Archived What's avail?

[martinez]

I'm a deaf worker at Target. I was wondering what available resources that are available while working (or something I can request from my Store Leader) . Such as walkie you can read the message on, or communicating via MyDevice, etc. Currently the way I communicate while working is via text. One of my past TL requested a walkie where you can read texts from someone else who's speaking on their walkie... but I don't know what happened since that TL left our store.

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

I don't believe there is any such thing.

 

[ClearanceMaster]

They can assign tasks to you on redwire on the mydevice. You could grab a device each day and log in and leave comments if you want to have them look into that. I've never had a fellow deaf tm so I've never heard of any equipment that might be available.

 

[martinez]

Okay thank you! Didn't know of redwire so I'll talk about that with my TL and see if we can go off of that.

 

[commiecorvus]

I'll talk to the head of the Deaf Team at DVR where I work and see if she know of anything like that.

 

[Asuras]

We had a deaf and mute team member years ago. Worked in the store for years. He communicated with sign language to those that could understand. Otherwise it was a guessing game or wrote stuff out on paper. He was never given anything special and was treat like any other team member (which was I felt was weird but I guess it worked?). When a guess asked him a question, he would just grab a near by team member. He stocked our dairy department (Super Target).

 

[commiecorvus]

We had a deaf and mute team member years ago. Worked in the store for years. He communicated with sign language to those that could understand. Otherwise it was a guessing game or wrote stuff out on paper. He was never given anything special and was treat like any other team member (which was I felt was weird but I guess it worked?). When a guess asked him a question, he would just grab a near by team member. He stocked our dairy department (Super Target).

Don't take this wrong but mute is an outdated word.
Nobody uses it anymore.
Some deaf people can speak, some can't, some just choose not to.
The guessing game you are talking about is communication and it comes in all kinds of forms.
Writing on paper, using a phone to type out a message, or having a walkie that turns the spoken message into text, isn't 'special' they are just tools that deaf people use every day.
And of course he was treated like everyone else, why wouldn't he be?

 

[mrknownothing]

We have a regular at my other job who is deaf and doesn't speak. Whenever he needs help, we communicate with him via writing, but we often have a great deal of difficulty figuring out exactly what he wants to do.

And of course he was treated like everyone else, why wouldn't he be?

OP was probably expecting the store to have special accommodations for said TM in order to reduce the impact of communication barriers (since, well, he couldn't use the walkie).

 

[LadyCynide]

Don't take this wrong but mute is an outdated word.
Nobody uses it anymore.
Some deaf people can speak, some can't, some just choose not to.
The guessing game you are talking about is communication and it comes in all kinds of forms.
Writing on paper, using a phone to type out a message, or having a walkie that turns the spoken message into text, isn't 'special' they are just tools that deaf people use every day.
And of course he was treated like everyone else, why wouldn't he be?

Do people really not use mute anymore? My cousin works with Soecial Needs kids, and there are definitely a category considered mute, mainly because they CAN'T talk. Everyone I know still uses that term, but maybe it's regional?

 

[buliSBI]

I knew of one older TM that was classified as almost deaf. She worked only as a cashier and had a sign telling guests she had a hearing problem, and something on her name badge???

Then there were some other TMs that worked just Flow that were deaf. They could read lips. But had no accomedations made.

 

[commiecorvus]

Do people really not use mute anymore? My cousin works with Soecial Needs kids, and there are definitely a category considered mute, mainly because they CAN'T talk. Everyone I know still uses that term, but maybe it's regional?

It's certainly better than the older term dumb but I guess it comes from work in the system.
There are so many degrees of verbalization that very few people are totally mute and the few that are make the category moot.

 

[redeye58]

So mute is moot....sorry, couldn't resist.

Mute was replaced with 'non-verbal' some years back.
Several types of descriptors have been changed over the years &, while most are attributed to 'being more sensitive' (why not? we're talking about people, not lower life-forms), much of it is accuracy & fine-tuning of abilities.
People with autism who had scatter skills (some well above the norm in contrast with others below norm) were described as 'idiot savants', later shortened to savant skills before it was dropped altogether.

