How to make office work work with severe hearing loss

June 26, 2013: In the years since I experienced my sudden severe hearing loss, I've worked at home managing my own business as a marketing and communications consultant. All the phone work and meetings required of a communication consultant made it difficult at times. But with the assistance of several great business partners and some extremely accommodating long-term clients, I managed pretty well.

Last winter, though, an opportunity came my way to head up marketing for a startup company in the online video market. They had great technology and great people in a fast-growth market. I'd missed the camaraderie of work in an office, and I was ready to see if my daydreams about "going mainstream" again would be possible, especially given all the improvements in hearing aids and assistive technologies over the past few years. So I took the bait and joined.

Along the way, I took a lot of notes and learned some valuable lessons on what does and doesn't work in an office environment when you have severe hearing loss.

Adjusting to life in the office

Initially, I was concerned I'd have trouble adjusting to life in an office, especially because in the previous six months, after several years of relative stability, my hearing had worsened considerably. But I had new super-power hearing aids and assistive devices, which made one-on-one interactions and phone calls workable, and which made conference calls and group meetings a little easier. Plus the founders, board of directors and other team members understood my issues and were happy make accommodations for me.

For a while, things went well. Unfortunately, after a month on the job, it turned out my concerns were justified when my hearing dropped once again. I started having consistent trouble throughout the day, even with a lot of adjustments to the new hearing aids, and after a while I found it impossible to use the phone much of the time. After a few more months trying to make the situation work as well as I wanted it to, I finally threw in the towel and resigned. (Since then, my hearing has deteriorate further, so I'm taking the first steps toward getting a cochlear implant. But that story is for another day). I'd spent enough time on the job, however, to gain a lot of valuable experience coping with today's workplace.

Following are some pros and cons of going mainstream with serious hearing loss, along with some tips on how to succeed.

Pros:

1. People can be amazingly kind, generous and supportive. My colleagues at the company never once complained about any difficulties my hearing problems may have caused, even when I needed to reschedule calls that I was unable to hear, or when I asked them to repeat themselves until they were blue in the face. Instead, they asked a lot of questions about how best to communicate with me and about other ways they could help, and they were otherwise incredibly patient.
2. Co-workers and employers want you for what you have to offer, not in spite of what you can't offer. When I started, I worried about not being able to contribute enough. But my new colleagues told me that I brought a lot of unique experience to the challenges the company faced and that they were most interested in helping me apply my skills and knowledge. When my hearing problems made it hard to get certain jobs done (sales presentations over the phone, for instance), we found someone else to do it, allowing me to focus on the things I could do.
3. Colleagues will bend over backwards to help if you are clear about what your issues are. One important lesson: if you haven't gotten past the initial fear of your hearing loss being "discovered" and are in the habit of pretending it's not a problem, you may be in for trouble. People know something's wrong right away if you are having trouble hearing, and if you try to cover it up, it only confuses them or annoys them. It's even worse if you succeed in fooling them into thinking you know what's going on when you really don't. Instead, when you let people know you're having trouble tracking a conversation or following the flow of a meeting, your colleagues will take care to make sure you're caught up and on the same page as everyone else. There were a lot of meetings where I signaled I was lost, and either they stopped and caught me up or, if they didn't want to interrupt the flow, made a note to catch up on the points I missed after the meeting. I never once had a co-worker complain when I asked them to retrace their steps so I could fill in the blanks and catch up.
4. Hearing aids and assistive listening devices are getting better all the time. And videoconferencing is a godsend. Thank goodness for Skype and Go-to-Meeting. Videoconferences can be a godsend when you're hearing-impaired, allowing you to use your speech-reading skills. They are especially useful in one-on-one situations, but still helpful even in group videoconferences. Plus, I couldn't have done the job at all if I hadn't been fitted with a new pair of super-power hearing aids that received the signal from one phone into both ears at once. My hearing loss was such that neither ear on its own could reliably understand someone on the phone, but both ears working together often could. I had several ways of getting the sound in: I have a Hatis unit with two silhouette connectors that plugs into my phone or computer, and I also have a Bluetooth streamer that transmits from my cellphone directly into both hearing aids; I used both with a lot of success.
5. The ADA hasn't hurt, either. In the U.S., the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) made accommodations for people with all kinds of disabilities the norm. I never once had to stick up for my "rights" to be treated with respect and afforded the reasonable accommodations that would enable me to do my job. But if you need to educate any colleagues about how to deal with someone who has a disability, knowing that providing such accommodations is the law of the land is vastly reassuring. Anyone who wants to go back to work with hearing loss or any other disability should read up on their rights.

