It was close to my turn in the Subway sandwich line and there were 2 servers taking the order of the customer before me. I started to notice one of the server, who had his head held low and had no eye contact with the customer but was extremely nimbly packing the order.

“Hey miss, what ingredients? He can’t hear.” said the main server pointing to his colleague that caught my attention.

As usual, I pointed out and named the ingredients I wanted. The main server repeated my order by pointing the ingredients I wanted to the other server, and he gave the “ok” sign, letting both of us know that he got the order.

This was my first encounter witnessing someone deaf working at such a customer facing job and it left me wondering how I could engage with him more directly if I got to interact with him again…

Perhaps I could list the ingredients on my phone, or write it on a piece of paper and show it to him. Would he feel more engaged and seen? Given his situation, he would really thrive in taking digital orders but that would mean that he would never get to engage with customers… These are the questions and thoughts that ran through my mind…

Nonetheless, it was very heart-warming seeing someone with a disability at work and it made me want to go back and engage with the server once more.

Observations (1) Personal (1)