Perhaps one of the largest problems with being a voca user, in my opinion, is getting people to understand you. That is to say, getting people to realise that what you are typing into your machine is a coherent message which you want a person to respond to. Many a time I have, say, rolled into a shop, tapped a request onto my lightwriter, only to be stared at blankly, or, worse, seen the assistant turn to another customer and say ‘what does he want?’

This really does get me annoyed. By and large, most people ‘get it’: they realise that my hands are pressing buttons on my lightwriter to produce a message, and respond accordingly. Everyone at university realised it intuitively, but some people – mostly but not wholly old women – seem to refuse to accept I can make coherent sentences. Vocas are wonderful thing, but they can only work if people realise their function, so to speak. No matter how many times I repeat or retype my message in different ways, some people seem to be unable to accept my intelligence, and so ignore my lightwriter.

Joking aside, this could be a major problem, and one that needs to be taken up elsewhere. I believe people in the public sector should be introduced to the concept of vocas; what if I had to talk to a police man and was equally banked? As I say, most people seem to cope with my lightwriter without a problem, but questions remain over what if they don’t. I believe this problem should be raised elsewhere, but I’m posting about it here first before taking it further.

I hope you all understand.