This might be the most enjoyable news to ever come out of a disciplinary hearing for a city Health Department worker, courtesy of DNAinfo: A grown man was suspended for deploying his robot impression when picking up customer-service calls. “He contended that he articulates each word because he speaks fast and has a Brooklyn accent, which is sometimes difficult to understand,” the judge wrote in a decision cutting the suspension from 34 days to 20 days. “They objected to the tone of my voice so I made it atonal,” the man, who has worked for the department since 1976, claimed.
But his supervisor said the smartass did it at least five times on purpose:
Ronald Dillon, a computer specialist for the agency’s IT help desk who assists co-workers and the public with tech-related problems, repeatedly channeled his inner Siri by talking in a “deliberately robotic fashion” when he fielded calls — despite his boss telling him to stop, according to an Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings decision. […]
[The judge’s] decision says that during the hearing the Health Department played a recording of Dillon speaking to a customer in a “slow, monotone and over-enunciated manner” and saying, “You have reached the Help Desk. This is Mr. Dillon. How may I help you?”
Dillon also said he is not a “people person.” He is a robot person.
