A few years ago I was calling a friend who is hard of hearing but uses the phone. Because she is HOH, she does not always hear the phone ring, it depends on where she is in the house, whether she is near the phone or not. I usually ask the relay operator to redial 2 or 3 times, and almost always my friend picks up the phone after 2 or 3 tries. Anyhow, I was calling her, she didn't pick up the phone after the first try. I politely asked the relay operator to redial again and the RO very rudely called me stupid. I said, "why are you calling me stupid?" and she said "well that's the problem with all the deaf people, they don't get it that the person is not home, that's why I called you stupid". I was like OMG, I said "the reason i asked you to redial is because my friend is not always close enough to the phone to hear it ring, but usually after 2 or 3 tries she will finally hear it and pick it up" and she called me stupid again and I demanded to speak to the supervisor...geez.
I don't really like using relay that much. Now my main form of communication is emails and IM's. Nowadays I tell people to either email me or IM me.
