Of Babblefish I have none.

[JustADude]

Nothing really huge this time, but during one of the busier parts of the night (Why is it ALWAYS when we're busy?) I grab the phone and get a woman (At least I think it was a woman...) who has something seriously wrong with her ability to form speech. I'm not going to speculate on what it was, but it rendered what she said nearly indecipherable for me over the phone.

Normally I wouldn't think this was sucky, since even people with speech problems deserve a hot, tasty pizza if that suits their fancy, but during one particularly infuriating part of trying to decipher her words she passed the phone over to a perfectly articulate and intelligent-sounding guy who translated for me... and then passed the phone right back to her.

She sounded quite aware that her voice was difficult to comprehend, since she was quite calm throughout the painful process, so I ask you this; Why the hell didn't she just have the guy call the order in?

[unholypet]

I have a regular customer who had a series of strokes and can't leave the house. Her face is half nerve-dead, and the poor thing has no one to help her order. Luckily, I hae experience in listening to folks with that problem... At least you tried! A couple co-workers make jokes not knowing her problem, and ask if she's a retarded Asian lady =(

[ShadedWings]

I had a call one time, where the guy on the phone was using a computer generated voice to speak with. Not sure what type, whether he was speaking with an elextronic voice box, or typing into a computer or what...

I don't know if it was the quality of the system he used or combination of that and the phone line, or what, but it took ALL my concentration to decipher the blurts of mechanical, monotone sound into anything resembling words. I would maybe catch three or four syllables in a sentence, the rest just sounded like computer-game type bleeps and blots. I apologized to him several times, and he seemed calm about it, probably understood that his system sucked or something.

The customer wasn't sucky on that one, just the system he was using to talk to me. I had such a headache after that call, and I only managed to get two useful sentences out of what he was trying to tell me.

[aurelemsrealm]

Most customers with such disabilities are generally understanding if they think you're trying to help them without passing judgments or making fun of them. There are the occasional ones who have a chip on their shoulder (generally insecurity) and use their disability as a crutch because they think it should make their poor attitude excusable. I have a couple of customers with severe speech impediments, and it took a while to get to where I can sometimes understand them. If in doubt, I ask them to write it out. I always keep a pen and scrap paper handy since I'm constantly making reminder notes for myself about whatever.

Then, there is the customer who goes by "Duck." I've learned to understand him somewhat, but it took a while because he is illiterate. He knew one of the other clerks, so that helped. He often has his sister in tow. She's also illiterate, and she can't form speech. She just screams and makes other assorted noises, and somehow Duck is able to translate. At least, he'll tell what she wants, and she seems to calm back down. When I first met them, I thought she was having a heart attack or stroke. I asked if she was okay, and Duck explained that she's fine, she just can't speak. I was a bit embarrassed at overreacting, but figured if they didn't seem to worry, neither would I. It took a while to learn to communicate with them since they can't write. I feel sorry for them because I've gathered from the clerk who knows them that they don't have much of a relationship with their family.

[bigjimaz]

Why the hell didn't she just have the guy call the order in?

She had a speech impediment. Maybe he had a number impediment?

[JustADude]

I have a regular customer who had a series of strokes and can't leave the house. Her face is half nerve-dead, and the poor thing has no one to help her order. Luckily, I hae experience in listening to folks with that problem... At least you tried! A couple co-workers make jokes not knowing her problem, and ask if she's a retarded Asian lady =(

She had a speech impediment. Maybe he had a number impediment?

Actually, that's kind of what it sounded like, UnholyPet. I didn't really mind helping her out, but I just can't grok why someone would put themselves and the person on the other end of the phone through that if there's someone standing right next to them who has no such problem.

And, bigjimaz, WTH is a Number Impediment?

[Arucard]

Couldn't make out the numbers on the phone to dial in the call himself, I imagine.

[Imogene]

Got a call on the parents' phone a few weeks ago now, where I sad "Hello?" and the first words out of the callers mouth? "Do you speak Spanish?"
*blink, blink* Only really simple words, the stuff taught in grade school, so, "No."
"Okay." *click*

[Der Cute]

I've had lots of customers who were from different countries, backgrounds. I liked having them, because I could LEARN something about the world (being stuck in Alaska sucks sometimes).

I had a Polish guy come in, heavy on the accent and onions .. I asked him where he was from, "POLAND" he was so proud of it. I told him I have a little Polish in me too...(draw pie chart here) and he got it...He kept coming back, and I learned how to say Hello in Polish, and the goodbye, and I am Polski!

