The National Relay Service was featured on ABC Radio recently, with relay officer Jack providing an insight into their role and how the service operates. In case you missed it, we’ve provided this for you:

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Joining me now is Jack, a relay officer for the National Relay Service. Good morning to you, Jack. Thanks for joining us.

Jack (Relay Officer): Good morning, Debbie. Thanks for having me.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): How does the National Relay Service work?

Jack (Relay Officer): The National Relay Service is a service that provides support for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech communication difficulty. It allows them to make phone calls, really any phone calls they would like to make. You know, we may make a call to their bank or possibly Centrelink, or even ordering a pizza, family and friends, or anything in between. We're here to help.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): How do they contact you in the first place?

Jack (Relay Officer). There's a variety of different communication methods that users of the service can contact us by. Probably the most common is type and read, which is sort of like a chat function, or they can sms us 24/7 every day of the year. We're here to help. So, that allows the user of the service to type what they want to say to the relay officer. We'll read that out to the person they're trying to call, and then we relay the conversation that the person they're calling back as text to the caller. So, our job is really to connect the person they're calling with the user.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Okay, so they're using that chat based function, they're online and they're typing out and saying, this is what I want to say, and presumably in the first place, who they'd like you to call. So, then you make the call, like on a normal phone, more or less, and call that person. And then what? You must introduce yourself in the first instance. How does that sound?

Jack (Relay Officer): Yeah, so we do at the start of the call, we introduce ourselves and we let them know who we are and where we're from. So, would you like me to do it for you, Debbie?

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Yeah, go ahead.

Jack (Relay Officer): Absolutely. So, when I pick up the phone and I'd be calling someone on behalf of you, I'd say, hello, this is relay officer Jack from the National Relay Service. I have someone on the line for you who is deaf, hard of hearing or has a speech communication difficulty. Your call may be recorded for quality purposes. Please advise if you do not want to have your call recorded. And then from there, I would go on with the call, get the caller's greeting, and then the call goes on from there.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): How do people typically react?

Jack (Relay Officer): I mean, most of the time we're very fortunate and lucky where the people they are calling are aware of the service, maybe family or friends who have taken these calls for sometimes years. And then also sometimes we're calling businesses who may not know who we are. And you'd be surprised to know that even some larger businesses in Australia, big corporations, they don't actually know who we are and they don't actually know how to handle a relay service call properly because we aren't considered a third party in any phone call. Sometimes the large businesses do get worried for safety and security or data being breached, which is totally fair enough, especially in this world at the moment, but we are not considered a third party in any phone call. So, sometimes businesses do get a little bit confused on who we are, what we're doing, and if we're actually allowed to be on the phone call.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Right. And so my understanding is, though, as a third party, you are not allowed to be involved in the conversation whatsoever, you're just relaying it. But does the person on the end of the line try and involve you?

Jack (Relay Officer): Sometimes, yeah, sometimes they do, but it ultimately comes back down to, we're not a part of the call. This is not my call. This is the user of the services phone call. So, I'm not involved. It's completely private and confidential. So, anything I do here online, anything I relay, I can't relay to anyone else, I can't talk to anyone else about. So, anything that happens in the call is private and it stays private. And as relay officers, we are specifically trained to not discuss what happens outside of the call.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): And so you're reading out what the person who's hard of hearing is typing out as well to that person on the other end of the call, is that right?

Jack (Relay Officer): Yeah, that's right. So, everything that does come through is verbatim. So, if you say laugh out loud, I will say laugh out loud. If there's an exclamation mark, I'll indicate that to the caller, because we are relaying everything verbatim and we want to make sure that the caller gets all their points across and everything they want to say.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): This is fascinating. You're listening to Jack. He works as a relay officer for the National Relay Service, which is used right across Australia, but it's based here in regional Victoria. Jack, did they give you any training about putting expression in your voice, or are you supposed to talk like a robot? How does that work?

