The Art of Listening
Free
Read Write Listen Speak
Dunedin, Florida
There are times in life when nothing helps more than finding someone to just listen. That’s a job that Katie Bandel has fully embraced. Currently, working from her home in Dunedin, Florida, Bandel spends her days taking calls from people who need information. Lately, that includes callers who need help sorting out life in the midst of a global pandemic. Katie describes it this way. “I’d say 99% of the calls are related to coronavirus. Out-of- state people want to know if they can travel into Florida or residents want to know if they can travel out of Florida. A lot of agencies are closed down, so a lot of people are calling to ask how they can get motor vehicle business taken care of or update their LLCs and such.”
For about a year, Katie has been handling 411 calls through an organization called Service Source. They train people who have disabilities so those individuals can make the most of their abilities and be fully contributing members of society. Katie, who was born with a visual impairment, lost her sight completely eight years ago. She spent two years searching for a job before connecting with Service Source. Now with her guide dog Charlie by her side, Katie spends her days helping solve problems for people who need a little help…or a lot of help.
Some calls last a minute or so and end once Katie’s provides phone numbers that will best answer callers’ specific dilemmas. She says, “Some want phone numbers for the governor or state lawmakers. Some people are in bad places right now because the pandemic has really taken a toll on people.” And it’s precisely because so many people are flustered or struggling that so many of them appreciate the excellent way Katie really listens to them. She makes a point of doing the listening part of her job exceptionally well.
“Once they finally get hold of a human, they just spill everything that’s going on with them. I can be on the phone for 20 minutes or longer, depending on their issues. A lot of the time, they just want someone to hear how frustrated they are and everything they’ve been through. Sometimes, getting a phone number is only a small part of what happens in the call. It’s mostly been about listening to everything they’ve been through.” Katie says that sometimes, by the end of the call, the listening seems to have had more impact than providing the information.
Katie volunteers that listening didn’t come to her that easily. She says she’d always been a visual learner and listening was somewhere far down on her list of skills. Losing her vision, she says, forced her to refine the abilities available to her. “Listening became my new eyes. I’m still visualizing everything in my mind’s eye. My brain fills in all the missing pieces that aren’t there and my ears fill in the rest.” She describes hearing sounds that she’d never noticed before and being more sensitive to the tones in people’s voices, as well. The training with Service Source helped her to develop her listening skills in specific ways…like listening for key words from a caller to help connect them with the right information. But she’s still working on other aspects of listening that go beyond her training. And she recommends this for everyone.
She suggests, “Listen to someone when they’re speaking and wait until they are completely done before you finally speak up. Or ask open-ended questions. I find that most people really aren’t heard and most people just want to be listened to. It’s rare in this day and age. Pause and just listen. A little bit of silence is okay.”
To learn more about the work of Service Source, including whether they operate in your area, you can visit their website: www.servicesource.org
HAPPY Reading wants to remind everyone that literacy is more than reading. As we develop all our literacy skills— reading, writing, listening and speaking— we become more literate. Each skill supports and builds upon the others.