Some of us just have gravelly voices and get tagged with vocal fry. 😡

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two women with extremely pronounced vocal fry addictions. I have to skip my meetings with them. The other thing I do is say "what? I didn't understand what you said - it wasn't clear"
Over and over.

Can you really, truly not understand them? Because if you can, and you just don't like the way they talk, you're a jerk.

Vocal fry is a documented speech disorder.

In the business world, it's worse than upspeak.

No it's not.

I have the instinct to tell them to clear their throat.

Anonymous wrote:There’s also the (maybe compensatory) overly precise sound recently heard in young, educated women:
S’s that pierce the ears, as a steam leak
Overly percussive T’s that sound like a small, sharp nails being hammered into hard wood.

Were they drama/theater types? They likely were, especially if it's combined with big, emphasized facial expressions. Sometimes they teach you to practice this and do exercises with hitting your ts, etc. ...when you are on stage, your voice needs to be very precise and project...you also need big, deliberate expressions.

Penalizing vocal fry, upspeak, regional accents, or international accents just shows that you are inflexible and incapable of recognizing what actual value in the workplace looks like.

Unless you are hiring someone to do voiceovers, focus on the quality of their work. If you cannot do that, it speaks badly only for you.

We have a guy in our office who has vocal fry and I think it undercuts his message sometimes, but what can you do? Unless they're your PR/comms person or they do big presentations to clients, it's not THAT big of a deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two women with extremely pronounced vocal fry addictions. I have to skip my meetings with them. The other thing I do is say "what? I didn't understand what you said - it wasn't clear"
Over and over.

Can you really, truly not understand them? Because if you can, and you just don't like the way they talk, you're a jerk.

Vocal fry is a documented speech disorder.

In the business world, it's worse than upspeak.

Anonymous wrote:We have two women with extremely pronounced vocal fry addictions. I have to skip my meetings with them. The other thing I do is say "what? I didn't understand what you said - it wasn't clear"
Over and over.

Can you really, truly not understand them? Because if you can, and you just don't like the way they talk, you're a jerk.

Anonymous wrote:The only thing worse than a professional woman who says "like" and "um" all the time is one with vocal fry.

It's sooooo distracting and undercuts your gravitas.

Worse than sleeping around the office, embezzling, or doing all their work wrong?

Do you work in a reality TV show?

Anonymous wrote:Ira Glass has vocal fry and nobody cares.

Ira Glass has vocal fry and that’s why I do not listen to him.

We have two women with extremely pronounced vocal fry addictions. I have to skip my meetings with them. The other thing I do is say "what? I didn't understand what you said - it wasn't clear"
Over and over.

Ira Glass has vocal fry and nobody cares.

There’s also the (maybe compensatory) overly precise sound recently heard in young, educated women:
S’s that pierce the ears, as a steam leak
Overly percussive T’s that sound like a small, sharp nails being hammered into hard wood.

Okay Barb. Tell her or the office gossip. Not us.

The only thing worse than a professional woman who says "like" and "um" all the time is one with vocal fry.

It's sooooo distracting and undercuts your gravitas.