I am a Relay Opr. I am no longer angry. No, I do not HATE deaf people. Ask me questions about relay service, phone calls, etiquette, or the hearing world in general! Hopefully it will make everything smoother when I'm making a call for you someday!
Yay no more anrgy.
Oh yes. every time, i make a call to someone, and then the relay operator had to explain to the hearing person about your job . i am so curious what did the relay operator explains to hearing people? they often hang up when they thought the relay operator was a telemarketer.:roll:
I sometimes ask the relay operator not to explain to the ignorant people before they wouldnt hang up on. I dont know if it 's working that way.
first: what did you tell them about relay operator's job.
second: does relay operator feel comfortable when i ask them not to explain the relay operator's job??
i sometimes ask operator like, how does this persons voice tone sound like etc do relay operator dont mind or do mind?
im sure i have many questions that will come to me.
Do you find annoying if anyone don't use "ga" or "sk" to know if somone is finish the conversation before next turn to speak up?
"Ok, I'm going to get off the phone now. Bye! GA" !!!
One last thing: If you are addressing the operator when you type something MAKE IT CLEAR YOU ARE ADDRESSING THE OPERATOR!
When we make the introduction as a relay operator for the call we explain to them how the service works. We do NOT tell them this is a call from a deaf or hard of hearing individual unless the person on the other end asks or is completely baffled by the concept of relay (It happens A LOT), but ideally we leave the proclamation that the person calling is deaf up to the person calling.
Hello, I work with "AngryOpr" and decided to field a few of these questions. I can only speak for my personal experience at my job, and my center specifically. I will do my best to answer questions.
1.) If I understand you correctly then you're asking if operators are told NOT to "type over" the deaf individual placing the call? If I understand, then yes. We are not supposed to type over the one placing the call as that leaves it in their ultimate care. What I mean is, when there is a PERSON on the other end of the line we are not supposed to type over you. If it is an automated machine sometimes we must so you do not miss information. For instance: You are still typing conversationally to answer an automated systems questions such as "What is your SSN" or something of that sort. If you say for example "555 55 5555 and I'm calling to find out why my phone bill is so high? I haven't been using long distance numbers and I just want to speak to someone about it."
Technically that would be what you said to the machine, and that would not work. We are to act as human phone lines, not "Intelligent" phone lines. Even if we know what you are getting at, we are forbidden to "aid" you in getting it accomplished as per FCC regulations. We input what you type, AS you type it. If it does not work, depending on the operator, they will either put in parenthesis a question. This is to signify that we are speaking to you or describing some event (i.e. sounds, tone, background noise, etc).
2.) Again, I only know what goes on in my center, and even what I know then is limited. We are trained for a week and then put out on the call floor. We are not told and discouraged from asking about the technical parts of our software and procedures as they are company secrets and if leaked, other companies may steal the idea (Or so I understand) Its all very cloak and dagger.
Anyway, as for what abbreviations are changed, etc. I don't know. I am aware of a few common abbreviations (common as defined by what we are told in training) such as: apt = apartment, appt = Appointment, lol = Laugh out loud, jk = Just kidding, so on and so forth...
Our software tells us very few things about who you are and what kind of system you are using. Specifically ours tells us what software client type you are using and your screen name. Other than that, we have absolutely no idea what kind of aids you are using (such as the mentioned braille screen, hell, I've never even seen one of those and I've been doing this job for over a year. Didn't even know they existed to be frank.)
In place of that, we have an instructions box that comes up with every call. I have seen the interface of our companies PERSONAL applet and what goes into placing a call from it. There is a field you can input some things about how you want us to sound, do/not explain relay, etc. We depend on those instructions fields if there is something specific you guys want us to do.
