As a contract specialist at a Navy installation located in a rural area with a dearth of qualified interpreters, I’ve seen how the VRS influence on the supply-demand equation for qualified interpreting support has directly impact my ability to effectively communicate in the workplace. There are many impromptu business meetings that a contract specialist is supposed to attend. My management’s reaction to my communication barriers has been to reduce my career opportunities.

The local EEO office, which is responsible for procuring interpreting support, has just completely bungled the whole thing in their weak efforts to establish effective sign language interpreting services locally. After many years of refusing to hire even 1 onsite interpreter, they recently hired a local uncertified interpreter on a part-time basis as a stopgap measure to provide some level of interpreting support. However, they did NOT get the Deaf community’s input on this decision. This interpreter has a sufficient skillset to support training sessions and other monologue-type meetings, but I’ve found it more difficult to following discussion-oriented meetings when she interprets for me.

The EEO office claims they are attempting to recruit additional qualified interpreters, but won’t tell me how much they are willing to pay and whether they are willing to provide a relocation bonus to sufficiently incentivize highly qualified interpreters to apply for the job.

As jachocoteaja pointed out, interpreters are human. Despite the influence of VRS on the supply-demand market for interpreters, if a very competitive pay & benefits package is offered, I am convinced that there are highly qualiifed interpreters in other areas who would be interested in earning an above-average salary in a relatively lower-cost area working a stable full-time job.

There are 11 other Deafies that work on this installation. 3 of them have filed EEO complaints against it as a result of poor interpreting support.

As others here have alluded, there are other alternative means to facilitate communication, but the question is whether or not they are EFFECTIVE. CART service is something I’ve used in the past, but it has a series of limitations that render in-person communication awkward and does not convey tone and emotion, which are important elements in the business of negotiating multi-million dollar contracts.

Others have suggested VRI, but the problem I’ve found with that are: (1) It can only be used where there is a VTC unit in a room. My meetings could be anywhere at anytime, and frequently are held in places without VTC units; and (2) VRI interpreters often have difficulty identifying who the speakers are, so I end up losing the conversation flow, which then prevents me from properly understanding the dynamics of the issues being discussed.

It gets frustrating as I have to display animosity towards my employer for not doing all that they can to hire qualified interpreters. The frustration is building as I see my younger colleagues be given more challenging projects that involve significant communication. I hope my EEO complaint will, in due time, result in my employer doing the right thing. Otherwise, the whole EEO process will have been a vain exercise and a sham.

However, in spite of this fact, if given a choice, I would actually prefer to use sign language interpreters rather than CART services. Why? I feel more comfortable with using interpreters. I like the human interaction that I feel with using an interpreter. I like feeling that I have more “control” over my communication needs when I am using an interpreter - I can ask the interpreter to use more ASL or more English syntax; I can ask the interpreter to fingerspell words as needed; I can ask that things be repeated for clarification; I can ask the interpreter to move around the room if necessary or point out speakers or whatever; I can choose to use my voice or not use my voice as I so desire. I just feel that I can get more “personal attention” that focuses on meeting my specific needs at the moment better with an interpreter than I do with CART services.

This isn’t to say that I don’t or won’t use CART services - I have and I will. But I don’t believe that CART should just be viewed as the “alternative solution” when interpreting services are not available.

As to the problems in regards to the shortage of qualified interpreters in the Freelancing Community to meet the needs of Deaf Consumers - while there is no question that VRS services are making a dent in that availability, is this really the CAUSE of that shortage, or merely a symptom of a problem that exists in the interpreting profession that we have not been addressing?

Scott points out some of the benefits to VRS interpreting and why it would be appealing to many - the higher salaries, flexible hours, educational and training opportunities, and valuable experience.

This leads me to ask…if similar benefits were available to interpreters working within the community, would they stay in that field?

Even before VRS came along, as a Deaf Professional holding positions that involved - amongst other responsibilities - the coordination of interpreting services, I myself often had to struggle to find interpreters to fill the need. Many free-lance interpreters I knew ended up taking full-time jobs working in the schools/colleges, Commissions, agencies for the Deaf, etc. and thus their availability was considerably limited. Why did they do this? Reasons included the need for benefits, a steady paycheck, paid vacation/sick leave, etc. etc.

In addition, many of them stated the challenges of being self-employed in a profession that is often misunderstood and sometimes maligned both within the Deaf/Interpreting Community and the community in general led them to look for other options. One gets tired of having to constantly justify hourly fees, gather all the necessary information needed in order to accept and carry out an assignment, chase after overdue reimbursements, maintain exact records for tax purposes, and so forth. And even if you work for an Interpreting Agency which takes care of some of these issues for you, there can still be “politics” involved with such - wondering if you’re getting paid what you are really worth, if you’re really getting the jobs that you qualified and desiring to do, etc. etc.

Under such circumstances, can it be all that surprising that more and more interpreters are seeing VRS interpreting as an appealing alternative to the “freelancing headaches?”

I don’t know if in fact my analysis is correct…and I also would like to hear from the Interpreting Community itself on this issue.

But I do agree it is a problem that needs to be addressed…

by all of us (Deaf Community, Interpreting Community, VRS Providers, Service Consumers both Deaf and Hearing, etc.) working together.

I guess that the DeafDC.com blogs did not get heavy online traffic lately which the recent blogs are not posted on the DeafRead.com so far.

Let’s see and what will happen after regularly insert the DeafDC new blog postings on the DeafRead.com.

Why not experiment with the vlogcasts on the DeafDC.com?

Robert L. Mason (RLM)

Dear NAD Member:

We are all aware of the shortage of interpreters. The NAD is concerned about this issue and so when we were asked to “spread the word” about a survey that would clearly define this shortage, we agreed to send out the message below asking our members to take the short survey. The NAD strongly encourages you to participate in this on-line needs assessment survey being conducted by the federally funded National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers.

The purpose of this survey is to begin to quantify the national interpreter shortage. This survey will provide data on the demand for interpreters; a similar survey is being conducted among members of the Registry of Interpreters of the Deaf(RID) to provide data on the supply of interpreters.

The survey only takes 10 minutes and we ask that you to complete it by April 6, 2007. You may already have completed the on-line survey or may have completed a paper version. If so, we thank you for your participation. Please do not complete another survey.

The link to the survey is:
http://www.zoomerang.com/surve.....5RVTNWUX3.

Thank you for your willingness to participate in this survey.

While CART and the Ubi-Duo are neat devices that are ideal for some specific situations, they may not meet Scott’s needs. He needs to seamlessly interact with other hearing people at a large corporation during meetings and other interpersonal events. The two alternate solutions can’t convey the charm or confidence of a deaf person, especially one who does not speak. I would expect hearing people to persuade deaf people to accept the “next best thing”, not fellow deaf people.

Could there be some truth to what one person said to Scott, that deaf people don’t care for the reasons stated in his blog?

Want a long term solution? Commoditize (Oooh, such a 4-letter word!) ASL interpreters. That means more and more interpreters need to enter the field and saturate the job market. Prices stabilize, and viola… There’s the community interpreting pool waiting to be tapped at prices the mainstream market can absorb.

But back to the current state of affairs; VRI services need to be on the upswing. A lot of places are now equipped with high speed internet, and increasingly, a lot more computers are equipped with built-in cameras. When this kind of technology truly saturates mainstream America, VRI services could take off and help bridge Deaf members into their respective communities everywhere.

I highly doubt that interpreters would leave the lucrative field of VRS interpreting for the low-salaried field of community interpreting, no matter how rich the intangle rewards inherent in community interpreting would bring to its participants. I just can’t see that working.