Martin's Story
Martin was a young clerical assistant of 21 working in London in a taxation office for Inland Revenue when he was struck down by meningitis. Although left totally deaf, he recovered quickly due partly to his family's no-nonsense approach to coping with adversity and his natural flair for lipreading, and was soon back at work, benefiting from the fact that his job did not require use of the telephone.
Over the next 20 years Martin carved out a successful career as a computer programmer and analyst and then a manager of computer contracts and staff first as a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and then in the private sector, and is now working for ICL on a large contract for a London local authority.
Martin feels that he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The rapid expansion of computer skills in the 1980s gave him a unique opportunity to develop a new career within the Civil Service in a field not dependent on the spoken word. Then the exodus of most of his fellow programmers to jobs in the private sector left him in pole position to take charge of the DTI's PC-based computer systems in London and later to be headhunted by the commercial consultancy that took over the operation of those systems for the DTI.
But Martin's success also owes much to his determination and self-reliance (much of his computer expertise is self-taught) and his skills as a deaf manager in controlling communication with hearing staff and customers.
Martin has succeeded in his work without the help of hearing aids or a cochlear implant. The failure of a single- channel implant in 1988 has deterred him from applying for the more recently developed multichannel implant. However he is now reconsidering the possibility of having a multi-channel implant on the recommendation of deafened friends who are satisfied with their implants.
Martin left school after he got his "A" levels but with no clear idea about what he wanted to do with his life. He joined the Civil Service as a clerical assistant in a local taxation office in Manchester and two or three years later applied for a transfer to London. At this stage his main interest was popular music; his idea in moving to London was to get closer to the music scene and perhaps to form a band in which he could play his guitar.
Then at the age of 21, when he had been working in a taxation office in London for just six months, he was struck down by meningitis. He lay in bed in a coma for two days at the hostel where he was living before a cleaner raised the alarm. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition and isolated for two weeks.
By the end of the two weeks Martin had recovered from the meningitis; but it left him totally deaf, with loud and persistent tinnitus in both ears, and with serious problems of balance, which at first made it almost impossible for him to stand upright or walk. He was well looked after in hospital; but the extent of his deafness was not recognised. A senior nurse wrote him a message "You will be able to learn sign language and a hearing aid may help". In fact, the little hearing which he had detected in his right ear had vanished completely by the time he left hospital, and it was then obvious that a hearing aid would be useless.
After six weeks in hospital he returned to his family home in Manchester. He remained there for the next three months.
Coming to terms with his deafness
At first Martin was shell-shocked by what had happened to him; but gradually he recovered his balance (except in the dark) and began to adjust to his deafness.
His mother contacted Manchester Social Services to see if Martin could have a travel pass. The social services staff mentioned the possibility of lipreading tuition, and a lipreading teacher visited. However she found that Martin was already good at lipreading and did not need tuition. (In fact, Martin discovered that he had a natural flair for lipreading; he regards this as an important factor in helping him to overcome his deafness).
So instead of giving him tuition, the lipreading teacher introduced him to another young deafened person, Keith, whom he got to know well. Meeting someone of his own age and from a similar background to his own who had learnt to cope with the problems of becoming deaf as an adult was another important factor that encouraged him to believe that he could cope, too.
A further strong influence on Martin was his mother's attitude to coping with adversity. As a child he had been brought up to believe that when things went wrong the only thing to do was "to get on with it" and make the best of things without complaining. He automatically adopted this approach to his deafness with the full support of his mother and the rest of the family.
Towards the end of his convalescence in Manchester and just before he returned to work in London, Martin went for a two-week residential rehabilitation course at the LINK Centre in Eastbourne. The aim of the course was to help recently deafened people accept their deafness and gain confidence by sharing their problems with other deafened people. Martin felt that he certainly benefited from meeting other deafened people at that stage and got some useful information and good advice, which helped him with his lipreading.
Returning to work for Inland Revenue
Martin was fortunate in having the Civil Service as his employer. He would have received full pay for the first six months after he contracted meningitis, although, in fact, he was back at work within four months. He was also fortunate in that his job as clerical assistant was largely paper based and did not require much oral communication. Other staff could take telephone messages so that this was not an essential part of his job. There was therefore no obstacle to him returning to his previous kind of work despite his deafness.
