Kaz (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kaz) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
accessibility_fail2009-10-04 08:37 pm
kaz) wrote in accessibility_fail2009-10-04 08:37 pm
The telephone thing
To put it mildly, I have issues when it comes to telephones.
In the extreme case, I can have a conversation over the telephone without really being able to understand the other person, while saying things I don't mean, but that bit doesn't really matter because I don't know what it is I'm saying and the other person isn't able to understand me anyway. Subsets of this set of circumstances crop up very regularly. As is probably understandable, telephone conversations with people I do not know very well a) take up a large chunk of my spoons and b) are singularly unpleasant experiences that I will go to great lengths to avoid.
So why is it that there are so many things you can only ever do by phone?
The current fail is me trying to get a code from my mobile phone provider so I can switch providers and still keep my number. I send an e-mail. "Sorry, call this number!" I go to their store. "Sorry, you can only do this by phone!" Why is it that when I am standing right there I have to do it by phone? Why is it that among the multitude of alternate communication channels we have at our disposal it has to be this specific one? Is it so utterly impossible for you to imagine there are people who might have problems with it?
The really frustrating thing is, of course, that I *can* use a fistful of spoons to grit my teeth and lift the handset and call the company anyway, with at least a reasonable chance of being able to communicate. There are people who can't. These people might, actually, have mobile phones as you can do far more with them than simply calling people. Or maybe they'd like to do things like changing the address for their credit card (another one of those "sorry, phone only!" things for my bank, which has resulted in my credit card having been unusable for the last year). Methinks Deaf or HoH people, among others, would like to be able to use credit cards too?
In the extreme case, I can have a conversation over the telephone without really being able to understand the other person, while saying things I don't mean, but that bit doesn't really matter because I don't know what it is I'm saying and the other person isn't able to understand me anyway. Subsets of this set of circumstances crop up very regularly. As is probably understandable, telephone conversations with people I do not know very well a) take up a large chunk of my spoons and b) are singularly unpleasant experiences that I will go to great lengths to avoid.
So why is it that there are so many things you can only ever do by phone?
The current fail is me trying to get a code from my mobile phone provider so I can switch providers and still keep my number. I send an e-mail. "Sorry, call this number!" I go to their store. "Sorry, you can only do this by phone!" Why is it that when I am standing right there I have to do it by phone? Why is it that among the multitude of alternate communication channels we have at our disposal it has to be this specific one? Is it so utterly impossible for you to imagine there are people who might have problems with it?
The really frustrating thing is, of course, that I *can* use a fistful of spoons to grit my teeth and lift the handset and call the company anyway, with at least a reasonable chance of being able to communicate. There are people who can't. These people might, actually, have mobile phones as you can do far more with them than simply calling people. Or maybe they'd like to do things like changing the address for their credit card (another one of those "sorry, phone only!" things for my bank, which has resulted in my credit card having been unusable for the last year). Methinks Deaf or HoH people, among others, would like to be able to use credit cards too?
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I had to argue with a doctor's receptionist the other week about why making an appointment by telephone wasn't possible. They release appointments for each day at 8:30. The following happened:
Her: So just give us a ring at 8:30 and you can book in tomorrow.
Me: Can I come in instead?
Her: Give us a call, this is the number...
Me: I'm hard of hearing, I don't tend to use phones. Can I come in here at 8:30?
Her: If you phone up, you can get an appointment for tomorrow, we don't know until then what the appointments are.
Me: But I can't use a phone. Can I come in to the surgery?
Her: Oh. Well. Just give us a ring...
I just walked off and came in at 8:30 the next day, and thankfully it was a different woman. But really, she could not seem to listen to what I was saying, which was ironic. I'm in a similar position to you - in an emergency, I could use a phone, but given I live literally around the corner, it takes fewer spoons to nip over the road than to try and understand someone on the phone (Who half the time won't listen to "I'm hard of hearing, could you repeat that?")
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But no. Telephones are clearly the way to go!!! *sigh*
And that story is just awful - I hate it when people seem incapable of listening to what you are actually saying in favour of projecting what they would do/feel in that situation onto you! Basic empathy fail! Especially when you are telling them you are hard of hearing, where it should not be *that* hard to figure out what you mean and why something might be problematic! (I tend to um and ah my way past explanations because I have some undiagnosed hearing issue that is probably some combination of hypersensitivity, inability to filter out background noise and a possible mild auditory processing disorder and I can already see people's eyes glazing over in my mind.)
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I imagine part of the problem is that telephones are Old Hat and familiar but that anything new-fangled (especially if it involves computers) is "Help I'm not good with computers" on the service provider's end.
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