Why is sign language guy a thing? They put play by play (sometimes hilariously) into closed captioning so why does sign language guy need to flail away at press conferences and speeches and most confoundingly the star spangled banner and shit. What's he doing there? Why do we need him?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

For the deaf? I dunno, just a guess.

Well... like i said they have real time closed captioning.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

oh that's for if they can't read closed captioning.

During a long sign language session, I've seen one come in and tag team for the one that started.

It was all worth it for that one time a lady was just making random hand signals because she had no idea how to actually sign.

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The younger guys won't remember SNL with Garret Morris doing this job. More or less they had him in a small circle on the screen while someone spoke. Instead of signing for the hard of hearing he just yelled really loud and dramatically.

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Elections have consequences.

A colleague of mine is deaf and for in person meetings, he has two sign language folks come in. They tag team roughly every 10 minutes.

What?

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What?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

we get the sign language guy for the national anthems at bears games... which i assume most deaf folks have seen enough times that they can probably just follow along by lipreading the singers mouth

Huh?

Who pays for all those people?

A dem after they get their cut

it's a write off.

Not sure whose budget that comes out of. Probably ours but ties into a corporate budget for Health, Safety, Environmental (just a guess, whatever budget ties into ADA). I think my colleague actually has his family members come in now, or at least one of them. Could be that they couldn't get the service he normally uses to send someone over.

When I first started in the group he's in, they had sign language folks in for every meeting he was at. Once we got into Microsoft Teams meetings, Teams can do closed captioning, even if it wasn't the greatest so no more sign language folks. This year, some meetings like safety meetings are mandatory in person meetings with no Teams option so he needs sign language people.