The Deaf Project-Shopping-#1

The Deaf Project

By Kelly and Danni

Feb. 17, 2012

Nervous, but excited, Danni and I entered our first of four stops we would make for our Deaf Project last night. The Kitchen Collection store in Centralia, WA is located in the outlet store section of town. Our mission was to see how Deaf consumers would be treated personally by fellow shoppers and professionally by business personnel. It was a very interesting experience to say the least.

We began by casually browsing the aprons where I found a cute one and asked Danni if I could buy it for her for her birthday the next day. We joked about the fact that her husband does the cooking in their home and then proceeded down the aisles of the store one by one. In each aisle, we found several things over which to chat and investigate. Then, suddenly ~ a female store clerk approached from the back end of the aisle asking sweetly if we were finding everything ok. I truly appreciate good customer service; having worked in the industry and just in general as a consumer. This made it even more difficult to basically ignore her until she walked close enough for me to spot her in my peripheral vision. I paid her the quick courtesy of a returned glance, making eye contact,  and tapped Danni on the shoulder to get her to direct her attention to the clerk as well. We told her (signed in ASL) that we were Deaf, and it seemed to take her by surprise as she gasped, “I’m sorry!” and hurriedly backed away, turning and disappearing quickly. It appeared to us that she avoided the sales floor altogether after that and kept herself busy with other customers and stock in the front.

While checking out unique egg and hot dog cooking machines; and can I just add that signing about them was challenging and fun, Danni and I noticed what we thought was purposeful avoidance by other customers as well. They started to enter the aisle we were in and abruptly changed their path to the next one. Perhaps our signing made them nervous that we may try to communicate with them. Maybe, we were just being sensitive ~ as Deaf tend to be.

Enter store clerk, Mike. He was a bright young man, tall with dark curly hair and a friendly smile.  We never noticed if the female clerk told him of her experience with us or not; but he approached us and simultaneously signed “ok” while asking verbally if we were finding everything ok. What a relief! We met his gaze and smiled and returned his greeting with “yes and thank you.”

I was genuinely interested in purchasing new oven mitts, and after checking out the different varieties they had in 3 separate areas of the store, I decided the “Ove Glove” was too expensive and the design I liked best was not available in purple… at least not on the display floor. I liked it best because the thumb was on the bottom and was easier to use than the ones with thumbs on the side. Danni went to ask Mike if they had purple in the stock room. He obviously knew very little ASL, but was sincerely trying to communicate both with crude signs and verbally. He must have thought we could read lips well; but there are mixed reviews on lip reading. http://lipreadingtranslation.com/faq.htm    I asked Danni if she thought I should get the kind I liked, only in green, or look elsewhere for that same type in purple. She thought they might be cheaper elsewhere and so in the end, I decided not to purchase any oven mitts.

When we checked out, Mike rang up my purchases. With the purchase of a towel, I was supposed to get a free washcloth, but had brought the wrong one to the register. We used that opportunity to teach Mike how to sign “free.” He seemed enthusiastic to learn. Danni then asked him where he had learned to sign and he said his ex-girlfriend worked for McDonald’s. We aren’t sure what that meant exactly; but after showing him how to sign “girl” and “friend” it seemed time to thank him and leave. He was never bothered by our communication differences and didn’t avoid eye contact nor did he limit our conversation in any way. In fact, he even told me by pointing and signing numbers, that I was entitled to a 10% military discount on my purchase. He then signed the total to me when he could have just pointed to the screen. Very impressive! Great guy! Great experience!

Our second stop was the aforementioned McDonald’s restaurant drive-thru where we expected to be handed a picture menu. When we pulled forward to the window, Danni told the young male worker we were Deaf. He said, “ooooh!” and quickly handed us a pencil and piece of slippery register tape to write on. It is not easy to write on but she managed to order a medium French fry and an ice cream cone. Sadly, this employee either did not know to use a picture menu or was too flustered to remember. Next time maybe we will just hand the paper and pencil back and try to ask for the picture menu or just sign our order. There was only a thank you at the pick-up window. Not a bad experience, but not as fulfilling as it could have been.

Next we went to the Burger King where we thought the Deaf coffee event was to be held. No Deaf people were there. We chatted for awhile and used the bathroom before deciding the event must have been cancelled or that we had received the wrong information.

Our last stop for the night was the Safeway grocery store. As we crossed the street we saw a police car pull out of the parking lot with it’s lights on. After we parked, we noticed fire trucks and rescue vehicles also heading toward the freeway. Must be an accident we thought and so we decided maybe we would take the back roads home. Once inside the store, we located the breadsticks we were looking for, but they only had one variety, not three like usual. There was no one around to ask about the other varieties. Oh well, that can happen to anyone.

We checked out the magazines while waiting in line at the register. Finally it was our turn. The clerk, whose name was also Mike, made eye contact and smiled at us. He never tried to speak to us. He must have seen us signing about the magazines and was not going to try the lip reading theory, or just felt it was not necessary to communicate beyond friendliness and good service. I felt he respected us and figured we knew where to look for our total and how to use the card machine. I appreciated that respect. As he handed us the receipt, he did sign thank you to us and smiled again. 

Overall, our experience was a good one. We received great customer service and would recommend these establishments highly. We could have improved our experience by not using the pencil and paper at McDonald’s and by creating more reasons to ask for different things at Safeway; but it can be so frustrating that sometimes the Deaf tend to not inquire.

Note to ASL students; if you try this type of project for yourself, remember that you should not snap your fingers to get the attention of one another, you should not have your car radio on at a drive-thru (unless you have Hearing passengers), your phone should be on vibrate (and you should probably not answer verbally), and when you hear things like clerks talking, or things that get dropped, or emergency sirens… DO NOT TURN YOUR HEAD TO THE SOUND! Lessons learned.

Thank you and we hope this project has been as insightful for you as it was for us. We plan to do more of the same so keep checking back. Please feel free to leave positive encouraging comments and any suggestions you may have for future deaf projects.