons for this is that they have been trained to speak so quickly that good manners do not enable me to stop them in their tracks. By the time it is my turn to speak I have a few seconds to get rid of them. All politeness or thoughts of posh telephone voices fly out the window. I have a split second to stop their spiel and regain my life, without changing my gas supplier or having accepted a free trial for something that I do not need and will ultimately be impossible to cancel. So what do I do? I take my voice down a few octaves, sounding like I smoke 50 a day, slur a few words and forget any polysyllabic ones. I am not rude yet, but there is the chance that I could get there soon. I know that I am not aggressive but for all intents and purposes I may as well be. What other options do I have? Go outside and ring my own doorbell. Believe me I have tried that and they still keep talking in your ear. So instead of a telephone voice I suggest that if you do not want to part from your money or lose hours of your life then you need to adapt and adopt an aggressive telephone voice. Goodbye 'Mrs Bucket' hello Villanelle!