Asl Id “the Video Relay Call”

Carla Rodgers

ASL102

Kelsey Gilstrap

16DEC2015

ASL ID “The Video Relay Call”

The video relay call was an interesting experience, to say the least. Obviously, it wasn’t like any other phone call I’ve made. I’ve used skype, I’ve used talk to text, I’ve used a video chat messaging system, but none could compare to this call. In all those other types of experiences, the person I was talking to was the person I intended to be talking to. In the video relay call, I was talking to someone that had to ‘relay’ my message to the person I wanted to have the conversation with. Such a huge level of trust needs to be given to this person, that I’ve never met, to communicate my message.

Initially I called, and thankfully, I got voice mail. I wasn’t ready to have a conversation with my professor in the first place! This wasn’t entirely out of the normal from leaving a voicemail on someone else’s regular phone. The only difference was, that instead of a machine telling me to leave a message, there was someone on the line, asking me if I wanted to leave a video message. That seemed a little strange, but I spoke my message, hung up, and it was over with. The next day, I had to make an attempt to call again, so that I could truly experience what a video relay call was all about. When you use a regular phone, you dial, listen to a ringing noise until the person you are calling picks up. Using video relay was different from the very beginning. It started with someone saying they were going to connect me, then waiting in silence until my teacher answered the call. Initially, I was nervous to have a conversation, and at this point, it had nothing to do with the fact that I was using video relay, I hate talking on the phone in general. Then it became slightly uncomfortable as I spoke, and had to wait, not only for the interpreter to sign what I was saying, but then wait for a response, and tell it back to me. So it seemed what would have been a 5 minute...