Accent triggered phobia

[bunn]

Why is it that if someone comes on the phone with a particular generic-eastcoast american accent I automatically assume that they will be not just vastly competent, but the agent of a huge and hyperefficient organisation that will scorn and trample my tiny rural British IT business into the mud? I don't know why I get that reaction, but I do.

Whereas, if someone phones with a random Eastern European or Indian accent, I tend to leap to the conclusion that they are trying to sell me stuff I don't want. Admittedly, so far this has I think been 100% correct, but I feel bad about it for some reason.

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

My boss frequently likes to send up acquaintances by performing imitations over afternoon coffee, and his "American" accent is a thing of horror. It careers wildly around the country in a single sentence, leaping from southern to northeastern. Another colleague likes to send up, how can I say this, the lower classes, by adopting an urban yoof persona, or something I think is supposed to be Yorkshire. I would rather listen to fingernails on a blackboard than these, though possibly not Sarah Palin saying "thanks but no thanks".

Let's not speak of my accent. I fear it is a goner, unless I move somewhere like Scotland or the Northeast.