What I Learned Turning Partially Deaf
People are assholes
“Excuse me?”
His wrinkles arch in frustration as he repeats his order for the third time. I gave up on reading his lips — his aged hand, yellow from years of smoking, persistently covers his mouth.
I’m not afraid to ask for clarifications — in the customer service industry it’s better to be perceived as annoying rather than get their order wrong. Because, man, if you do, they’re gonna give you a lot of shit for it.
The fact that I stopped hearing well a few days ago is not helping. It’s a temporary inconvenience; I’m too young to start losing my hearing. Yet, for the past few days this inconvenience showed me how much people take hearing for granted, and how much they disregard those, who don’t have a clearly identifiable disability.
People are assholes
“I’m better than the rest of them.”
I’m the asshole if I ask you to repeat your order because I’m causing you the trouble of talking more than you want to.
You’re the asshole because you can’t see that I can’t hear you well.
And there we stand, two assholes, hating one another.
