Sometimes it is not the deaf person who is frustrated, but the hearing employer. An employer who is clearly frustrated by communication difficulties with a deaf employee wrote to About.com:
I have an employee that is working for me who is deaf and uses a cochlear implant. We are having tremendous problems with him not understanding what the other employees or myself are saying and he will not ask us to repeat. Is this a common problem? I have tried asking why he says "OK" when he is not 100% sure what we are asking him to do, or trying to train him. He just says he does not know. I would love to be able to know how to resolve this problem.
My response was: "Maybe he *thinks* he understands you? Or is trying to "bluff," which is what some deaf and hard of hearing do when they don't understand people? Or is he wearing it, and it is not turned on? It does sound to me like you have already told him that he is not really understanding you. Have you tried asking little questions that do not require a yes or no answer? Are you trying to communicate with him via paper and pen (or computer and Notepad)?"
Are you an employer or a deaf or hard of hearing employee who has dealt with a similar situation? How did you deal with it?
Related on About.com: Work and Being Deaf
After explaining something, you can always ask, “What did I say?” and see if you are both on the same page. This gives you an opportunity to make sure he understood you.
I glad this Person (supervisor) share this story and i find this very interesting!
Thanks
I grew up with culturally Deaf parents and Deaf brother. A frustration my parents and I had with my brother was that he would nod “yes” when he had no idea what the other person was asking or saying. He shared with me once that he did not want the “Hearing” to think he was stupid. I’m just guessing, but the fact that this young man has a cochlear implant, tell me that he wants to hear and to understand speech, and most importantly, he probably wants to be accepted. It takes much patience and courage for him to train his brain to decipher what he is hearing. One way to be sure he understands you is to ask him to mirror back to you what you have just said to him. i.e., “Please make five copies of page 3. Which page did I tell you to copy? How many copies did I tell you?” Maybe that’s not a great example, but I think you get my meaning.
I’ve met this kind of supevisor, they bark orders too fast to be understood. Ask them to repeat they say they do not want to be interupted, admit that you cannot hear them they accuse you of not listening. It’s best to nod in the right places and hope that they will go away. Find out what is needed to be done from the jobsheet or someone else later.
This kind of supervisor should be sacked, they get high on intimidating people, challenging subordinates to answer back. They break the confidence and moral of their staff and then make complaints about them.
In Britain the DDA makes it clear that the employer adapts the workplace to enable a disabled person to work effectively. The supervisor has a duty to communicate with his deaf employee not just bark incomprehensible instructions. Mr Supervisor, retire, there is no place for you in the workforce!
Bonnie is right on.
I understand reading your message very interesting. I worked in clinical field as a temp.supervisor with whole hearing departments. I am totally deaf and can speak little words to make hearings understand what did I said? If not, I have to write notes to notes. They talked me everything when some of talking messages, I told them to repeat it to me. After repeating secondly, I told them to write short memos I can understand clearly. Many times, deaf people nodded “understand” that not true, they did not paid attention to employer because employer watching individual’s competent performance. Otherwise, employer ask deaf to write note what did employer saying? Deaf will not able to answer back until written message by professional secretary or have an interpreter to explain to one-to-one in person during meeting. Is this helpful to you?