Boss made a badly veiled ‘joke’ about my voice in front of colleagues

[Llamasally]

I feel very embarrassed and hurt, this was in front of some colleagues senior to me both in the room and on Zoom. There was a weird echo on the line and I said I’d mute in case it was my end. He said ‘oh look Llama, you’re so loud we have to hear you 5 times now’

I am a little conscious about my voice - it’s awful and I grew up in a household where everything was shouted. My mums normal volume is what I think is basically shouting. So this could well be true. But I don’t think that was a nice thing to say, or way to say it.

AIBU to be a bit upset about this comment?

Not a nice way, even if valid that you are loud. Probably best for him to have raised it in a separate conversation.

In all honesty he probably didn't mean to embarrass or offend you. He probably just thought it was an off the cuff joke based on the audio quality. It's unlikely he realises you have an issue with your voice (unless you've told him) because - generally, probably wrongly - people think that LOUD people are CONFIDENT people. (There's some sense in that assumption - unconfident or shy people are often quiet.)

When I started being a manager I was pretty useless because I had no training and just had to guess as I went along. Once I got an employee ringing me one evening after work, devastated about some comment I'd made. I was (genuinely) sorry but honestly hadn't intended to upset her - it was just a flippant jokey remark and I hadn't even considered the fact that it may have not been received that way. It wasn't my intention to be hurtful on any level and obviously I was very sorry for it because my thoughtlessness had led to an employee becoming upset completely unnecessarily. (I mean my thoughtlessness was unnecessary - her reaction was valid.)

I am saying this because the best course of action is to politely explain to your boss how upset you are. He, like me in my example, may be completely oblivious to what he has done, and only by pointing it out will he learn from it.

Is he not just referring to the echo?? It seems obscure otherwise

He probably thought it was a tech issue eg you had your audio or microphone turned up too high.

Or maybe you were shouting over people without realising and he had to say something to stop others getting upset, people with quiet voices often get lost on zoom meetings.

I’ve had to tell a member of my team could she please lower her voice as I couldn’t hear anyone else (it was a zoom meeting and really annoying as we had important stuff to go through and she was talking far louder than anyone else plus interrupting!)

Was he not just talking about the echo on the line, though?

I am also very self-conscious about my voice, for very similar reasons to you - but I don't think I'd have interpreted that comment as a joke about my voice.

Echoes and volume issues are just standard in virtual meetings and that to me just sounds like the sort of remark people make all the time about the usual tech issues. I spend a lot of time in virtual meetings for work and among the regular comments people make about sound/connectivity issues are 'You sound like a dalek', 'You sound like you're talking to us from a cave' but they're just comments on the occasional weirdness of online conversation, rather than the way people actually speak.

He probably could have found a better way to deal with it, but if you are bellowing you need to find a way to stop. You can't just say I grew up in a house full of shouters so I'm going to deafen everyone forever!

I work with a shouter and I constantly have to tell him to use his indoor voice.

Could be both sound distortion and he was trying to tell you in a light hearted way that you always about which would be uncomfortable to have to listen to and not very professional.
You clearly are aware you do this so try to address it rather than look for someone to blame.

Shout not about!😀