This is a question I am often asked by deaf employees who work in a totally hearing environment. They often say “My hearing colleague says ‘Why should I have to help?’ You got the job on your own merits”. The real question here is don’t we all give each other a hand at work? How many times have we helped one another (or even covered for our colleagues’ mistakes) – what makes it so hard  when it’s a deaf person who is asking? Why should our requests start the eye rolling and the tut-tutting? What is it with (some) hearing colleagues? We (as deaf people) all have stories about the workplace and how hard some people make it for the rest of us. It is clear it is often just that particular individual as very often the deaf employee has worked quite happily there until the new person arrived. My big question is why don’t HR departments help out more – (the answer is they hate conflict as much as anyone else).

I have been working in a FE college this week where the standards of support (of deaf students) are very high – and guess what? There is no teacher of the deaf in sight ……… the service is run and managed by a team of qualified & unqualified communicators, headed up by a senior communicator and I have to say “Bloody hell, it works!” Certainly makes you think afresh about who is actually providing our services and whether we should chuck out people who think they should be in charge (as they trained years ago) and get some fresh clear thinking people in. Hmmm………….

An interpreter contacted us recently saying they had to pull out of an assignment but could not find a replacement. So do they now pay us a cancellation charge just as we pay them a cancellation charge (quite rightly) when we have to cancel our booking?

Views please!

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