I work in a dialysis clinic which can get a little noisy at times and I have noticed that I am slightly hard of hearing. I am not hard of hearing in a debilitating way but if I am next to a machine, my back is turned, and you aren’t yelling, I won’t hear you properly. Twice I have accidentally offended this one particular coworker and I feel bad that I have. The first time she said something, I didn’t hear, and I responded VERY POLITELY with “what’s that?” to let her know I didn’t hear whatever it was that she said. She responded in a very angry tone, “oh my God Kelly, I hate that word. It makes my skin crawl!” The second time I completely forgot that she hates that word, she said something I couldn’t hear, and very politely again I said “what’s that?” to let her know I didn’t hear what she said. I forgot, sue me. She responded even angrier than the last time and said “Kelly I hate that word, it’s so ugly and I don’t understand why all you white people say it so much.” Ok, I’m sorry I forgot but racism was not necessary. I didn’t want to cause a scene so I just apologized. So I have 2 questions: 1. Why is the word “what” so offensive to her? I could see if I said it with an irritated tone like “WHAT?!!!” but that hasn’t been the case. 2. What can I do when I accidentally say it again to let her know I’m not trying to be offensive, but I can’t hear sometimes and lots of people who can’t hear respond with “what?” when they don’t hear. Thank you Reddit, I honestly don’t want to cause drama and maybe if I have some insight on why this shakes her core to the point of racism I’ll be more careful around her. Thank you. :)
Submitted October 28, 2018 at 01:11AM by KellOHell https://ift.tt/2D6gjY0