 

[martinez]

The word, "mute", is not considered appropriate anymore in the Deaf community. Meaning they no longer use that word, and they rather use Deaf, or Hard of Hearing. Personally, I don't mind, but I am one of the very few that does not mind it. No worries though, not many know about the Deaf community and what fits best in our culture. Everyone has their own culture and others may not know much about it. It's a learning process for everyone else.

I work two positions at Target currently, primary is LOG and secondary is hardlines. No problem in LOG unless we have these huddles when I wouldn't be able to catch most of what they're talking about. As for hardlines, I've had many guests coming to me for help, and it's a 50/50 success. Half of the time I'm able to read lips and help without any problem, (or I'll indicate that I'm deaf and the guest is OK with it), or I turn to a nearest TM for better help if I am unable to understand the guests' needs, or I see that the guest is frustrated with me. I wear a cochlear implant but that does not fix the problem 100%. It only helps me to hear and recognize SOME sounds/words. The reason I ask for such assistance is because I feel it's a bit unprofessional that I'm standing on the floor on my phone texting one of my SrTL or TL or even the Store Lead, and guests may take it as I'm not doing my job and leave negative comments or leave the store upset that their local store TM is "slacking off", when that is not the case. I doubt I'm stepping down anytime soon, TL's are often "fighting" over me whether to keep me in LOG or hardlines for the day during my shift. So I take that I'm doing my job well.

Hopefully there is something that Target provides for Deaf members.

If not, I'll just have to stick with texting them.

 

[On6]

I would definitely speak to your HR about what is available. While we haven't had any deaf employees at the stores I've worked at, we have had blind employees, along with other disabilities. Our HR went out of her way to provide them with every option that was available.

Hopefully your HR will do the same.

 

[redeye58]

Thanks for the clarification, @martinez.
We have several deaf TMs in our ON; another TM is fluent in ASL.

 

[martinez]

Thank you so much for the advice and suggestions, I really appreciate it.

 

[RetailWorld]

Get Siri onto your mydevice.

Tell Siri to create a note with whatever you say

Show that note to the team member.

Communication achieved!

 

[martinez]

Get Siri onto your mydevice.

Tell Siri to create a note with whatever you say

Show that note to the team member.

Communication achieved!

I don't speak that well. Even if I do speak somewhat decent, it doesn't really achieve the communication necessarily. I could be on the floor one day, and a guest comes to me for help. I don't see any TM or TL nearby. The guest wants me to pull something from the back- normally one will pull out their walkie and talk to the backroom member to pull an item; when I would have to run to the backroom and look for a backroom TM, and if I don't see a TM, I'll have to take the time to text with whoever TL's number I have on my phone and wait a few mins for their response. Run back to the floor and apologize for making the guest wait, then run back to the backroom to see if a TM pops up. This is one example of many. Thanks for trying though.

 

[redeye58]

I think it's for the TM to 'say' & create a note for you...?

 

[commiecorvus]

Sorry I took so long to get back on this, the counselors were at a TBI training.
There is tech that will change voice to text and vice versa but that would mean that Spot would have to upgrade all the walkies in the store to ones that cost considerably more which I don't see happening.
Other stores that have faced this issue have set up dedicated partners for the deaf person to communicate with and they know to watch out for texts from that person.
JC Penny has a number of deaf staff working on the pricing team and that's how they handle it.

 

[seewhatididthere]

I'm not sure what kind of phone you have, but if you have iPhone you can turn on text-to-speech, and go into your notes, write what you want to say, and the phone will read it out loud for you. This could potentially work with a walkie as well, just hold the walkie up to the speaker of your phone. Also I'm pretty certain there's several text-to-speech apps on both the App Store and Google Play Store.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

He wouldn't hear the walkie response. He also wouldn't hear if he would be cutting off someone already speaking on the walkie. It's a great tool for communicating with guests tho.

 

[JustJoe]

We had a couple of deaf TMs working backroom day. They had walkies set to run on channel 4 and vibrate. We wouldn't use 4 unless it was an emergency and when their walkies vibrated they knew something was up. "Reasonable accommodation" would include having an interpreter available to them for reviews and disciplinary actions. CODA Brothers FaceTime Interpreting is an example of something you might be able to use in such situations. One of our deaf TMs had an iPhone and frequently was facetiming with others on her breaks.

 

[martinez]

Thank you everyone for your reply and advice, especially @commiecorvus . I really appreciate the help.