So Martin returned to work for Inland Revenue at another taxation office in the centre of London. His job was the same as that of other staff in the office except that he did not have to answer the telephone. He found that he could cope with the job easily, but a few of his colleagues were impossible to lipread; so he asked them to write down what they wanted to say.
Developing his career in the Civil Service
Martin soon got bored with this job and applied for promotion to the next grade of Clerical Officer. He passed the Civil Service exam to become a Clerical Officer and was transferred to the DTI to take charge of its Post Room. In this new job he had to supervise the work of several Clerical Assistants. He made clear to them all at the outset that he was totally deaf and trained them to speak clearly and a little more slowly than usual so that he could understand them. He ran the Post Room satisfactorily on this basis for the next three years.
By now Martin was 25 and looking for advancement in the Civil Service "to get a decent income". He got interested in computers. Working with computers offered several advantages in the Civil Service at that time. First, staff with computer skills were scarce in the 1980s, well paid and highly valued. Secondly, it was possible to achieve promotion to the next grade (Executive Officer) by passing an aptitude test for computer work. Thirdly, Martin knew that working with computers was something he could do despite his deafness.
Martin passed the aptitude test and joined a team of computer analysts and programmers in DTI's main office. His pay was increased by a special IT allowance to the level of the next higher grade of Higher Executive Officer.
However, he received little formal training for his new job. To a large extent he taught himself computing from manuals and software tutorials although he did get help from more experienced colleagues when he needed it. As soon as he was reasonably proficient he became involved in developing bespoke personal computer systems for different parts of the DTI. He had now found work that he really enjoyed.
He always encouraged users to write down their computer requirements as fully as possible; but in addition in order to discuss their requirements he had to interview - and therefore to lipread - a wide range of staff in different sections, and at different seniority levels, of the DTI. However, once he had explained that he was deaf and the simple rules of how to communicate with him effectively, he rarely had any trouble in establishing their computer requirements accurately.
Furthermore, many of his colleagues in the computer team used their training and experience to get much better paid jobs in the private sector; so after seven or eight years in the team Martin had unrivalled expertise in the DTI's Personal Computer (PC) based systems and was regarded as a technical guru.
He saw the opportunity for promotion to the next grade (Higher Executive Officer) and put forward the case for a new post of senior programmer to provide more effective supervision of the team's work. Martin's case for the post was accepted, and he went before a panel to be considered for promotion.
He found the interview more difficult to cope with than he had expected and failed at the first attempt; but he was allowed to do the job of senior programmer on temporary promotion. He was then given a second chance to appear before the promotion panel. He prepared for this interview more carefully and arranged through the Access to Work programme to have a lipspeaker present at the interview to make sure that he understood all the questions. This time he succeeded; so at the age of 30 he was a fully-fledged Higher Executive Officer in charge of eight programmers who between them were responsible for the maintenance and technical development of all the DTI's PC based systems in the London area.
Over the next three to four years Martin used his own initiative to consolidate and develop his skills as a deaf manager. First, by adopting a positive and systematic approach to the team's work he encouraged effective communication between all members of the team and himself. Secondly, he set the agenda for one-to-one discussions with team members so that he was well prepared for the subjects to be discussed. Thirdly, at team meetings he insisted that people speak one at a time, looking directly at him even if they were responding to points raised by another member of the team. If Martin had to answer a telephone call, he often arranged for another member of the team to answer the phone, repeating to him what was being said and then relaying his reply to the caller. During this period he also started to use Typetalk, which he found useful in allowing him more direct contact with his colleagues and customers. By using these techniques Martin stayed on top of the job.
Four years after his promotion to become senior programmer, the DTI decided to outsource its computer operations. Martin was involved in devising the contract for the bid to ensure that the confidentiality of sensitive DTI information was protected. He was also involved in an in-house bid for the contract, which, however, he guessed was doomed to fail.
During detailed discussions of the transfer of information about DTI programmes to the private company which won the contract the company's representatives showed an interest in recruiting Martin to work on the contract. Martin applied and was interviewed, first by the company's technical experts and then by a senior manager. Once again he arranged through the Access to Work scheme to have a lipspeaker present for both interviews.
At the first interview he was asked detailed technical questions which tested his understanding of the structure and processes involved in the DTI programmes. Martin was very familiar with all aspects of the programmes and found most of the questions easy to answer.
