You’re having a day… you overslept, spilled your coffee, misplaced your keys, and got a parking ticket.  Lovely. Then, the clouds start to part; you go into a business and receive amazing customer service. The staff is dreamy, makes eye contact, smiles at you, knows some signs and you leave feeling a million times better. All of a sudden the day is looking better and the world is a more deaf-friendly place.

We’ve all been there. It’s the eyeroll. Or the exasperated sigh. Or the way they walk away and laugh while pointing at you with another co-worker. Maybe it’s even the outright refusal to serve you or provide you with accommodations. However you experience your deaf-challenged moment, it never feels good. Your stomach churns. Your break out into cold sweat. You can feel that rage start to simmer.

One of the most disempowering moments we experience as Deaf consumers is when we face relinquishing control over interpreters to those who don’t know our needs, are driven by corporate profits, and serving personal interests. It requires a leap of faith, every time when we request an interpreter at an unfamiliar doctor’s office or agency, in hopes they know how to secure an interpreter, that they use a reputable agency, and that the agency in turn uses qualified interpreters that fit our particular needs.