Jack (Relay Officer): I mean, as a relay officer, we really do not want to sort of get involved, but we do want to sort of amplify what the user is saying, so if they are angry or frustrated with someone, of course we may adjust our tone, but also we understand that sometimes users may be not happy with someone and we don't necessarily want to be hurtful or mean. And, you know, when we're delivering words, which sometimes are not very nice, and we're, you know, swearing at someone, you know, we try to deliver that as nicely as possible.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): So, do you read swear words verbatim?

Jack (Relay Officer): 100%.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Oh, my goodness.

Jack (Relay Officer): And I've had some very unpleasant calls that I've had to relay, but that is part of my job and that's not my call and I don't have an opinion in that. So, yeah, it can be sometimes quite distressing, the things you read, but you move on and you realise it's not me and it's not my call.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): You must hear some amazing things.

Jack (Relay Officer): Absolutely. I mean, this is probably one of the most incredible jobs where you do get to sit there and listen to someone's life and part of what they're doing in their life. We are there for the best days of someone's life. Maybe they're calling a family member, or family member's calling them to advise, you know, there's been a birth in the family, but then also someone's worst days, you know, calling to let someone know that, you know, a family member has passed away or a loved one has passed away, or there might be financial issues, but we're there to help. And, you know, we are very empathetic as relay officers and we understand that, you know, we are witnessing and seeing very private personal information and often talking with family and members. We do hear and see a lot, so we understand that there's a lot of empathy involved in our job as well.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): And you connect to triple zero calls as well. Speaking of best or worst days of people's lives.

Jack (Relay Officer): 100%, yeah. So, as the National Relay Service, we do provide the 106 service in Australia, which allows TTY machines, they're sort of like a fax machine, allowing real time typing for both the users of the service and also the relay officers to communicate with each other. And they can also speak into a phone. There are many different communication methods for the TTY and, yeah, they can contact our 106 line 24/7 any time of the year, and they'll get through to a relay officer who will connect, as well as most other communication types where they can access emergency services 24/7.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): On a more boring and practical note, what happens when you often, I imagine, call businesses or government services on behalf of people? What happens when they get put on hold?

Jack (Relay Officer): We're on hold too. So, if you're on hold to a business for two or 3 hours, we're sitting there with you and we're mounting the line the entire time. So, there is a goodness listening to that hold music. So, we're on hold a lot of our day and we spend a lot of time sitting there and waiting, including all of the messages that are on the line when we are on hold, advising that the call is on hold. Please continue to wait.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): You have to just type that out over and over again?

Jack (Relay Officer): Yes.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Oh, my gosh. So, your job ranges from being incredibly interesting to the most boring job ever, sitting on hold for hours.

Jack (Relay Officer): We are well versed in getting used to the whole music and enjoying it. So, we love it when there's a real, real song that comes on and actually something interesting for us, it can be incredibly boring.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Oh, amazing. Hey, thanks for sharing this behind the scenes job that I wasn't aware of and probably lots of people weren't either.

Jack (Relay Officer): No, thank you, Debbie. I really appreciate it. I work as a relay officer sometimes is pretty unseen because most people have never heard of us or they may have never received a call from us. So, it's always so wonderful to get a call or be there for someone's first call from the relay service and they go, wow, I've never heard of this service, but it's so cool. Thank you so much.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): Yeah, amazing. Oh, well done to you for being part of that and thanks for talking to us today.

Jack (Relay Officer): Thanks, Debbie, I appreciate your time.

Debbie Rybicki (ABC): That was Jack. He's a relay officer for the National Relay Service. So, there you go. If you want to check it out and perhaps refer somebody that you know that might be able to use that, you can find out more at relay service. Somebody is texted through as well on zero four six seven eight four two, seven zero two. To say that they did this job for many years from Melbourne and loved it. Interesting that it's now in regional Victoria. Yes. And Sarah texted as well to say that she used the service for an interview she had to do a while ago and said it was amazing. So, there you go.