someone who knows more about sociolinguistics than me could probably explain this at length, but there is something fascinating about the fact you can identify any HR manager or equivalent by their voice almost instantly, with sufficient training. naturally, it's the accent and vernacular, but more than that, it's about a certain quality of voice, a kind of peculiar corporate sweetness with arch and faintly dismissive tendencies, a tone & pitch which are both soothing and final - something also about the voice rising ever so slightly at the end of a sentence... naturally, they're all women, and naturally (bis) they're almost all white women from upper/middle class backgrounds (not always, though), but the "HR manager voice" is also found in non-white HR managers, in my experience
