This sounds like a workshop deal where the employer gets tax breaks for hiring the handicapped. The only noise in a greenhouse is the exhaust fans. Why would noise bother him if he can't hear it?
The primitive's not deaf, but hard-of-hearing.
I'm guessing he hears noise, but can't decipher what those noises are.
And that can drive people nuts.
It's a psychological thing more than an audiological thing, but it can be a really bad distraction--which is why hard-of-hearing people tend to be grouchy, while we deaf people tend to be laid back, nonchalant, at ease, and mellow--and if in fact there is noise in the greenhouse, I can understand the primitive's frustration.
However.
However.
However.
There might be something else going on here.
The hard-of-hearing primitive mentioned working with other people in the greenhouse; and he appears to have enough hearing to know that these other people talk, chitchat, converse, gossip, chew the fat, flap the jaws--but because of his hearing deficiency, while he knows they're talking, he can't really join in on it.
And there can be resentment about that; even though a primitive, the guy is human after all.
We all want to be a part of human society; some of us realize that's not possible, and so accept, adapt, and move on.....but others of us--and this is DEFINITELY more prevalent among the hard-of-hearing, than what one finds in the deaf--get all pissed off and angry and bitter because we can't do what other people can do.
If I were the hard-of-hearing primitive's boss, I would do two things: (a) have him work on stuff that doesn't involve a whole lot of interaction with others, and others out of his sight if possible, and (b) have him do heavy, muscle-draining stuff.
This way, the hard-of-hearing primitive doesn't see so much of that which he cannot have (the ability to easily converse), lessening his resentment, and because he's working so hard, he's burning off his excess anger and frustration, at the end of the working day going home tired, but at peace with the world and himself.
I really wish the primitive would have described the "noise" that makes working in a greenhouse so irksome, but as most here know from my own writing, sometimes we tend to leave important details out.
