People unclear on the concept

I get by, at work as at home, with a little help from my friends. A lot of that help comes from a few key people who have to intercept most of my communication.

One of them is our Office Coordinator, the brilliant and gracious "Adelina". A native of the former Yugoslavia, she is one of the most competent and patient people I have ever know. She handles the phones in our office and once I was no longer able to use them, she adapted quickly. (She had to. You must remember, this happened in a matter of days. There are still colleagues of mine who don't know I've gone deaf six months later who call asking for me. In the weeks immediately following, she'd be taking six, seven, eight calls a day for me.)

We conferred and agreed that she would stick to a pretty basic script so she wouldn't have to treat every call as a new problem. "ronnie", she would explain, "has had a sudden, profound" (that word tends to convey the seriousness of it - most people understand 'profoundly deaf') "hearing loss. She isn't able to use the telephone anymore. If you like, I can give you her email address and you can email her any message. Or I can take your email address and have her contact you. If that isn't convenient, please give me the message and I will give it to her and we will have someone call you back with what you need."

And that's worked quite well so far. Until today, when she got a call from a particularly flighty academic who I work with occasionally and usually correspond with via email. I like academics, I do. I had hoped to be one, once upon a time. But I don't think they operate in the real world. Case in point:

(Telephone rings)

Adelina: [Standard office greeting]

Academic: This is [name] calling from [university]. I need to talk to "ronnie" right away. It's very important.

Adelina: "ronnie" has had sudden, profound hearing loss. She isn't able to use the telephone anymore. If you like, I can give you her email address and you can email her a message. Or I can take your email address and have her contact you. If that isn't convenient, please give me the message and I will give it to her and we will have someone call you back with what you need.

Academic: You don't understand. I need to talk to her now! Is she there?

Adelina: M'am, she can't use the phone anymore. She had a total hearing loss in June.

Academic: [Heavy, exasperated sigh which Adelina mimed beautifully for me.] YOU DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND. IT'S IMPORTANT!

Adelina: You don't seem to understand, M'am. She's deaf. I mean, deaf like... door or... rock, or, you know, like brick.

(I love Adelina's European accent. And sense of humour.)

I also had another colleague record a new message for my extension voicemail. It says, roughly:

"Hello, you have reached [number], the telephone of "ronnie", [my title] at [my workplace]. "ronnie" had a sudden, profound hearing loss in June of 2004. She isn't able to use the telephone anymore at all. If you would like to email her, please do so at ronnie@workaddress.ca. That's r-o-n-n-i-e-at-w-o-r-k-a-d-d-r-e-s-s-dot-c-a. If you would rather leave a message at the main desk, please call [main desk number]. She will respond to your call as soon as she can. Thank you."

I get approximately four messages a week which blithely ignore this entire spiel.

Thank goodness I have coworkers who will do things like sit down with me once a week and go through my phone messages so I can accommodate those who have been rendered numb to phone messages... or are ordering deli sandwiches while they're playing... or something.

ronnie