Comment by caffeineninja | Hacker News Reader

Comment by caffeineninja | Hacker News Reader

Chiming in here - I've got congenital profound loss in both ears, but I have a cochlear implant. I've grown in my career over the last 15 years from junior dev up to my current engineering management role, and what I've observed was:

1) The biggest hurdle in most cases is communication, especially in meetings. That being said, I still do fine in them, because I rely on lip reading as well as vocal cues/context, but I also rely on my coworkers to be understanding from time to time, and they are.

2) Slack has been hugely beneficial to me, but it requires the organization to be engaged with it.

3) I have accented speech because I drop some consonants (f and s sounds mostly), and it can be a challenge for some to clearly understand me shortly after meeting me. This usually resolves itself after 2-3 weeks.

4) Job interviews: I'm always up front about what I can and can't do - this usually comes up around the topic of phone interviews, I can't do them. People appreciate this, and I make it clear that I'm not ashamed or hindered by my disability. The confidence goes a long way. If you come off unsure, then of course others will be unsure. I've definitely had interviews where there was a communication disconnect, but typically that comes along with other circumstances that make the job a poor fit. I've never had the situation where the job/culture/people fit was there but it didn't happen because of a communication issue.

For other deaf developers out there, just own it and show that there is no hurdle out there that you can't overcome, and you will be successful. Always be trying to help others and others will help you in return.

Interesting! I'm in a very similar situation (congenital profound hearing loss, implanted in left ear at 16), but in a country (Japan[1]) where the primary language is not my native language (English).

> The biggest hurdle in most cases is communication, especially in meetings. That being said, I still do fine in them, because I rely on lip reading as well as vocal cues/context, but I also rely on my coworkers to be understanding from time to time, and they are.

I definitely concur with this. Meetings can be a pain depending on the environment (for example, some people prefer to meet in cafes etc. since meeting space is at a premium here). Body language (looking away, looking down, mumbling into hands, hiding face in papers, etc.) can also make meetings incredibly hard. The hardest part for me, personally, is the sheer stamina required to be "always on" and track everyone's eyes to make sure I know who's talking (in a meeting of ~15-20 people) so I can look that way and try to read their lips.

Telephone communication is also a big problem. No matter how often I tell people about my disability or how quickly I respond to e-mails/chats, they will still insist on calling me for "urgent" things. [Edit: Sometimes I think I should deal with this by simply ignoring all phone calls, but practically speaking I'd rather not exacerbate a potential emergency by not responding. The counterargument is that I could exacerbate an emergency by responding and not understanding ~50% of the content of the call...] My theory is that because I'm largely functional in person, they still subconsciously expect me to be able to use a phone normally.

> this usually comes up around the topic of phone interviews, I can't do them. People appreciate this

Interesting. I almost always have the opposite reaction; people try to be accommodating, but it's almost always still focused around doing voice via electronic connections rather than the text format I request. "What if we use a normal telephone? What if we use VoLTE? What if we use Skype instead? What if we get you a headset? What if we use Skype video or Facetime?"

> I've never had the situation where the job/culture/people fit was there but it didn't happen because of a communication issue.

Same here. For me, typically if it's a communication issue, it's because the people/culture weren't interested in being accommodating.

[1] As a side note, Japanese is extremely hard to lip read because it doesn't use the upper lip much, or at all in some dialects. There's also a lot of cultural stuff that makes life difficult: masks (either prevention or because the speaker is sick), the tendency to cover the mouth, and the tendency to not look at other people during meetings or when having a confrontation -- when communication is really important.

My mom is deaf, and my dad nearly so. Something that staggers me is that businesses -- even those that are 100% in the digital age -- can't communicate with a deaf person. I'm talking about health insurance, utilities, etc., where the person on the other end of the phone line is sitting in front of a computer, but has no facility for text chat or e-mail.

It's the smaller businesses, typically low-tech, that seem to accommodate her just fine: "Oh, you're deaf. Here's my e-mail address."

That's exactly my experience, too.

There are a lot of large businesses who refuse to do online chat or e-mail communications and instead do everything through telephone -- I e-mailed Tim Cook to complain once and he forwarded me to a support person who actually handled my case for me via e-mail, which I appreciated.

>Telephone communication is also a big problem. No matter how often I tell people about my disability or how quickly I respond to e-mails/chats, they will still insist on calling me for "urgent" things. My theory is that because I'm largely functional in person, they still subconsciously expect me to be able to use a phone normally.

Yeah, I'm with you on this. People forget! We also get so good at lip-reading and making the right faces at the right moments that people think it's not as bad as it is. FWIW I did start just ignoring the phone, and then when the peevish emails come in saying "I'm trying to phone you!" I remind them that I'm deaf, and they're gonna have to outline the problem in writing.

I said this in the article, and it bears saying again: adjustments can always be made. If somebody needs to get hold of me quickly, they can ping me on Slack. They can send me a message on Google Hangouts. They can Skype me! There's lots of options. They go for the phone because that's what they're used to, but it's totally possible to train people out of this. It's not just for your comfort, it's to make it possible for you to do your job effectively.

I've had to be kinda pushy about this sometimes, but I don't regret sticking to my guns. I used to just roll over and it made everything more difficult and unpleasant as a result.

Edit: just saw your post below about big businesses refusing to allow IM. That would make things... awkward. Here in the UK employers are required by law to make "reasonable adjustments" for disabled employees ("reasonable" meaning reasonable to the employee and to the employer), and a big company would struggle to get away with that over here. I think it's called "reasonable accommodations" in the US? My first port of call would definitely be to go and see HR and wave the relevant legislation under their noses, if it exists in Japan.

Totally agree about the phone thing. At my last job, I set up a meeting with HR and explained the situation, and within 24 hours, the entire 2000+ company had a new rule about email vs phone calls. There were still a lot of calls, but none of them came to me. I'm not entirely sure how they pulled that off, because the rule didn't mention me by name, but it worked out great.

I would 100000x rather text, Slack, or meet 1:1 than do a phone call.

That said, in the last year or so I got a hearing aid with Bluetooth capabilities, so I can shut off the external microphone and only hear the phone call that comes through. It only works on my personal phone, but I actually enjoy talking on the phone with my family and friends now, whereas I used to avoid it like the plague.

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