Honest answer – most people miss a big percentage of the conversation when they can hear. You actually save people’s butts in the room with the pausing for clarity. Many people with better hearing don’t follow the conversation, get lost, and don’t speak up, thinking, “Oh, if there is something wrong, someone else will say it.”

So, you may not be aware that you are actually enabling the rest of the room to know wtf is going on! Be brave, it encourages others to do so.

For example, you were trancribing at a talk I did recently. As you know, people giving talks don’t always repeat a question from the audience for the sake of the other people who didn’t hear it. Regardless of the fact the room was smaller, one can’t ever know if someone in the small audience cannot hear or didn’t understand the audience. I had a microphone on, so it was my duty to be that link. Also, people on the phone don’t always hear it, and being mic’d to the phone, again, my duty. Your presence _reminded_ me of that duty, but you didn’t cause the duty. If I’d missed that duty, I would be remiss.

Culturally, we often think of different ability-ness as providing a contrast that ends up at, “I appreciate my ability because that person shows me how much it sucks to not have it.” There is a more powerful moment here, though. Something like, “I see how I am not really as able here as I think I am, I see that I cannot know the levels of ability of others around me, and presuming everyone is at or above my ‘level’ is a mistake and a missed opportunity.”

To put it another way, we don’t know how much we miss in a “calm scene” that our senses detect but our brains don’t bother processing because it’s just too much information.

It took me a long time to believe I can contribute something of worth to FOSS. Now I know I *can*…I’m just not so sure I *do* ;)

Having others tell you they appreciate your work is always nice too.