On the Job: Dupes

On the Job: Dupes

In this video Dianne and Jerry Hause describe how dupes were used to evaluate the skills of printers.

Zilvinas Paludnevicius

Drs. John S. and Betty J. Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center Collection

2022

This Item has been made available for educational and research purposes by the Drs. John S. and Betty J. Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center at Gallaudet University. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You may need to obtain permission for your intended use if your use is otherwise not permitted by the copyright and applicable related rights legislation. For specific information about the copyright and reproduction rights for this Item, please contact the Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center: https://www.gallaudet.edu/drs-john-s-and-betty-j-schuchman-deaf-documentary-center

American Sign Language

A video featuring an ASL interview with Jerry Hause and Dianne Hause, an older white man and woman, seated at home.

Dianne Hause: If you were a new printer at the Washington Post. You had two weeks, right? Two weeks?

Jerry Hause: Yes.

Dianne: And at that time you had to take a dupe to show that you were qualified to work. That you know how to do the job. So for a dupe, you were given copy to type up. You needed to get 60 words per minute, at least. You just had to type it up, it was easy. And you’d pass. So you typed it all up, and handed it off. They checked it for errors, if it was good, you passed.

Jerry: Right.

Dianne: But I remember, we played a prank with the dupe. There was a new hire, he came in looking a bit lost. He was disguising the fact that he wasn’t honest about his skills. He’d gotten his union card by cheating a bit, he wasn’t experienced. So he asked for help and Deaf printers would help each other out. Explaining things to help someone get through it. One guy, he, he was more English in his expression and signing. The new guy didn’t know him. He was Deaf. So someone told him, hey, go ahead and act like you’re a boss. And he agreed. So he walked to the new guy and handed him a piece of work. And, pretending to be a hearing boss, gestured and fingerspelled DUPE. The new guy was shocked! He looked around at everyone, A dupe!? What do I do?! Everyone else saw this happen, including the actual boss! He started smiling a little bit. He knew it was a joke. But this new guy was there sweating! Cutting paper, hurry up! Time is running out! You had to finish the dupe within an hour, the whole page in paste-up. So he’s bent over the work station, cutting paper and pasting it down. Moving quickly and nervously. Everyone watched on - finally he approached him and tapped him to stop. He barely looked up. “I’m taking the dupe!” “No, no,” he told him. All around people were laughing openly. And he knew it - his face was just exasperated. Of course he cussed him out. For pranking people. I laughed so hard. It was so funny. It wasn’t a real dupe. He was so relieved. He had more time, another week to work. And when it was time, he knew what to do.

Jerry: Really, new printers walked in with a union card to work as a printer. They had two weeks then you took the dupe. Because they wanted to know, are you really qualified? Or not? If you weren’t qualified, they said goodbye and sent you away. If you were good, and you passed, then you stayed. It was just that one assessment - dupe. Just one.

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