only thing worse than a clueless hearing user...

[smileyeagle1021]

... is a clueless deaf user.
I had a guy on yesterday who, I'm hoping there is something else wrong with him than being deaf, because if not he may qualify for the douche of the month award.

He had me dial, it was to a pizza place, he started to realize he had called the wrong place. So, he did what any smart person would do... he just sent me a phone number with no other explanation. Now, this was during the part of the call where pizza places normally ask for a phone number, knowing that (and not being told any differently) I treated it as if he was preempting the question and going ahead and giving them the phone number. About two minutes later into the call he starts off "relay operator, why the fuck didn't you dial the number I gave you", I responded back (I have relayed call as instructed, no hang up or dial commands have been given). His response, "how fucking dense do you have to be to not realize that the only reason for me to give you a phone number is to dial it".
So I do the disconnect spiel with the hearing user, disposition the call, and open the line for a new call... a process that takes maybe 30 seconds... if I'm being slow... in that time he's sent "DIAL NOW" 4 times... then while I was relaying that the phone was ringing he started sending messages "why aren't they answering", when a hearing user did pick up it was someone unfamiliar with relay... though I'm sure the same could be said about the deaf user, but that's a different story. I tell the deaf user that the hearing user has not received a relay call, explaining relay. He sends messages about every 10 seconds asking "how long does it take to explain something so simple"... then when I get the hearing user up to speed the deaf user disconnects the session.
Seriously, you were so anxious for me to bring the person on the line, then when I do you just leave... grr....


And on an unrelated note, how does
"a relay call is used by deaf or hard of hearing people to place phone calls. They will type their part of the conversation to me and I will then relay that between the two of you. Please speak slowly so that I can type your part of the conversation to them, and speak as if you were speaking to them directly. Please allow for a slight delay as they type their responses. Do you have any questions before I let the caller know you are on the line?"
in ANY way sound like a solicitation to sell a product or service?
Seriously, the correct answer to that is NOT "I'm not interested in anything like that" or "well obviously I'm not deaf, why do I need that service". There was one lady who I think handled it extremely well, she responded "I don't know any deaf people so I don't know why they would be calling, can you make sure they have the right number?" That is a reasonable response... and it turned out to be a wrong number, but you have no idea how often the person has cut me off before I can tell them that the deaf person has sent through a message saying that they were interested in the (insert item here) that they had advertised on craigslist (or similar site)... and they just screwed themselves out of a sale because they were too caught up on the fact that they didn't personally know any deaf people.

[Erin]

When I telemarketed (inbound) I absolutely hated relay calls. Not because I dont like deaf people (had a boyfriend who was deaf once) but because the stuff the deaf person was calling to buy usually had disgustingly long scripts that I had to read off word-for-word.

and they usually called two minutes before I was supposed to leave (after being held over for 15mins), and the bosses hated it if we stayed past the maximum 15mins past our time off.

Plus the relay calls would shoot down my calls per hour average.

[BookstoreEscapee]

And on an unrelated note, how does
"a relay call is used by deaf or hard of hearing people to place phone calls. They will type their part of the conversation to me and I will then relay that between the two of you. Please speak slowly so that I can type your part of the conversation to them, and speak as if you were speaking to them directly. Please allow for a slight delay as they type their responses. Do you have any questions before I let the caller know you are on the line?"
in ANY way sound like a solicitation to sell a product or service?

My guess - they're not actually listening to what you're saying, they just know they are hearing a script and assume it must be a marketing call.

[EricKei]

He had me dial, it was to a pizza place, he started to realize he had called the wrong place. So, he did what any smart person would do... he just sent me a phone number with no other explanation. Now, this was during the part of the call where pizza places normally ask for a phone number, knowing that (and not being told any differently) I treated it as if he was preempting the question and going ahead and giving them the phone number. .

The pizza place asked for a number, he gave you a number, you passed it on to the pizza place. I see nothing wrong on your end. Point in your favor, Sir ^_^

[Hyndis]

I've been on the recieving end of a few relay calls.

Its not too bad...except the point of the call was for tech support. The deaf person knew what he was doing, I knew what I was doing, but the relay operator had absolutely no idea how computers worked. A techie knows the lingo and it can drastically speed up the call. However I had to simplify and also explain things to the relay operator so she could adequately translate it.

She tried her best though!

[smileyeagle1021]

However I had to simplify and also explain things to the relay operator so she could adequately translate it.

She tried her best though!

to be blunt, she was a bad relay operator... comprehension of the message is not needed to relay it... only the ability to repeat what the hearing user said into text as quickly as possible. The only time I have had to ask a hearing user (who isn't being a jackass about speaking as fast as humanly possible) for clarification is for spellings of words (I hate having to call pharmacies) ).

Though on a side note, if this was before ASR then it may have been a simple manner of you speaking too fast or them being a poor typist... with ASR though, as long as they can repeat what you said in a monotone voice for the computer to pick up (with the exception of uncommon words/ names that need to be spelled manually... or when the caller is speaking in such a way that ASR won't pick it up no matter how well you talk to it), so understanding isn't required, just the ability to speak while listening.

[Hyndis]

The topic at hand was about optimal stripe sizes for raid configurations of a solid state drive, and what sorts of files would be stored on these drives. Somewhat advanced topic.

[wynjara]

to be blunt, she was a bad relay operator... comprehension of the message is not needed to relay it... only the ability to repeat what the hearing user said into text as quickly as possible..

True, if it was TTY-style relay. Not so much if it was video and the relay was an interpreter.

[Cat]

I had a deaf friend once, and we were doing the relay call thing....and we were talking about mutual online friends, whom we only knew my their online handle, so the poor relay person had to ask me how to spell their names

Also, we got so caught up in conversation, I had forgotten my friend was deaf (she could speak) and the relay person had to tell me to slow down, hahaha. The relay person was awesome, though, very friendly.

[angelicafire]

Kind of off topic, but what always bugs me is when I ask the relay operator if I should say "go ahead" at the end of what I'm saying. Half the time I get a snotty answer like "Obviously!" or "NO!" Look, peoples, there's a lot of different types. I'm just trying to make sure we're all on the same page here