Deaf To Reason, Part 15
I’m hard of hearing and have pretty specialised hearing aids as a result. One morning, I wake up and find that they didn’t charge overnight, and for whatever reason, they won’t connect with the charger or the companion app on my phone.
I have work that day, and you can’t reasonably work in retail stone deaf — at least, not in my store. I go digging around and find the bone-conduction headphones I sometimes wear at the gym and power them on. With a full battery, they’ll last a shift, no bother. Android’s built-in sound amplification service seems to be doing the trick and is working okay with them. It’s not perfect, but it will do.
I head into work early and chat with my manager, explaining the situation and asking for a temporary exemption to the “no phones or headphones on the shop floor” rule so I can do my job.
He agrees, casually congratulating me on finding a workaround, whilst I wait to hear from my audiologist about getting replacement hearing aids.
About halfway through my shift, I’m stacking shelves, and I don’t notice an older man practically sneak up behind me. As I turn around to open the next pallet of stock, I spot him glaring at me.
Me: “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t notice you there. How can I help?”
Customer: “Maybe you’d be more [inaudible] useful if you weren’t [inaudible] music [inaudible]…”
Me: “Sorry! Again! I’m actually hard of hearing.”
I tap the headset I have on.
Me: “I’m using my headphones to help hear properly whilst I wait for my hearing aids to get fixed. Could you possibly speak a little slower, and louder? They’re not perfect.”
Customer: “[Inaudible] lying [inaudible]!”
His scowl narrows, and I slide my phone out of my pocket to adjust the amplification level so I might actually be able to hear him properly.
Suddenly, the man lashes forward and grabs my phone out of my hand, dropping it to the ground and driving his heel into the display.
It smashes, my headphones complain about losing their connection, and my world is cast into near-total silence.
It isn’t hard to see that he’s yelling at me, though, and my limited ability to lip-read isn’t even needed to see that he’s screaming some very unpleasant things.
He slowly advances on me, gesturing at my destroyed phone, at me, and at my headphones. We’re gathering a small crowd, and I’m fumbling for the panic button on my store radio as he backs me into the shelf, once again reaching for my headphones. I bat his arm out of the way and scream, “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
I’m not 100% sure what happens next. I have some kind of panic response, and the next time I am actually aware of anything, I am sitting in the staff room with my destroyed phone on the table in front of me and a police officer sitting across from me.
As it turns out, the man noticed the crowd and decided that he could try and twist my attempt at self-defense into an unprovoked attack. He took a dive after I knocked his hands out of the way and started crying out that I’d hit him. A bystander called the police, and I am now being accused of assaulting this man.
I write a statement to the best of my ability with my shaking hand and then am told to stay put whilst the police speak to the manager.
It feels like an eternity, just staring at my smashed phone, occasionally prodding the power button to see if I can at least get it to power back up and connect to my headphones, but nothing.
My manager comes into the room and hands me his phone, which is unlocked. I pair my headphones to it and turn on the amplification mode. I can hear again.
Manager: “What the f*** happened out there?”
Me: “I… don’t remember clearly… I was having trouble hearing that man, so I took my phone out of my pocket to try and turn the volume up. He grabbed it and smashed it, and then he started yelling at me and grabbing at me. I think I… knocked his hands away from me, but I don’t remember much after that.”
My manager smiles.
Manager: “Fortunately, that’s exactly what the CCTV shows, as well. The police officers wanted me to let you know that they’re charging him with assault and destruction of property. You did nothing wrong.”
He offered for me to take some time off. I took him up on his offer, but that week turned into two weeks, and then a month. I can’t really face going back to that environment, and I’m trying to find a nice, quiet office job.
Related:
Deaf To Reason, Part 14
Deaf To Reason, Part 13
Deaf To Reason, Part 12
Deaf To Reason, Part 11
Deaf To Reason, Part 10
