Hard of Hearing people, take note: We cannot hide our difficulty now, even if our lives or
livelihood depend on it, because common courtesy is dead. It is as dead as chivalry and good
table manners.
There was a time when folks who worked with all different kinds of people on a daily basis-
doctors, lawyers, waitresses, cashiers, receptionists in offices- looked at the person to whom they
were speaking when they were speaking to them. Even cabbies used to look up into the rearview
mirror so you could see them when they were talking to you. Now we are all lucky if a cab
driver grunts at us after they find out where they are to take us. Receptionists, most of the time,
would rather look at their computer screens than us, and waitresses barely speak to us at all,
much less look at us.
Why is this so? Why must we spend so much of our precious time teaching grown people proper
manners? I got so tired of having to tell people about my medical diagnosis- that I am extremely
hard of hearing-that I actually started handing out business cards, which I printed myself on
cardstock, that asked them to please look at me when they spoke. I had mixed reactions to this.
Some people were offended, whether because they had to actually pay attention to me, or
because I reached over the desk to place it in their view, I wasn't sure. To be fair, I did ask these
people more than once to look up before I invaded their space. One person finally began to make
it a habit to deal with her clients one by one, while actually having the courtesy to look at them. I
felt pretty good about this, since it was my card placed in her face that caused her to take such a
necessary and "drastic action".
She even taped it up on the rim of the office sliding window for her co-workers to see. I felt like I made this office a better place. I had one person actually call
me out and tell me that I was not only being difficult and acting as if I deserved special
treatment, I was faking having a disability! I demanded to speak to the office manager. I told the
office manager of the indignity I had just suffered at the hands of this idiot of a receptionist. The
office manager had the nerve to tell me that I didn't look sick, and so the receptionist should be
forgiven.
Say what?! People with disabilities don't look sick because they aren't sick! Sick
people have some germ or other contagion which has contaminated their body, and caused the
symptom of illness. I informed her of this in no uncertain terms, and threatened to sue under
the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1993, and any other act pertaining to me and everyone
else my lawyer could find.
There was such a row that I was actually asked to leave or be
escorted out, and the office manager and the receptionist were fired on the spot. I am not a
litigiously-minded person. Most people this stupid usually get a look from me, and nothing else.
At all. These two shit-birds, however, really managed to get my goat that day. I was irritated, not
because they were ignorant, but because they were proud of being ignorant. In their ignorance,
they showed true stupidity, in that they did not want their ignorance to be turned to knowledge,
and make them smarter, and better able to do their jobs. Instead they wanted to blame me for
their ignorance and lazy stupidity. I left that doctor's office quite angry with myself. I should
never have allowed those two persons to make me angry; they were not worth the exertion.
I have said all this to tell you, my Hard of Hearing brothers and sisters, that we must collectively
demand our rights. If the receptionist in your doctor's office or your lawyer's office, or the
waitress in your favorite diner, or the person at the parts counter in your chosen auto parts
store seems unable or unwilling to look at you when they speak so you may understand them, ask them to do so. If they become surly about it, don't be embarrassed. You are not the lout with
foul manners in this situation, they are. You are not reminding them of their manners in this
situation, you are asking for what you need in order to participate fully in the human exchange.
If it seems too much extra effort on their part to look at you when they speak, perhaps they need
to recuse themselves from their position. It is obviously not a safe one for them, or for their co-
workers.
Society is in a sad state when we must ask for common courtesy to participate in the everyday
exchanges we make to get on in the world. Sometimes, we will be met with resistance, because
the other person does not respect themselves, much less anyone else. Having said that, it is not
our place to remind them that if they would only act with common courtesy, we would not have
to ask them to look up from their papers, stop chewing their gum, speak up, spit out that
cigarette, pipe, pencil, whatever. Do not be ashamed to ask for what you need. There is no
shame in asking for what you need. It is when we do not ask, that there is shame.
People are
shoved into corners and closets and forgotten and abused and left to suffer and not allowed to
participate and take their rightful place in life. Do not allow the anxiety that will always come
and the shyness we often feel to stop you from asking for what you need. When we allow these
feelings to take hold, we will be trodden upon and left alone. We cannot allow this. Hard of
Hearing people are people ,too. I am not saying we should start an insurgency and all of us
become insane militants. I am saying that we deserve simple common courtesy, and to bring
common courtesy back, we must be the people who bring it. Ask bank tellers, store clerks,
receptionists, doctors, lawyers, and even your parents to look at you when you speak. If you
cannot be afforded such small things, perhaps these are not the places you want to do business.
