It's About the Consumer!

Scott Marshall supports the University of Minnesota's Interpreting/Captioning Unit as the unit's manager: 14 interpreters, 4 captioners, and 2 schedulers.
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Day-to-day details can make our jobs about us but often times I find myself needing to re-focus. Each of us does our work for different reasons: for money, for recognition, for the variety, for the satisfaction. In the end the work we do is about our consumers. It’s easy to lose track of this, for me, anyway…

(And before anyone gets REALLY upset that I’m blowing off our rights as employees to have lives, to do our work and go home, etc., please know that I’m not. When several people in a month have expressed concern that work expectations are mere hoops, I think it’s time to rethink/reframe a few things.)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."
-- Aristotle

Of course we need to have our needs met too – don’t get me wrong. But not maintaining a rigorous sense of excellence doesn’t impact our needs nearly as much as it impacts our consumers’ needs. We as service providers can afford not to strive for excellence – if our priorities are ourselves. We as service providers are in a privileged position in that sense. In fact, if you’ve never thought about this, you're experiencing a kind of privilege that Allan Johnson, in his book, Privilege, Power, and Difference, calls “the luxury of obliviousness” (p. 75). Basically the idea is this: people with privilege can afford not to consider their privilege.

It’s not about us
I’ve recently had conversations with people in our unit about their work habits: punctuality, availability, skill development, etc. In each conversation the person asks me some form of this question: “What do you want from me?”

I often jump to a thought in my head that I’m not proud of: “I want you to do your job.” (Dang that’s hard to put out there.) Thoughts that come to mind: be on time, work while you're on work time, improve your skills – all of these details are sometimes my first reaction. (Also not easy to admit.) Why isn’t my first reaction something akin to, “What do you want from you?” or “What do you think the consumer wants from you?” or “How do you think your actions contribute to our mission’s sense of excellence?”

I need to re-focus.

Then of course comes the rejoinder. And since I’ve inkled enough to set us off down the path of defensiveness and details, it’s full of resignation: “I’ll jump through your hoops if that’s what you need me to do.”

It’s all so conceited.

It’s about the consumer
Work expectations exist so the work we are committed to gets done. In for-profit business, the bottom line might be money or it might be widgets (productivity). For us, the bottom line is different – in fact, it’s not really our bottom line at all. “Our” bottom line is consumers’ access to the opportunities that the rest of us (privileged people) take for granted. Here in ICU, our bottom line is our mission – it’s how well we’re meeting the consumer’s needs.

So here are some questions/ideas I’m thinking about as a result of these conversations and my reflection on them:

• Imagine your work from the consumer perspective, what does your work look like?
o Your service provision
o Your punctuality
o Your improvement or lack thereof
o Your self-awareness
o Your willingness to do better
• Who gets to define all of these things? Why?
• Who should define these things?
Oppression happens at the intersection of power and privilege. As service providers, we often find ourselves at that intersection. What we do when we’re there is critical…for the consumer.

As hearing service providers, we have privilege that our consumers do not. We use that privilege sometimes intentionally, sometimes unwittingly both to benefit and to oppress our consumers:
• Do we prep?
• Are we on-time for assignments?
• Do we assert our needs as professionals?
• Are we lackadaisical about workplace work rules?
• Do we care?
• Do we think we’re the victim of a bad supervisor?
• Do we accept or shirk responsibility?

One of the keys here for me is the distinction between intentionally and unwittingly. I know I need to be more aware of how I’m thinking about the work I (we) do in this unit. And I need to be more reflective and self-aware of my “unwittinglies”. This month I’ve had good intentions in the accountability department but my approach has been less than intentional/aware.

I’ll do better. Will you?

Interpreters Skills

Does your college offer or employs some kind of skill techniques/cross training that improves the interpreting level of your pool of interpreters? If so, what are they and how do you implement them?