Professional Deaf Australians

Tony: How does the business operate from different cities?

Noreen: Phillip Debs, the director of Pro Visual and I, use sms, video calls (both using mobile phones and the internet), instant messaging (like we are now), email and once, we even used the National Relay Service!

Tony: National Relay Service!? That’s ancient! [Laughter]

I first met Noreen High, who works as a Personal Assistant for Phillip Deb’s ProVisual, on Facebook. Our paths crossed via one of a mutual friend’s status updates.

Apparently, my sense of humour is clarion call to arms: check out this fellow. He is funny.

And so began a communication exchange that culminated in an interview.

Noreen, herself, is hearing.  As I mentioned previously, she works as PA for Phillip Debs, himself Deaf, who is the director of Provisual.

The interview was done in two takes, because the first one went hopelessly off track, due to mine own, lack of preparation. Sadly, in the editing process, some rather good anecdotes had to be dropped, nevertheless, the resulting interview is a rather interesting read, about a hearing person who has no qualms about working for a Deaf boss, or with Deaf people.

Her no nonsense attitude, is a wake up call, to people who still have issues when dealing with employees and professionals who are different.