Editing Jane Barbe (section)

== Career ==
Barbe was born '''Millicent Jane Schneider''' in [[Winter Haven, Florida]], and raised in [[Atlanta]], Georgia. She studied [[drama]] at the [[University of Georgia]].

After graduating, Barbe worked as a [[Copywriting|copywriter]], though due to her poor spelling, she opted to read her first [[Advertising|commercial]] out loud to her boss instead of submitting it in writing. He asked her to record the commercial herself. In 1963, she began recording messages for the [[Audichron Company]], announcing [[time]], [[temperature]] and [[weather]], as well as recordings for early [[voicemail]] systems.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Time Lady|url=http://www.etcia.com/barbe/timelady.html|access-date=2021-06-13|website=www.etcia.com}}</ref> In the 1970s and 1980s, she regularly recorded the [[intercept message]]s used when a number is disconnected or misdialed, and started sharing recording duties with [[AT&T Corporation|AT&T]] voice [[Pat Fleet]] in 1981, who eventually took over Barbe's role.

Barbe was selected to be the first voice on the Octel Communications voicemail systems and retained that role for many years. Her voice was used on all the prompts (which numbered in the thousands). People often referred to the voice on Octel systems as "Jane", and Barbe and her husband John were named honorary life employees of Octel in 1992. Over 150&nbsp;million people used Octel systems prior to the company being acquired in 1997 by [[Lucent]]. By 2000, Barbe's voice was heard by about 300&nbsp;million people each week. Through the years, Barbe's voice became well known through the [[telephone company|phone companies]]' use of her recordings, as well as her messages recorded for customized greetings for various corporations who bought Octel voicemail systems. The time announcements she recorded for NBS (now [[NIST]]) are still used on radio station [[WWVH]]. Her voice was also heard on hotel wake-up calls and commercial elevator messages.

Recordings with her voice are also used in [[Hong Kong]], [[Saudi Arabia]], and other countries. Although her native [[dialect]] was [[Southern American English|Southern]], she learned to adopt her trademark "[[General American]]" speech while studying drama. When asked to record 1,500 time and temperature messages for [[Telstra|Telecom Australia]], she perfected an [[Australian English|Australian accent]] by listening to recordings of [[Australia]]n speakers.