Hi there readers,

Happy Sunday evening!

Gonna do a quick blog about a situation that happened recently in which an intervenor indicated that, within 3 hours, I had moved to a different part of town.

To keep this blog short, and anonymous, I’ll be as vague as possible.

In case you forgot, an Intervenor is a professional individual who works with DeafBlind persons, providing visual, auditory information. They also will guide the person.

Another cool thing about intervenors is that transportation is included as a part of their role; they will drive a DeafBlind client to their destination, work with the client, then drive them back home.

At least that is what should have happened recently.

My intervenor picked me up, all business as usual, I told them where to go, and what we would be doing there.

We arrived without a problem; driving south from my home to the destination.

I did the things I needed to do at the venue, the intervenor provided exemplary support!

At 12:38, I declared I was done at the destination, the intervenor now going to drive me home.

So, we are in the car, I sign again; bring me home. The intervenor popped my address in the GPS on their device and away we went.

As we barrelled down the hill, I noticed that the intervenor seemed to be zooming right past the usual turn-off to my home. So I said “you should go that way…” they said “Really? GPS says that way…” pointing south.

They made the usual turn, as I requested, but soon, without consulting with me, headed south again at their earliest convenience.

To get back to my home, the intervenor needed to head north, they continued to drive south, even through I mentioned 3 times that “…I lived North, why are we heading south?” To which the intervenor said “My GPS says you live south…”

22 blocks south of where we started, we had passed a mall, a major highway, two Starbucks, a Denny’s, a pulled-over driver, four construction sites, when at last the intervenor informs me… “Whoops, sorry, I put in GPS destination for Deaf Craig, not DeafBlind Craig… sorry… I’ll drive you home now.”

I was a bit shocked, upset, but didn’t want to cause strife, so I started a chat about different Craigs in the community… I was going for a “water under the bridge” attitude, so that I could keep cool.

But, rest assured, I did communicate with the intervenor’s boss.

This situation has never occurred during any of my 30 years using intervenors.

To summarize: How can an intervenor pick me up at my home, take me to a venue, support me specularly at the venue, then blindly kowtow to their GPS and inform me that my home is “that way” opposite from where we started! Really dumbfounded!

Thanks for reading!