There’s No Need to Shout

I find out from the audiologist that I need hearing aids

Transcript

I found out today that I need hearing aids. No, it’s not because of my two tours of duty in Afghanistan where I once got a little to close to an IED that exploded far enough way not to kill me, but close enough to do permanent damage to my ears. And it’s not because I am at the apex of my career as an international pianist, travelling the world and focusing on Beethoven recitals, especially the notorious Opus 6, the Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, and now in a kind of romantic symmetry the celestial powers that sway the universe have decided that deafness should be my plight as well. No. None of these. I’m just getting older, and the performance of my ears, just as the performance of some of my other organs (don’t ask), is degrading.

It was the first time I’d ever had or needed a hearing test. We sat at a table afterwards and she pulled up a chart on her computer screen with the results. She explained things clearly and I asked questions, but I’m glad that even before we sat down she said clearly, and I heard it, “Yes, you need hearing aids.” During the discussion and the questions, she said I scored nearly 100% in one aspect of the test, but the nearly symmetrical y-axes were both below the “normal” section of the chart. One axis was red and one was blue, and overall it looked like something my inept financial advisor might show me to illustrate that the investments he had recommended in Malaysian cryptocurrency and silicone building foundations in earthquake zones, (ahem), didn’t quite pan out.

Hearing aids are a product just like any other product in the sense that you can purchase ones with different levels of quality and features. There is basic, premium, and super premium. The basic is what you might imagine. A little plastic cashew-shaped device behind your ears and a small wire that wraps around and gets partially inserted into the ear (not too far). The idea with the basic one as with the others is to increase the volume of the sound that you want to hear, and at the same time cut down on unwanted background noise. I used one of those while in the testing office and it worked nicely. When the audiologist made the mistake of thinking that I was worried about the price of even the basic model—I’m not, because my health care plan with my former employer will cover 80% of the cost—she suggested what she called the “sub-basic,” and reached under the desk to demonstrate what she was talking about. It was basically a megaphone, the idea being that you carry it around with you in a case like a French horn on your back, and when the need arises for clarity and increased volume in conversation, you take it out and point it in the direction of the person talking to you. They speak down the big end of course, and then you hear kind of a cavernous sound, but one that has more volume nonetheless, and so you can talk to your coffee companion, although a bit awkwardly what with the logistics. Some coffee places have taken to prohibiting them or limiting their use to just a couple of tables, because too many Americanos have been tipped over, and too many scones have gone flying at the convergence of the server arriving and the person turning their head at just the exact time to hit the plate.

I clarified with the audiologist that I would not need the sub-basic plan. I thanked her for explaining the basic plan, and she then continued with information about the premium plan. It would be inappropriate for no-pun-intended and using-a-cliché reasons to describe this device as having a few more bells and whistles. Like the basic model, it can be operated either with a button on the device itself, or by using an app on your phone, but the premium model has more buttons, as well as a TV mode where you can have the sound go directly to the hearing aids instead of into the cavern of the living room. There are also some extra features involving charging: with basic, you have to keep the charger plugged in the whole time; with premium, it can give three charges before requiring plugging in again.

The super expensive one though, as you might guess, is the super premium. These are hearing aids with an extra “e,” that is “A-I-D-E-S.” The audiologist acknowledged that this was an experimental service that they were testing not only for affordability on the part of the client, but also for how much it improves the user experience. The aid is not a little thing you put in your ear, but an actual aide, A-I-D-E, a real person who accompanies you. The idea and rationale behind this kind of executive service are that it avoids technical equipment altogether. No need for a plastic thing in your ear. No need for charging things up. The aide is a person who accompanies you everywhere, is a good, intent listener, very detail-oriented, who discreetly repeats anything that has been said that you didn’t quite catch. No more asking your family and friends to repeat things. No more guiltily admitting that you didn’t quite catch what someone just said. The value of the service really shines when you’re in a situation where, say, people are scattered around a room, and not a focused, face-to-face one-on-one conversation. Sometimes the people will be talking to others and you can be doomscrolling on your phone, and suddenly they perk up and ask you something. You have no context. You have no lips to read. You may be so engaged in the latest Trump flub that you completely do not hear what is said to you because your attention has shifted.

Step in, Super Aide. They position themselves in a strategic corner or nook of the room, discreet, so that they blend into it just like furniture. But when the crucial question comes to you from behind, they move with the swiftness of a Secret Service agent and whisper the words directly in your ear. In many circumstances, they are able to make things even less noticeable by texting you. The text setting is set to override everything else on your phone and just like that you see the question from a second ago displayed right in front of you, clearly written in a large font size. The technology is context- and environment-dependent, and much depends on the focus of the aide and the quickness of their action. The worst ones, the ones who ultimately are fired or who go back to the company for more training, are those who lag by anything longer than 3.2 seconds. Research has shown that it is 0.5 seconds after this elapsed time that the person asking you the question will tend to re-ask, or look puzzled, or just repeat your name because they are assuming that you must not have heard what they said. Wayne? … Fully 87% of the aides have had to return for training to be able to perform at the 3.2-second benchmark. But the good news is that virtually all of them who do get additional training are able to continue in the program.

I wasn’t considering this Super Aide program anyway, because I value privacy and solitude too much, but in any case the entire program was cancelled even before I received the Premium ones that I had signed up for. It was a scandal in the media, all media, serious, social, and corrupt, and the meme producers certainly had their fun. The senior manager in charge of the Super Aide program took bribes in order to develop unofficial different flavours of the program. Perhaps flavours is not the best word here: let’s say something generic, like types. Basically someone realized that if a Super Aide was going to provide comprehensive service, then they should live with the person too, in a spare room perhaps, or on a small twin bed in the case of clients who wanted the services but lacked the full financial means to pay for it. So you can do the math. A 66-year-old man has a 20-something Super Aide sleeping just metres away, and it didn’t take long for the bribe to be paid to the senior manager, and within a week the client could choose among the Massage program, the Missionary program, the My-Wife-Won’t-Do-This-Anymore program, and the Porn Star Experience for those with money to burn.

I’m just happy that I can hear better.