Archived How to react when you encounter deaf or HoH guests.

[commiecorvus]

Completely off topic, anyone see the last two Doctor Who episodes?
They had a deaf character with an interpreter who was played by a deaf actress.
The signing was, of course since they are British, BSL but it was great to watch.
I highly recommend it, since they didn't make her being deaf part of the plot and she became the commander of the base, so not a minor character either.

 

[OneGoodEar]

We have one deaf flow tm, he's awesome. We stopped printing and posting survery responses after some asshat guest tried to get his attention from behind him and was embarassed when he turned around and she realized he was deaf. She wanted us to figure out a way to "label him so guests know he can't hear them or speak clear english".

Some people are inconsiderate. It's like with my store, some people complain about team members ignoring guests. Is one reason because they can't hear them?

 

[redeye58]

Hey, OneGoodEar.
Glad to see you're still around.

 

[mrknownothing]

I've only had one encounter with a deaf guest, and he immediately gestured for a pen and paper.

At my other job, we have a regular who's deaf. He usually comes in and takes care of everything on his own via self-service, but if he needs something from us, he writes it out on a piece of paper for us.

 

[Kartman]

Wait....

Spot hires deaf people?

No shit????

HOW does that WORK?

 

[commiecorvus]

Wait....

Spot hires deaf people?

No shit????

HOW does that WORK?

Same way you hire hearing people for crying out loud.
We had a deaf woman working in softlines at my store.
It helps if you have someone who can sign to do the training but it's not always necessary.
The STL and LODs need to be aware of what the needs of the the deaf TM are but otherwise it works out fine.

DVR does this everyday.
We help people with disabilities get jobs including deaf people.

 

[mrknownothing]

Wait....

Spot hires deaf people?

No shit????

HOW does that WORK?

Reasonable accommodations. Equal opportunity and all that.

 

[Kartman]

Lordy.

 

[Red Buffalo]

I've only had one encounter with a deaf guest, and he immediately gestured for a pen and paper.

At my other job, we have a regular who's deaf. He usually comes in and takes care of everything on his own via self-service, but if he needs something from us, he writes it out on a piece of paper for us.

Most of them know what they need and are in and out without any team members even realizing they are deaf. The first time I encountered a deaf customer I froze up and had no idea what to do. They didn't have a pen and paper and neither did I so I was really embarrassed and didn't know how to communicate anything to them. I pulled out my phone and brought up the memo pad instead, but that one encounter sparked my interest in learning ASL and later that night I took to the interwebs to get more info on how I could more effectively communicate with them, even if it was just the basics. It would have been so much simpler had I found a short write up like the one I started for this thread. Which is the reason I went ahead and made it.

 

[Kartman]

Double Lordy!!!

 

[Red Buffalo]

Some people are inconsiderate. It's like with my store, some people complain about team members ignoring guests. Is one reason because they can't hear them?

I just think long-time TMs develope selective hearing, but I think yours is a valid observation as well. 🙄

 

[Red Buffalo]

Completely off topic, anyone see the last two Doctor Who episodes?
They had a deaf character with an interpreter who was played by a deaf actress.
The signing was, of course since they are British, BSL but it was great to watch.
I highly recommend it, since they didn't make her being deaf part of the plot and she became the commander of the base, so not a minor character either.

I don't watch Doctor Who, but that sounds interesting. I'll check that out. And yeah, from what I've read BSL is quite a bit different from ASL which I would have never expected.

 

[jadzia]

Love this thread. I'm looking into ASL classes right now!

 

[BullseyeBabe]

Please forgive me because I haven't read all the posts in this thread. I've had the pleasure of working with several hearing impaired TMs. We use our phones a lot to "talk." I use notes and the speech-to-text. I would love to learn ASL and Spanish. In the meantime I'm thankful for technology.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Always smile, stay with eye contact & speak slowly so the guest can read your lips. If I notice a guest using asl, I will go up and ask them patiently if they need any help.

 

[Red Buffalo]

Please forgive me because I haven't read all the posts in this thread. I've had the pleasure of working with several hearing impaired TMs. We use our phones a lot to "talk." I use notes and the speech-to-text. I would love to learn ASL and Spanish. In the meantime I'm thankful for technology.

You could learn both using free apps now. No Rosetta Stone required! For ASL basics, a good app is Memrise, it allows you to pick different lessons and learn at your own pace. It will even pop up telling you that you should refresh your memory on certain words that you have reviewed in a while. For Spanish, I recommend either Memrise or Duolingo. Duolingo goes a little deeper than Memrise does as far as syntax and such, but it doesn't have an ASL section.

 

[OneGoodEar]

hearing impaired TMs.

By the way the correct usage is hard of hearing not hearing impaired.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

By the way the correct usage is hard of hearing not hearing impaired.

Thank you!