Had a regular who was very very deaf. Other cashiers kept thinking he was ignoring them. All you had to do was catch his visual attention (wave hand, tap on arm..) and I'd start doing basic signing / alphabet. When it got more complicated, we did scribble on paper... but he kept coming back.

Met a damn good friend through translating "MARMO LIIIS" (marlboro lights). Got to teaching him English, and he's doing pretty good.

I dont mind translating. Because, well, when I'm fscking Post-Ictal (after a sz) I need someone to help me get MY thoughts out. I understand the frustration of thinking a thought but not able to have other party grasp it.

It's hard, especially when there's no VISUAL in this (person on phone to pizza). Try calling your boss after you've had a seizure! Hell, I couldnt remember the phone number - I knew it but couldn't get the picturenumber out of my head onto my tongue! Had to call 411, and play guess the thingy. Lady helped me, never did say thanks.

So yeah, in essence to this rambling.....
cut the people some slack. Cuz you never know when YOU'LL be in a similar situation.

Cutenoob

[amarisse]

we had a deaf couple come in when i still worked at target returns with billing questions. The manager i worked iwth at the time was very prejudice mean woman She got rid of the TTY phones, blocked off relay on the regular phones, got rid of wheelchairs, broke the electric carts, etc.)

So with the litlte finger spelling i kjnow i try to help them and she yelled at me that i was wasting valuable store time and called htem some choice names. Forgetting a lot of deaf people can read lips they asked me quite politely for the number to the higher ups and thanked me for my patience. They wanted to use out phones to get access and i had to tell them that we didnt have th services in teh store so they used a relay thru thier cell phone and later that day the manager got a lovely call from the association that deals with discrimination against hte disabled.

The nice manager later fired me for being insolent becuase i was NICE to people she dindt want us to be nice to. on black friday no less. Boy that was funny Black friday is NOT a day to fire one of your fastest employees.

[TNT]

I had a caller once who couldn't speak English very well. Okay... I couldn't speak her language well, either, so we both did the best we could. Making it even worse was that she knew very little about computers. The call went on forever, and we made almost no progress...

Finally, she got really frustrated... she said, "Talk to my son, okay?" as though I might refuse or argue with her.

Sonny was about 12... but he spoke perfect English... and, better yet, perfect techspeak.

I don't know... maybe she really thought I'd have a problem talking to a kid.

(For some odd reason, grandparents were the most likely to put the grandson or granddaughter on the line almost immediately... "I don't anything about this stuff... would you mind talking to the pro in the family?" Not at all.)

[myswtghst]

We have a few techs who are well-known as hard to understand, but the two I speak to most often are aware of the issue and tend to do their business in as few words as possible. I've actually gotten quite good at understanding them, unless my headset is acting up or I'm particularly spacey on a given day, but I know some around here aren't nearly as good.

I also appreciate having bilingual and multilingual coworkers--it's nice to know I can "use" some of them to help me understand our South American techs.

[Misanthropical]

She sounded quite aware that her voice was difficult to comprehend, since she was quite calm throughout the painful process, so I ask you this; Why the hell didn't she just have the guy call the order in?

When I had something happened that made it where I stuttered a lot, I did not want help, I wanted to over come it myself.

Now, my husband was always near to help if I got frustrated with trying to get the words out, but I sure as heck didn't want him to do all the speaking for me. How would I get over it if he was always doing the talking for me?

[ArenaBoy]

One of my sister's friends is an immigrant from Albania. Her mother has a hard time speaking English so she usually has her daughter speak for her. It's quite odd to see a 9 year old girl (At the time) go "Mrs. ArenaMom, my mother is wondering if you'd like to come over for tea when it is time for me to go home."

My karate instructor is a Lebanese immigrant to Canada and lived in the States for a while. His accent was thick and when first meeting him you had a hard time understanding him. His English was great though.

I am currently studying up for a translation job, there's a joke among us that when something is hard to translate and it comes out wrong we usually call it a "My hovercraft is full of eels!" problem.

[Imogene]

Try calling your boss after you've had a seizure!

Vaguely related: The first thing I asked my brother to do for me when he found me lying on the floor from my stroke? Called my DM for me, then handed me the phone.
RJ: "Hey, Bill? I don't think I'm gonna make it for the D&D game this weekend, I'm not feeling so great."
DM: "Who is this?"
RJ: "It's Juwl..."
DM: "Wow, you sound nothing like you normally do, are you alright?"
RJ: "No..."
Not a single thought flittered through my head to have my bro call 911... That's how my D&D group found out about my stroke. They chipped in together to buy me a little statue of a fighter fighting a dragon in pewter. And they held a few sessions at the hospital so I could get some interaction with people more on my level.