Note to self: Learn sign language!

[Imogene]

Seriously, I have had sooo many deaf customers come through my lines, it's no longer enough to get by with lip reading.

Particularly after this pair of deaf ladies I had yesterday.
Seriously, both of them were hearing impaired, and they had a cart full of stuff, with random bizarre questions they needed answered, such as:

These heart picks are three for a dollar, right?
They rang up as $.99 each
One of the ladies took me over to the basket where she got them, which said Assortment of 3, $.99, which means we had three different types of these hearts, but they don't come packed together, so each one's a dollar, and she kept pointing at the tag and saying, "So, these are three for a dollar."
"No, no they're not. *re-explain*"
And then, when we got back to the counter, she kept gesturing at the hearts she had laid out there already, and making vague noises. I couldn't tell if she wanted them or not, but, it was eventually decided she wanted six of each, which is what she had. Okay.


By The Yard ribbon
Then, she had a spool of BTY ribbon, but she wanted the whole thing. Okay, and here's me with no idea how much is on the spool, so I started measuring it, while one lady was across the registers, being rung out by a coworker, and the lady in front of me looked a bit confused, but hadn't said anything beyond that they wanted the whole spool, to which I showed my yardstick, and explained we sell the spool by the yard. Until coworker suddenly said, "Hey, Juwl, she wants the whole spool."
"Yes, I know, I'm measuring it to make sure I charge the right amount."
The lady came back over to my register, and grabbed an envelope to start writing down her questions. She asked how many yards I was up to, I wrote my answer (which I wasn't entirely sure on, because I'd lost my train of thought while she was looking for paper) and she told me to just do thirty yards, which I did, and then started to roll up the ribbon, so it wouldn't get crimped in the bag, and she just got fed up with it, and had me toss it all in a bag.

Note: Nothing at all against deaf people. I really should learn how to communicate with them, as it's something I'd love to know. This particular couple just had a lot of difficult things in their transaction that I couldn't adequately explain through lip reading.

[ShinyGreenApple]

I have a regular customer who can't speak; I'm not sure if he can hear or not. But when all else fails, we resort to good ol' pen and paper. He writes down his questions, I write down my answers.

I'll never forget the time he came in late one night with a recipe for some sort of pasta salad that someone had given to him. It started out with the words "QUICK AND EASY!" in a cheery scrawl, and above the words he had written "She lied."

[walking with scissors]

To be perfectly honest, to me, "assortment of 3, 99cents" sounds like a 3 for a dollar deal.

Also, our fabric stores sell ribbons by the yard and also by the roll. There's a set per-roll price that tends to be MUCH cheaper than it would be if the ribbon were sold bit by bit.

[Saydrah]

http://www.scommonline.com/ubiFeatures.php

See if you can talk management into investing in an UbiDuo! It makes communicating with DHH people very easy.

[Becks]

What can possibly be done with 90 feet of one color ribbon?

Yes, I know, lots of things, but...

It just boggles my mind at the moment. Maybe I need a nap.

[marty]

I've dealt with a few completely deaf customers, they've all honestly been some of the best customers I've had. I don't know a damn bit of sign language and I couldn't read lips if my life depended on it, so I have to write everything down. Seems to work very well if a bit slower than usual.

I agree with walking with scissors on the sign thing, sounds like it needs to be elaborated upon.

[rerant]

I had a friend who was both deaf and mute, and though I don't speak much sign language beyond "thank you", "hello", "you're welcome", and "platypus" we communicated perfectly without having to write things down. But then again he was very good with gestures, both understanding them and making gestures that would be easily understood by others, and could also read lips almost perfectly.

Because of this I always feel like I'll have an easy time trying to help deaf customers, and I usually do, but there are always those times where the conversation goes nowhere.

I had one woman who refused to communicate through written form. I don't know why, she ust wouldn't.
It confused me and frustrated the both of us.
I'll still never understand why us writing what we wanted to say was so out of the question for her.

[wynjara]

I had a friend who was both deaf and mute, and though I don't speak much sign language beyond "thank you", "hello", "you're welcome", and "platypus"

Platypus? I'd love to know how to sign that!

I had one woman who refused to communicate through written form.

Some of the Deaf people I know are self-conscious of their English skills. Maybe she was just shy or embarrassed.


And hey- learn some signing! It's fun and useful too!

[symposes]

Maybe she couldnt read either?

[Chanlin]

At the very worst learn to finger spell My mom is a special ED teacher so sign language was part of her degree and she taught me to finger spell at the least. Its slow unless you practice it every day, once you get it down its not hard to hold a conversation with someone. And finger spelling by far is a lot easier to learn then the whole of American(or wherever you may happen to be) Sign Language.

[AMDave]

My girlfriend's brother in law is deaf, and he has a deaf twin. They don't do well with written communication because they went to a deaf school and basically write like they talk, which is almost more Spanish like in grammer than English. I can understand a few signs of theirs when they talk to the girlfriend, but if i talk with the brothers, i usually have to write very basic sentences

[rerant]

Platypus? I'd love to know how to sign that!

Put one hand on top of the other, palms down, and move your thumbs in a circular motion.

Platypus.

For a hilarious use of the word see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixQ0Ych2uQU

[wynjara]

Put one hand on top of the other, palms down, and move your thumbs in a circular motion.

Platypus.

Interesting. That's how I sign sea turtle

(p.s. The video's cute!)

[simplyanother]

Also, our fabric stores sell ribbons by the yard and also by the roll. There's a set per-roll price that tends to be MUCH cheaper than it would be if the ribbon were sold bit by bit.

We do that too--but if the roll isn't new, then we have to unwind and measure the whole damned thing. fun fun.

It's even more fun when the by the yard ribbon is on sale.

scan bty barcode, input price, hit enter, hit discount, key amount, hit enter, key in reason number hit enter--- for every yard. And people buy many many yards of ribbon during that stupid sale. Which only seems to be about once a year. And they get pissy as hell when you have to start over, because they won't shut the hell up--and you've lost count. (And I MARK what I've counted....)

I wish the by the yard ribbon had two upcs on it, one for the whole roll, and one for each yard. It'd at least take out a couple of steps. AND then when it was onsale, it would ring up that way.

[LifeCarnie]

You can actually get a college certificate in American Sign Language.

I have a cousin who's deaf, so I learned to sign as a child. It's not that hard to learn and can be kind of fun if you make a game out of learning it.

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The fustrating part of dealing with deaf customers on the phone are the relay services that most of them use. It would help if relay services hired people who were skilled beyond barely competent in the art of relaying information.