This takes the last blog one step further, but it isn’t the same issue. The last one was about participation in the room. This one is about what happens when information is constantly passed to a Deaf person after the moment has already happened.
I have heard some version of this many times throughout my life and work.
“I’ll tell you later.”
Usually, the person means well. A conversation is happening quickly. Something comes up in the hallway. People are laughing about something. A decision is being discussed. Rather than stopping everything, someone looks at the Deaf person and says they’ll explain it later.
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they forget.
And sometimes they come back later and give you a short version of a conversation that lasted ten minutes.
That’s not the same experience.
This happens in workplaces more than people probably realize. A few coworkers are talking before a meeting starts and an idea comes up. Someone shares information while walking back to their desk. A manager mentions something casually over lunch. People start discussing a problem, and by the time the formal meeting happens, half the group already knows the background.
Then the Deaf employee gets the final information.
What is often missing is everything that happened around it.
Who raised the concern? Why did people disagree? What ideas were considered? Who made the decision? Was someone joking? Was there tension? Did someone volunteer for something? Was there an opportunity to contribute before the decision was made?
Those details matter.
They are also part of how workplace relationships are built.
This is something hearing people may not notice because so much information comes naturally through sound. You overhear something from the next desk. You hear people talking while making coffee. You catch a comment while everyone is packing up after a meeting. Nobody formally gave you that information. You simply received it because you were there.
For Deaf people, being physically there doesn’t always mean having access to those same moments.
And constantly being told later puts us in a different position.
We become the person receiving the summary instead of being part of the conversation that created it.
There is also something else that happens when this becomes normal. Other people begin deciding what information we need to know. Someone listens to a conversation and later chooses which parts are important enough to tell us.
That’s a lot of power to give someone else.
I don’t need every conversation stopped because I’m Deaf. That’s not what I’m asking for. But workplaces do need to recognize how much important information happens outside formal meetings and think about how communication flows through their organization.
Sometimes inclusion is as simple as moving the conversation somewhere everyone can participate. Sometimes it means sending the information to the whole team instead of relying on word of mouth. Sometimes it means realizing that if a decision affects someone, they should be part of the conversation before the decision is made.
Because telling someone what happened afterward isn’t the same as including them while it was happening.
And there is a big difference between being kept informed and having a voice.
