What would you have done?
or, Another bizarre work story
We're open later at the moment, festival oblige, and today it was my turn to man the first floor once nearly everyone else had left. It was relatively quiet, and at one point this girl, maybe in her late teens, came up to the counter, indicated that she was dumb (possibly deaf as well) and could she have some paper and something to write with?
I promptly handed her a piece of till roll and a pen, whereupon she wrote the following:
Me can't find
DVD pron
My immediate thought was either she's dyslexic or there's a film called Pron which I've never heard of; on the spur of the moment I didn't know which one was less likely (before you ask, her P looked nothing like a T so Tron was out too). I'd already wondered, as she finished writing the first line, whether her use of the word "me" was a sign of poor education or a learning disability and with the best will in the world, I could not bring myself to ask the question uppermost in my mind. So I went to the computer and got it to search for any entries including the words pron and dvd. Nothing.
Result: I motioned her over to the computer, asked her to confirm I had spelled pron correctly (she nodded) and explained there was nothing coming up. It wasn't a satisfactory way to end things, but how do you set about asking someone (anyone) if they're looking for porn?
We're open later at the moment, festival oblige, and today it was my turn to man the first floor once nearly everyone else had left. It was relatively quiet, and at one point this girl, maybe in her late teens, came up to the counter, indicated that she was dumb (possibly deaf as well) and could she have some paper and something to write with?
I promptly handed her a piece of till roll and a pen, whereupon she wrote the following:
Me can't find
DVD pron
My immediate thought was either she's dyslexic or there's a film called Pron which I've never heard of; on the spur of the moment I didn't know which one was less likely (before you ask, her P looked nothing like a T so Tron was out too). I'd already wondered, as she finished writing the first line, whether her use of the word "me" was a sign of poor education or a learning disability and with the best will in the world, I could not bring myself to ask the question uppermost in my mind. So I went to the computer and got it to search for any entries including the words pron and dvd. Nothing.
Result: I motioned her over to the computer, asked her to confirm I had spelled pron correctly (she nodded) and explained there was nothing coming up. It wasn't a satisfactory way to end things, but how do you set about asking someone (anyone) if they're looking for porn?
posted by Anthony at
23:07
7 Comments:
Sorry, I should have mentioned I wasn't in the classical department at the time, but stuck in DVD for the last two hours of my shift, so it's unlikely she meant the Proms. This was a blond caucasian, could have been from anywhere.
We do have panic buttons, but wanting pron is not a criminal offence!
By
Anthony, at 17/8/05 13:29
people are using pr0n on their websites to avoid hits on "porn" searches ... maybe she was looking for porn.
Or maybe she was just totally illiterate and looking for something on shrimp?
By
bob, at 17/8/05 16:33
Well, do you have a porn section? I mean, you could have showed her "Buttsluts IV: The Second Cumming" or something just to test her reaction.
By
Andy, at 17/8/05 19:43
Bob: first of all, welcome, and second, shrimp? If that's not a Buffy throwback, I don't know what is ...
Andy: course we've got a porn section, but she really didn't look the type. Besides, Buttsluts IV's been discontinued, its status has been officially raised to collector's item.
By
Anthony, at 17/8/05 22:21
I was pretty heavily involved in the deaf community in the US for about ten years. During the course of my work, I dealt with the education system quite a bit, and teaching English spelling and grammar is a particullary difficult issue. It's quite possible that she was indeed looking for porn. I have no idea how one would broach that subject though...
By
Matthew, at 18/8/05 18:05
Thank you, Matthew! I'm glad someone else agrees it wouldn't be evident to raise the matter ...
By
Anthony, at 18/8/05 21:56
There is a somewhat obscure dictionary for sign language professionals on this subject.
Signs for sexuality: A resource manual for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, their families, and professionals
However, it wouldn't be very helpful for two reasons. #1, there isn't actually a sign for "porn" you just fingerspell it. #2, American and British sign languages are completely incompatible, despite the great similarities in the spoken languages. In particular, the finger spelling techniques are TOTALLY different. Not even close. I consider this one of the little ironies of this particular field. I have no idea if there is such a dictionary for BSL.
Now that I think about it a little more, you could possibly mix the signs for sex and DVD... Maybe that would get the job done. Even so, Andy probably has the best suggestion.
I guess this is just one of the little perks of working in the music department. No confused deaf people looking for porn... =)
By
Matthew, at 19/8/05 06:49
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