Archives for March 2005

This introductory article originally appeared at i711.com.

I’ve been part of the Deaf community for 30 years. If I also include my family’s years within the Deaf community, then it’s nearly 250 years of the “Deaf experience” that I’ve been raised with.

However, my family’s experiences are quite diverse. My mother didn’t learn sign language until she was 17, and attended public schools with no support services until she transferred to a deaf school as a junior. My dad attended a deaf school for his entire life, and was raised using American Sign Language. My stepdad attended an oral deaf school until junior high, then transferred to a deaf school where he learned ASL and met my mom. I attended public school for most of my education, other than a year at a deaf school, and have been signing since I was six months old. I also have many other deaf relatives, most who attended deaf schools with some public schooling thrown into the mix.

Each and every one of us has vastly different careers and lives. And of course, there are my hearing relatives who have lived with the Deaf community by way of my parents or extended relatives. Needless to say, I’ve seen quite a bit within the Deaf community, both firsthand and through my family’s eyes.

PL 94-142 was passed on my first birthday. The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed when I was in high school, enforced when I was in college. I remember life before TTYs (we were too poor to own a TTY until I was five years old), before closed captions, before relay services, before e-mail, and before everything else that I use daily today. It never ceases to amaze me to see how much the Deaf community has evolved over the decades – yet has managed to remain so much the same. And this is precisely why I never will tire of writing about my rich culture and community, its nuances and pitfalls, and its amazing traits.

I’ve been writing since I was 12, but it wasn’t until I was 14 when I wrote my first article about being Deaf: “The Day in the Life of a Hearing Impaired [sic] Student.” The article was a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at what it was like to be a Deaf student at a public high school, and the stereotypes that I had to put up with being in a hearing environment. The most recent article I wrote was about having to put up with the stereotype of being a poor tipper simply because I’m Deaf. See? I told you not much has changed over the years.

For as long as I’ve been writing about the Deaf community, I’ve had the luxury of meeting so many people with so many stories to tell. They’re folks from all walks of life, of all ages, and of all communication choices. Each of us have had shared experiences, whether it be the experience of being discriminated against, celebrating our diversity, being brought together by a common language and culture, or simply being humans.

It is those people and their experiences that I choose to honor through my writings. There’s also another reason I keep on writing about the Deaf community: there are simply too many issues or stories that need to be shared. I hope you will enjoy reading my thoughts and stories as much as I enjoy writing them.

Copyrighted material. This article can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the written consent of the author.

Okay, so it’s happening again. I have a Sidekick 2, and last month I had to suffer (really!) through a two-week network outage. When I called T-Mobile back then, they said it was a “network issue” and that they had no idea of when it would be back up. I asked for a credit and was given $5.00, which is equivalent to five days worth of service.

On Saturday, I got my bill and saw that the credit hadn’t been applied, so I decided to call on Monday (today) to check on this. Guess what? As I write this, my pager is down, again, this time for more than 24 hours and counting. A fellow Sidekick user called T-Mobile this morning and was told that it was a “global issue.” Even more reason to call T-Mobile, right?

Right. So I called T-Mobile today. I was snootily told that because there was no record of my having called last month, they would be unable to issue me credit for the two-week outage. What? They do admit to having the outage, right? So why can’t they just, in good faith, issue me the credit because they did have the outage? Nope. No record of my having requested it, so no go. “Although we’d be happy to issue you a $5.00 credit for the current outage,” customer service representative Erica said.

As I was talking with Erica, I looked through the envelope that my bill came in, and found a colorful, glossy flyer-type newsletter. On the newsletter, T-Mobile proudly announces, “It’s all because of you! T-Mobile recently won the J.D. Power and Associates award for ‘Highest Ranked Wireless Customer Service Performance.’ Thank you for your support!” Oh, goodness.

We all know how much we rely upon pagers, especially in times of emergencies. God forbid we become stranded in a car accident, natural disaster, or at the airport because a pager that we pay at least $29.99 a month for isn’t working reliably. I live in a rural area of Minnesota, and depend heavily upon this pager to keep in touch with people; the nearest hospital is 12 miles away. Besides I rely on my pager for work – with it, I’m able to receive work e-mail and be an efficient businesswoman.

What if our electricity or television went out for two weeks? I doubt we’d have to call and beg for credit, because the company would probably grant us an apology/explanation letter, along with credit. So why do I have to do this with T-Mobile when they freely admit they’re having a network outage – again?

I decided to ask Adrian, Erica’s supervisor, where I could complain about the service. After some hesitation, and saying that there was only a fax number (funny, I found a mailing address on the T-Mobile website), he gave me the fax number for customer relations at (813) 353-6545. Let’s see if they care or do anything about the letter I faxed in. Maybe other Sidekick users, too, can fax them their frustrations. The fax number, again, is (813) 353-6545. Or if you’d like to mail a letter, the address is at:

T-Mobile Customer Relations
PO Box 37380
Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380

It’s only fair that we receive the quality service that we pay for.

UPDATE!
I got a response from T-Mobile in the form of a letter. What surprised me was the comment, “We would like to remind you that per the T-Mobile terms and conditions we do not guarantee coverage.” Yikes. Then what am I paying for? Hmm.

I personally think this was a snotty response. But hey, they gave everyone a $20 credit for the trouble. I checked my billing statement on T-Mobile’s website, and after originally being told that the “billing feature” was unavailable. But guess what? It appears I have a balance of $10.00 credit – meaning I owe nothing for this month. We’ll see if the final bill says the same. I have zero trust in T-Mobile.

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