The second interview with the senior manager lasted two hours; but at an early stage in the interview Martin gained the impression that he had, in fact, already been accepted and that the purpose of the interview was really to explain to him how the company was organised and run.
Martin was recruited to the company as an Analyst/Programmer together with only one other member of the previous DTI team. He no longer had charge of a team but worked exclusively on the DTI contract for PC based systems as one of four analyst/programmers; but after the first year the DTI decided to update and standardise its computer systems and programmes. This generated a great deal of extra work; soon there were 10 consultants working on the DTI contract for PC based systems.
As a result of this rapid expansion, the team leader for this contract needed help to supervise and co-ordinate all the work on the contract. Martin became effectively a deputy team leader to provide this support, although he remained on the same salary as before. In addition he contributed to the biannual staff appraisals of all the consultants working on the contract.
Promotion to senior management
A year later the Project Manager asked for a move to a different set of contracts; Martin was her natural successor. Martin's appointment as team leader at the age of 36 was a significant promotion within the company leading to a substantial increase in salary and additional benefits such as a company car. In his new post Martin also took on responsibility for other projects besides the DTI contract.
Consequently, apart from managing a large team of analysts/programmers, he now had responsibility for developing good relations with the firm's customers on the contracts assigned to him. He normally planned for system review meetings with customers to take place about once a month so that he could arrange in advance through the Access to Work scheme for a lipspeaker to be present for that day. Having a lipspeaker for the meetings was a boon, not only to himself but also to his customers. Knowing that there was a lipspeaker there to repeat what they said freed his customers from any anxiety about being understood.
Changing jobs in the private sector
After four years as team manager Martin saw that the firm was receiving fewer new contracts than before and that staff and managers who had no current contracts were being allocated to a "bench" where they had to wait, virtually unemployed, for several months before being given a new contract to work on or perhaps being made redundant. So Martin seized the opportunity to move to ICL to do a personal performance job as an analyst on a large contract for a London local authority. He was still working on this contract when we were last in contact.
Martin's reflections on his career so far
Looking back to the course which his career has followed since he lost his hearing, Martin considers that in many ways his deafness has been his salvation: it has supplied the motivation which he previously lacked to make something of his life. Deprived by his deafness of the chance to become a musician, he was forced to examine how he could use his work in the Civil Service to better himself, and his interest in computers provided an ideal avenue for advancement.
He stresses that he worked very hard over many years to achieve his position as team leader in a leading firm of computer analysts and programmers. He found that job extremely demanding. In particular the concentration required for lipreading his colleagues placed a considerable strain on him on top of the normal day-to-day pressures of managing complex computer projects. This often left him feeling exhausted at the end of the working day.
Nevertheless, he is satisfied that he proved in that job his capability to manage staff and to deliver substantial contracts in a competitive, commercial environment, and that this track record helped him to secure his current job with ICL. Although he feels that it is too early to assess his progress in his current job, he welcomes the chance he has now to update his technical skills without the added responsibilities of management.
Martin also considers that it is important that throughout his career he has taken part in a variety of social activities both within work and outside it. Although sometimes he finds it difficult to develop the rapport with other people which is natural for a hearing person he believes that his colleagues have usually responded to him as a positive, outgoing person. He has always been seen as a "team player" and has made several good friends at work.
Deciding whether to have a cochlear implant
Martin's progress in employment has been achieved without the help of hearing aids or a cochlear implant. Four years after he lost his hearing he first read about the potential of a new single channel cochlear implant to restore some degree of hearing. Initially he was wary of undergoing the operation in case wearing the external apparatus connected to the implant might undermine his confidence and detract from his achievements in lipreading; but he was reassured by the experience of two fellow members of the National Association of Deafened People (NADP) who had single-channel implants and were pleased with them. He agreed have his suitability for the operation tested. When this was confirmed he was operated on for a single-channel implant.
However, when the implant was switched on, all Martin could hear was a crackling noise which made no sense to him. Although the sound processor was reprogrammed, the sounds produced by the implant never became intelligible. On the other hand using the implant gave him a persistent headache. After four months' trial he stopped using it.
Until recently Martin has fought shy of having a second operation for an implant, despite the subsequent development of the much more sophisticated 22-channel implant; but, now that several deafened friends have had multi-channel implants and are satisfied with them, he is reconsidering whether to apply for one.