The Voice

Back in January, you may recall, I was in the Washington D.C. area for a week-long class relating to my work.

One of the things we had to do during the course of our instruction was to stand before the class behind a podium and give a short "speech" that dealt with the subject matter we were training for and studying.

Fortunately for me, though it is not my favorite thing to do, public speaking does not intimidate me.

When the late Bud Collyer was first hired to portray Superman on the radio back in 1940, he made a conscious decision to use a lighter, softer voice for Clark Kent and a deeper, stronger more baritone voice for the Man of Steel in order to differentiate the character in the minds of listeners.

My everyday conversational voice is, though not as high-pitched as Clark Kent's, much like his in that it is softer than my voice is when I am in a heated discussion, making a presentation or speaking in public. At those times my voice is deeper, more powerful and usually piercing enough in its strength to break through any inattention on the part of listeners and help me get my point across.

After my speech in class last January, my class members were critiquing my presentation and one young lady said, "You were like, THE voice" and several others echoed her words or nodded their heads in agreement. It was nice and then I promptly forgot about it, other than relating it to Cindy in a phone conversation.

The other day, I e-mailed another member of the class to see how he was doing and when he replied he told me he was with another member of the class who was in his office and he told him, "I just got an e-mail from Jeff" and the other person said, "Who?" and he replied, "You know, Jeff from class" and the other person said, "Oh, 'The Voice'."

So now, it appears I will have the nickname of "The Voice" among some of my co-workers.

Which is ok, I guess, but why couldn't I be known as "Face", like the guy from The A-Team?

Oh right, because I don't have the Face.

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