Cons:

1. The burden of proof is always on you. I was reminded daily of the old saying that hearing loss is the most "invisible" disability. People simply don't know you can't hear them unless you tell them. So don't assume that just because you've told people about your hearing loss that they will automatically know when you are having trouble. Often they simply don't know if or when you are missing something or falling behind. They will assume you are keeping up, UNLESS you let them know you aren't.
2. You have to over-communicate to get the help you need. Even when everyone understands that you may be having problems, you will be surprised at how much repetition is required to: a) be sure everyone knows how they can help you; and b) ensure that you actually did catch up with everything that was said. Therefore you must constantly over-communicate to be sure you haven't missed anything and to continue getting the help you need. It's not other peoples' job to check back in with you repeatedly; it's your job to check back in with them.
3. You have to do extra homework before and after meetings to keep up. Knowing last night's baseball (and basketball, and football and, in Boston, hockey) scores is a must if you want to have a clue about what is being said in the first five minutes of a meeting. One off-hand comment about something in the news the day before can either lose you completely or, if you pick up the cue to something you've already studied up on, put you right in the middle of the conversation. Needless to say, the same thing goes double for the topic of your business meeting. If you haven't gone over your notes in advance, you may well miss half of what's going on, whereas if you've studied up, you'll pick up on the buzzwords and other verbal cues on whatever topics are to be discussed, and you'll be less likely to get lost. Then, after the meeting, go over your notes, especially those stretches where you know you missed some of the conversation. Follow up with your colleagues and find out what you missed.
4. Fatigue is a huge and unavoidable issue.  All of the over-communicating and before-and-after prep is exhausting in its own right. Then there's the doubling of energy that's required to follow conversations in real time. I expected to be tired at the end of each day, but there were some days when I was completely depleted. So plan on making time for recovery. You simply won't be able to spend as much time on extracurriculars as you might want, because resting up is part of the job. And it takes time.
5. You have to accept the fact that there are some things you will never do as well or as easily as you did before your hearing loss. It's sad but true that there are things you won't be able to do. At times, when I tried to go into the same mode as in my pre-hearing-loss days -- for instance, running a group meeting where it was essential to get consensus from half a dozen people with varying opinions -- I realized I was simply not going to be successful. All you can do is take note of the things you can't do, find someone to step up to fill the gap, and focus your time and energy on the things you can do.

Tips:

1. Don't try to hide your hearing loss. Show off your hearing aids instead. If you've read this far, you know that hiding your hearing loss is a bad strategy. Instead, it's important to let everyone know how your hearing loss works, and how you cope. These days there's a lot of interest in how digital hearing aids work. When you tell people your hearing aids are a lot like your iPhone earbuds, but with a set of amplifiers programmed to your individual hearing profile, you get their interest. I've even had people ask me to take my hearing aids out to get a close look at them. It really disarms people who might be uncomfortable at first when you show them how a hearing aid works.
2. Take advantage of every assistive technology that's out there. The new wireless technologies, especially now that Bluetooth works with your hearing aids and cellphone better than ever before, are a godsend. Educate yourself about them and use them. They will really help.
3. Pace yourself, and carefully assess what you can't do. I used to feel like I had limitless energy, but coping with hearing loss in an eight or ten our day made me acutely aware of my limitations. Depleting yourself entirely too often can lead to other health consequences. So schedule periods of quiet time for yourself at work. Even if power-napping is discouraged at your job, ten minutes of quiet meditation at your desk instead of catching up on water cooler gossip can recharge you for an afternoon of stressful activities. When you get home, discipline yourself to take a walk or get some exercise. And if you're up for it, start meditating once a day. All these strategies can recharge your batteries far better than another cup of coffee.
4. Stand up for yourself when you have to. I had an extraordinarily supportive group of colleagues, plus I went in with a track record and a good understanding of how I could be of direct help even with my hearing loss. Other job situations might be far less easy to deal with. So while I never felt like I had to prove myself or "stand up for myself" in front of people who might have mistreated me, it's definitely something you need to be ready for. Know your rights to reasonable accommodations, and don't be afraid to be clear with people who aren't inclined to work with you on an equal footing. Speaking up for yourself will go a long way -- the days are long gone when "deaf" equaled mute or "dumb" in people's minds.
5. Do it all with a smile! My mother always said you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. When people see you manage a disability with patience, grace, poise, and a sense of humor, they tend to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you need to share the misery in your hearing loss – and everyone does occasionally – there are plenty of ways outside of work to do it. (Hello HLAA). At the workplace, you'll do better if you summon the energy to deal with your hearing issues in as positive a way as possible. Your colleagues will appreciate the effort, even if they don't always acknowledge it, and your life will be easier.

Even though my experiment in mainstreaming lasted only a short time, I came away from it convinced that doing full-time work in an office again would be possible for me if my hearing came back to the point where I could reliably use the phone again. I'm told that a cochlear implant these days is often good enough to give you a good shot at using the phone well enough for work, so I'm exploring that option. In the meantime, I learned a lot along the way that I'm putting to good use in other situations every day.