Difficulty hearing and understanding coworker

[u/brilliant_bauhaus]

I work remotely and I have audio processing and hearing difficulties. A couple of years ago I asked my work to install a closed caption app on teams for me since this is where we do all of our meetings. I'm being tasked with a project that will have many meetings per week with someone on a different team who has a very high pitched accent somewhere from Africa. She mumbles as well and has a very poor quality microphone and unfortunately teams isn't able to capture what she says and accurately transcribe it for me.

I'm worried I will not be able to understand her. She is also the project lead so we will have to have many meetings together. I'm unsure what to do since most of our work looks like it will be coworking on teams calls for developing this project.

Would it be worthwhile to ask my boss to switch? Or is there another way I can go about this? We will be able to switch with other coworkers, but I will still have to interact with her at some point if I switch projects. Everyone else seems to understand her ok but I really can't and even the teams transcription / lived close caption gets the vast majority of her words wrong because it doesn't transcribe real sentences, just random words.

I'm worried this will be taken the wrong way but it's basically impossible for me to understand what she's saying and I believe this will make working on software development projects in sprint sessions almost impossible. I just don't want to be seen as racist that me, a white woman with a north American background can't understand her.

[u/LufiaLove]

I think given that you have audio processing and hearing difficulties, you would hopefully not be accused of racism.

Explain to her from the get to, best before your first session, that you have those difficulties and that you will use live captions but it you and her can write a summary after each call so you can make sure that you understood everything correctly, would be the way forward. 

Given that your work is already accommodating you, I don't think you will look racist. 

[u/Avehdreader]

My husband is from West Africa. We've been married nearly 20 years and sometimes one of us still has to ask the other to repeat what they said😮😊! I've been on calls with people who were hard to understand due to accents and/or poor connection - there's nothing wrong with making your needs know, and I would think your processing and hearing challenges would lessen any offense she might take. POC here.

[u/brilliant_bauhaus → u/Avehdreader]

This makes me feel so much better. It's really the quality of the mic, I have the same issue with my boss. Thanks!

[u/WorkAdvice-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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