Unfiltered Story #208008

(I worked for an eye doctor close to the Navajo Reservation. Many of the elderly Navajo grew up speaking Navajo and did not learn English until they were adults. (In fact, even my boyfriend at the time did not begin to learn English until kindergarten) as a result my customers often had a unique accent. One day I had and older man, who was very soft spoken with a heavy Navajo accent.
I respond to all of his questions in the same volume that he is speaking at. At the end of the eyeglass fitting, he stops and tells me thank you for not yelling at him! This broke my heart. He told me that because he speaks quietly and English isn’t his first language, most people end up speaking very loudly at him and it hurts his ears due to damage from when he served in WWII.
He was so grateful to me and also never complained about my own, heavily Southern accent that at times made it hard for him to understand what I was saying.
The point is, just because some is elderly or doesn’t speak English flawlessly doesn’t mean you have to yell to be understood.