Something happened to me a coupe of weeks ago, that I feel I need to share. I was due to be on a Skype call and the IT powers that be decided that day that my Skype account was just not going to work. It's a fairly important meeting I have to be present for that involves a number of different agencies. Becoming frustrating with the platform I decided to dial into the call. Big mistake. Although, this particular meeting doesn't have video enabled, whenever a person is speaking, their little box lights up and I'm able to follow the conversation of who is taking.
Many of us have had to experience one of these calls over the past year, and I acknowledge they are a difficult situation to manage for anyone. That said, when I can access these through my laptop, I am able to use my headset which only has one earphone. This means that all of the sound is directed to my fully functioning ear. When I have to use my phone, I only have a standard set of headphones to use, meaning that I lose 50% of the focused volume. (As an aside, I first noticed what a difference this makes when listening to Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl through one headphone, half of the acoustics where missing as the song was recorded in stereo.)
The flow of the conversation was completely lost on me. I couldn't tell when a different speaker began to talk, not even being able to discern a different accent or tone of voice. I became more and more distressed, made my apologies and left the call. After I hung up, I burst into tears. This was the first time since I had lost my hearing that I felt a failure and unable to do my job. For the first time I felt truly disabled.
I am so fortunate to work with a team that are not only supportive of one another, but also have seen me through the trials and tribulations that I've been through since the genesis of my hearing loss. I'm a pretty open person when it comes to my emotions and I shared how I felt with the team. As ever, they can always be counted on to help me see things for what they are. My colleague explained to me that disability is not something that originates in an individual, but in the way society erects barriers to prevent participation. I had never thought of this way. Another colleague pointed me in the direction of The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) and their Fundamental Principles of Disability which states:
"In our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society."
This got me thinking, and to be honest, mad. I started looking into the different videocalling platforms and found the information on The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) website really helpful. However, considering the world as it, it make for pretty grim reading for anyone with hearing difficulties. Of the three used for professional meetings in my line of work, Microsoft Teams is by far the best. The closed captions are really easy to use and often make for interesting reading if someone has a strong accent, but they are no worse than subtitles on live TV. Zoom simply doesn't have the option of closed captions and rely on those on the call typing or enlisting an external service to do this for you. As for Skype (which I only have access to Skype for Business) it's a complicated affair and requires the meeting organiser to enable these (not to mention Skype for Business and regular Skype won't talk to each other, thank goodness is being disabled by Microsoft for their Teams platform later this year!).
All of this brought out the belligerence in me. The person I used to be a long time ago that a fire could be lit under by the smallest of things, only this time, it's not for nothing. I intend to put the question of accessibility on the table when agreeing to attend video/conference calls in the future. I will never again allow myself to feel like a failure, when it is the construct of society that is failing me and many others in the same boat.
x
Comments
Post a Comment