I work as a General Manager for Nibbles Play Cafe located in Wheeling , IL. It is a restaurant with play areas for kids ages one to seven to come and play while families dine, eat and talk away!!
A few years after birth, my parents found out that I had a hearing loss. Doctors back then didn’t think anything was wrong with me. My parents struggled with doctors– saying, “she’s not hearing us and responding.” My mom had german measles while pregnant with me. Finally after going to kindergarten, the speech therapist said I had a hearing loss. Boy, did we visit Northwestern so many times! I’m glad I spent alot of time there learning the speech skill drills over and over. I can read lips very well for the hearing loss I have and wear a hearing aid. This really helps my career and working with people who can hear.
My job as a General Manager, I communicate daily with customers, taking their orders ( remember, I have to try my best to understand the different languages) and it’s not easy to read their lips if they use a language other than English! I communicate with my employees, my boss and they are all good to me– we get along very well. I use the phone but recently purchased a videophone with VCO built in. This will make my life so much easier to communicate with the customers on the phone when we plan birthday parties!! I also communicate with different vendors when I need to place orders. I also communicate with children.
We have deaf kids come to our restaurant and this really makes my day to see them! I am a former Hersey student class of 1981 and have welcomed Hersey’s job co-op program to come and volunteer to work at our place. This gives them the experience to work in a real world and also having a “deaf” boss working there they really like that, but I try to explain it doesn’t happen everywhere you work!
Growing up was challenging. You have people looking at you like you are from Mars, you speak funny….until they realize that you are deaf/hard of hearing. You judge to see if people will accept you or not. You need to stand up for yourself and be strong and say I can do anything that people with normal hearing can do.
Come and visit us at “NibblesPlayCafe” !!
www.nibblesplaycafe.com
my work email is : laura@nibblesplaycafe.com
Comments
4 responses to “Laura Nuccio, Restaurant Manager”
I am Lauras Mom and I can attest to the trips we made to Evanston to see if we could get help. It was 1 teacher who helped us get the help we needed. I can not be a prouder Mom for what Laura has accomplished in her life and career. It was a long hard fight but she won.
Hey that is my sister in law! From knowing her that long, I am very pleased to see this article that demonstrates her abilities to be more.
Laura, congratulations!
With hugs,
Vince and Jelica Nuccio
Laura is a remarkable and wonderdful person! She’s always been a very independent and strong person for as long as I’ve known her ~ 40 years!! With these traits, it helped her to be the person she is and have this management career! I’m proud of her of what she accomplished! You go, Girl!! 🙂
Hi Laura,
So nice to read about you. I had no idea you were doing this. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
Uncle Ed