Serving a Deaf Customer
Now that it's been a few days and I'm not longer royally pissed off about it, let's talk about something important involving how hearing people in a work environment treat deaf customers. Specifically in the service industry.
Normally old people like an old woman working as a waitress, they're actually pretty good about treating me the way I want to be treated. However the younger generation 30 years old and below I have extreme issues with much of the time.
The issue I'm referring to is when I don't notice them speaking or I have too much trouble understanding what they're trying to say, they speak to my husband or roommates instead like they're meant to be my interpreters.
You should be easily able to see why this is extremely rude. I have about as much trouble hearing them as I do anyone else and they don't know how to sign enough to interpret for the server. The issue, generally, is low light environments like how some steak houses are coupled with the server turning mid sentence, partially covering her mouth when she talks, etc. Then there's the literal mumbling, when even my husband with perfect hearing can't understand what someone is saying, there's an enunciation problem so go figure why I can't lip read the server.
So she ends up just ignoring me entirely and only refilling drinks for my husband and roommate, not taking my empty plates, etc but gladly services them. And there were two elderly women just watching this happen, one of which shaking their head knowing that we're known for leaving large $20+ tips for excellent service.
That time, we leave 2 pennies.
We went there again yesterday, and the server in question that gave bad service complained that we left a bad tip. We had to explain to her that we didn't appreciate her discriminating against a deaf customer and being extremely rude in the process of it, she's lucky enough we didn't get her ass shit canned by speaking to management and should be kissing our ass in hopes that we don't decide to change our mind about it.
She refused to serve us after informing her of her rude behavior, discriminatory practices and rude again for confronting us about a bad tip after having been told by other servers that we tip really good. I had to speak to her manager at that time.
Manager comes by, it's one of the old women, the one that shook her head. She asked if this was about how I was treated before and if we're still having problems. Told the manager about her refusing to service us for leaving a bad tip last time due to her exceptionally shitty service, rudeness and discriminatory behavior. She informs us, with some basic signing which surprised me, that her husband is deaf as a doornail in his old age and that she'll take care of it.
The server left crying, making a point to flip me off on her way out the door. We got refunded our last meal and ate again yesterday evening free of charge including dessert.
If you're in the service industry, and you have a customer that can't comprehend what you're saying, there's alternative methods to communicate with us. If you can't sign, then type out on your phone or write stuff down for us, make sure to get our attention before you speak, that sort of thing. It really doesn't take a hell of a lot to make a deaf customer happy.
If you feel entitled to me being able to hear you in order to provide me with service, then you're in the wrong job and should probably go back to living at your parents house and grow the fuck up a little bit because I'm not going out to eat at an expensive steak house to make your life easier for you, I'm there to eat and be served.
Here's a bulleted list of what to do if you can't sign.
*If the deaf person doesn't acknowledge you speaking, but is instead pointing to the menu, just look where they're pointing, that's the order they want.
*If you're needing to know what they want to drink and they're pointing, write down their food order first, then show them where drinks are on the menu, they will point to their drink.
*If you have an oral deaf, make sure they're looking at you before speaking, and yes it's OK to tap them on the shoulder, wave, knock on the table, whatever to get their attention.
*If the deaf person can't comprehend what you're saying even after repeating yourself, please feel free to write what you have to say down on a notepad or typed on your phone, that's perfectly OK and is not rude, it's a great idea.
*If you already know the deaf person's drink as you should as a server, just take their glass and fill it up without asking. If we don't want it refilled, we'll wave and do some sort of motion to let you know we're fine without a refill.
*Clean our plates off table. If you're unsure if we're finished with it, just grab the plate anyway and look at us and wait for a response. We know what it means.
That should help you in the future when running into a deaf person.
Future reference, it won't hurt your career learning ASL or the sign language of choice for your region (UK has BSL and Australia has Auslan for example). Sign language for your country counts as a second language, so it looks really good on applications and resumes that you're "Bilingual" even if it's just English and ASL. So in your free time, spend some time learning ASL from LifePrint http://www.lifeprint.com
Additionally it's wise to learn to fingerspell first, you can use the chart below. Practice it until you don't have to think about what you're spelling by individual letters but instead spell with your hands like you would typing out words on your keyboard or phone.