Hope that answers your questions. Look forward to reading more.
thank you for answering my questions.
i wanted to clarify an example of the ca typing over me.
for example, a conversation might go like this:
hearing person: what is your social security number?
me: (starting to type) xxx-...
hearing person: (while i'm still typing) could you also let me know your date of birth?
me: (continuing to type) xxx-xx-...
hearing person: hello?
me (continuing to type) ....-xxxx.
hearing person: i'm sorry. what is your social security number and date of birth?
it's very confusing because i'm only able to read one braille line at a time. i always tell the ca in my instructions to them that i'm deafblind and use a braille display, but this doesn't always eliminate the confusion/problems i have with a sighted-hearing person on the other end of the line.
fyi, many deafblind people (like myself) communicate through relay by using a device called a telebraille.
you can learn more about it here
This is a case of relay companies, for the most part. I've noticed also that there are some companies that just don't abide by the Deaf/HH comes first rule, and they'll type over you. It seems to be primarily AIM, because the text isn't appearing on the screen UNTIL YOU HIT ENTER. So there are these super long pauses of no text where one might keep typing something they think you need to know. I'm not speaking for myself, just generally. I understand your frustration and I've found the best way to deal with it is to actually type TO THE HEARING PERSON that you want them to wait until you've said GA before they respond, rather than telling the operator.
On the hearing side of it I have to say that sometimes it's just necessary to interrupt. A hearing conversation flows back and forth very, very quickly, and it's difficult to adjust to the talk/pause/talk/pause/talk/pause etc. that comes with relay. So as an example, let's say this:
Hearing: Welcome to Fishland, how can I help you qq ga
Deaf/HH: Hi, this is Jane, I want you to give a message to Harold. Tell him Jane called and I will meet him later tonight at the restaurant we were talking about. Let him know I need to pick up my kids from school and run to a few band practices and I'll be there about 7, okay qq ga
(Let's say Harold's not there and the hearing person was trying to tell you that about 15 words into what you were typing; perhaps they wanted to say "Harolds not here, let me give you his cell." But instead of saving you and themselves the time, they have to wait for the whole message to come out before they can tell you it was worthless.)
That would be why hearing people attempt to interrupt. It's THEIR normal call flow. I know this isn't the exact instance you were talking about.
What you were referring to would just be just any person's mistake. Like, the hearing person asked for your name, but knowing relay has a delay... threw in real fast "and your SSN." The same as a Deaf/HH even after "ga" may delete the ga or type something really fast after it. You know?
As far as the delay and the hearing person not knowing whether you're there or not I have no idea. That could be anything from AIM to ignorance and a lot inbetween.
While I think Bend My Ear did a decent job of fielding questions, I did want to add some things.
Do remember that some relay services do things differently; I've learned that lesson just from dealing with people crossing over as well as experimenting with other relays myself.
One major thing I want to say is just like relay services, relay operators are different also. Where Bend clearly becomes angry when one doesn't use "GA," I couldn't care less. The only thing I would ask is that the Deaf/HH caller tells ME, the operator, before placing the call that they will not be using it. That way, no one's waiting around wondering what's going on. At the same time, I agree that everyone should use SK when ending their call just because we, as an opr, can't disconnect without it. (That's REALLY why "bye ga" gets annoying. We know you want to say bye, but we can't disconnect the call unless you type "sk" or the hearing party disconnects.)
So, with that out of the way, I was going to weigh in on one other thing.....
is there a requirement on how many words per minutes the opr. Can type.
I'm asking this because I'm often asked to slooow down. When talking. It frustrates me because it interupts my train of thoughts. It is not like I speak 90 mph.
...It's everything. It's background noise and side conversations. ALL that can be difficult to keep up with if the person is speaking too quickly. I mean.. a human being can only type so fast....
personally, i don't understand why it's so difficult to use ga since some ip relay services automatically insert a ga after the enter key is pressed.
if a deaf, hoh or deafblind person refuses to use ga (provided they aren't a new relay user and have simply forgotten to type ga), i think that's just being lazy.
after all, (if they're using a service that doesn't automatically place a ga at the end of what is typed), how hard it is really to type 2 additional letters?
one other thing i wanted to add about slower typing is that i let the ca know in advance that i have severe cts (carpal tunnel syndrome) which may affect my typing accuracy and speed. this helps avoid confusion on the ca's behalf since it is expected that i will type slower and with some spelling errors.
You would probably be a good person to ask about this....
I have had people ask me to type slower and I never know what to do because I can only type as slow as the hearing person is typing. If I may make a suggestion, if you use IP relay and want the operator to type slower, perhaps tell the hearing person you're talking to to speak slower? I just don't know how else to handle that.