So I was working as a bakery clerk today and something happened that made me really upset.

I have cochlear implants and while in-face communication is fine, I still having a hard time hearing on the phones to take cake orders.

So apparently while I was in the back doing dishes and trash, a customer tried to call for a cake order but hung up. The CSM came over to the bakery and made a comment along the lines of “You shouldn’t be working back here if you can’t hear on the phone.” Which really hurt my feelings, so I talked to the SM. What he said was basically that the CSM was factually correct and that I shouldn’t be alone in the bakery if that’s the case. But that’s such shit because I can do literally everything else. It’s just the phone giving me a problem. And all of what the SM said basically made me feel incompetent.

I know that it is a disability that is covered by the ADA. What can Publix do to cover this? Can they (or I) provide a phone that live captions or has TTY or a headphone jack so I can connect the landline to a device that streams to my processors? I have been closing fine the past two weeks except for the phone and I have been getting help from the deli with those. I just don’t want to have to move my shift all around just because I can’t do one part of the job.