People Don't Listen to Me

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I have a paralyzed vocal cord so my voice is quiet and raspy. People, older people with poor hearing especially, are forever asking me to repeat myself. When I talk to my boss I have so say literally everything twice. What really drives me crazy is when people appear to just blatantly not listen to me. Today for instance, I was organizing paperwork and a coworker asked me for a specific form to check that some information was on it. I knew it was, and told her so. She said nothing, so I gave her the form, thinking she wanted to look at the rest of it. She looked at it and said, "Oh, it's already on there." It was quiet in the room and I said it directly to her in what I thought was a normal volume, so I don't see why she wouldn't have heard me. I get so frustrated with people who don't listen or make an effort to hear me just because I'm quieter than most.

Some WWII pilots had a throat microphone so they could use their radios without using their hands. Today a headset microphone might be used as a sort of reverse hearing aid by attaching to to an amplifier that might be worn on a belt.

There might be problems with feedback. but it could be interesting if you were to crank it up so that your voice could not be ignored.

A less technological solution might be to carry a pad of paper and a pencil and communicate through writing. This also might be a way not to be ignored.

There was an episode of the TV show Taxi once where a man was explaining his longevity with the company. He said there were people who knew what he looked like and people who knew his name, but no one knew both. Being ignored or overlooked is not always a bad thing.

I like the writing idea, I already have a mini whiteboard of sorts that I carry with me to write on when I can't talk, perhaps I'll start using it more regularly.