When I told people I’d started working in the live department of a closed captioning company, they’d ask what the job actually involved. Then they’d say something like, ‘Some of those captions are terrible. The other day I was watching the footy at the pub, and I saw one that said [insert egregiously unintelligible sentence here].’ Having grown up with several deaf and hearing-impaired family members of varying ages and interests, I was accustomed to watching television with the captions on – so I was also accustomed to their often dismal standard. Sometimes they’re incomprehensible. Sometimes they’re delayed. Sometimes they obscure important graphic information on the screen. Sometimes they’re absent.