Legally blind!

[TattooedMommie]

Is it wrong to want to punch an old lady in the balls?
Im a cashier at a small grocery store. In New England. We are getting snow tomorrow. Therefore all hell broke loose at work today. Busy, people in an uproar. Came home with a pounding headache.
This interaction gnawed at me all day and I just had to vent it out here...lol
Two elderly women in my line...One was calling the other "Aunty.." so Im assuming they'd be like 70 and 90...Neither looked sweet and frail, like some elderly folk do, they looked pretty healthy and bitter. Old Lady1, the niece, is making the purchase, I dont even remember what it was but it took 2 bags. I give her the total, she swipes a card as I walk around the put her bags into her cart (out of consideration so she wouldnt have to lift them more than necessary; I do this for most of my elderly customers) So OL1 swipes as I am away from my screen and it goes down like this:
OL: "What does this screen say? I cant see it!"
Me:, scooting back to my screen "Let me check for ya, I cant see it from here.."
Aunty pipes up: "You know, you should know what those screens say. Dont you know some people are Legally Blind!?!!"
Me: "I couldnt see it from the angle I was at. It's just asking if the total is OK, you just need to tap the "Yes" button"
OL: "Which one is yes?"
Me: "the green one" OL taps the green one and it approves and reciept prints. As I am handing it to her, Aunty keeps going..."Im not trying to be critical, but it's not very courteous to people who are BLIND! if the cashiers dont even know what the screen says. You are supposed to help her. She's Legally Blind(!!) and you need to help people like that!"
I just smiled with what I hoped was sympathy on my face and nodded. She kept it up, rinse, repeat, blar-dee-blar "legally blind, not being critical, you know, but you need to know how to help people with that machine, blah blah"
I kept smiling and nodding, and when I saw my chance I said "You ladies have a nice afternoon" and turned to my next customer.

*explodes* So much I wanted to say, but i *knew* that one statement in my own defense would be construed as arguing with the Almighty customers...There was NO WAY I could see either her screen or my own as I was putting the freakin bags in her cart. Also at that point, for all I knew she used a EBT card, which has its own set of questions, there was no way of "guessing" what words were on the screen at that second, until I ,um, LOOKED! And how in the name of Zues am I supposed to know she was LEGALLY FREAKIN BLIND, when she looked me right in the eye at the beginnning of the transaction and had no problem pulling her card out of her wallet? And perhaps another form of tender would be more appropriate for it's ease of use for the visually impaired? Or, oh I dont know, maybe the Aunty who is doing nothing but standing directly next to said Blind person, could assist?

[TechieGirl87]

People will come up with the best excuses sometimes

[TattooedMommie]

The only rationalization I can come up with is that the niece was only recently diagnosed as "Legally Blind" and Aunty was upset/worried, had it on her brain, just had to vent about it. Or she just likes to complain, was hoping I'd argue so she could complain some more...lol

[KatherineB]

That was a 'can't win' situation. Had you stayed by the register to see the screen and thus not put the bags in the carts, there would have been an almighty blow-up about that.

I know it's frustrating, but you did nothing wrong and she was just determined to be a bitch to someone. Unfortunately that someone was you.

[Draco]

FFS. I've been "legally blind" since around the time I was ten. Without my glasses I see jack all but blur. And yes, that's what "legally blind" tends to mean. Otherwise you're just blind! :P

Seriously, looks like it was an attempt to complain just to complain. Or maybe find an excuse to hound management to get free giftcards.

[MoonCat]

FFS. I've been "legally blind" since around the time I was ten. Without my glasses I see jack all but blur. And yes, that's what "legally blind" tends to mean. Otherwise you're just blind! :P

Seriously, looks like it was an attempt to complain just to complain. Or maybe find an excuse to hound management to get free giftcards.

Me, too. My laptop screen is about an arm's length away (as in, my own short arms) and without my glasses on, I can't read it.

Both of them were twits. There was absolutely no reason for them to go off on you. Some people just live to make someone else miserable.

[AnaKhouri]

Once when my husband had his glasses off I stood in front of him about 3 feet away and said, "What can you tell about me?"

He replied, "Uh, you're a person..."

Yeah, that lady was just a bitch. I wonder if the 'legally blind' woman was completely embarrassed by her behavior?

[thehuckster]

You are supposed to help her.

She did help you, you cantankerous old biddy! Geez.

[ArcticChicken]

Is it wrong to want to punch an old lady in the balls?

Nope, just frustrating when you can't accomplish it.

[emax4]

After the legally blind remark I would have either said, "Can't you see that I'm legally right here (move her over to your position) and can't see what's on the screen? Can you stand here and legally see what's on the screen? I can't be in two places at once. Can you?"

or

"Why aren't you by her side reading off the screen if you know she's legally blind??"

[Gizmo]

I'm just glad that this story ended without a "and then they drove off with the legally blind person driving..."

[Trixie]

And yanno it's not like the machines only have one screen that everyone memorizes.

Our machines at work ask different questions depending on what kind of card is being used. Sometimes I start to answer before I actually see what's actually on the screen but I can see the pinpad. And now they've thrown in a screen asking people to donate for the cause of the month. Then I have to hear about how there's too many questions. Yeah, I'll just pass that along to the CEO when he comes in to visit.

[EricKei]

FFS. I've been "legally blind" since around the time I was ten. Without my glasses I see jack all but blur. And yes, that's what "legally blind" tends to mean.

Same here, as far back as I can remember (nearsightedness)...The best way I can describe how far I can see without my coke bottles -- er, specs is this: Ya know how you can hold a finger up in front of your eyes, and when you bring it close enough, it appears to become two fingers? That point is how far I can see clearly without lenses ~_~ So...I'm off the 20/200 scale, somewhere around 7x for both eyes

The worst part? I was aware of having eye issues at around age three. I did not get glasses until around age twelve (no idea why)... At that point, I had to sit on the front row in every one of my classes so I could see that there was chalk on the chalkboard -- not be able to read it reliably, just see that it was there -- much further back, and I literally could not tell that the board had any chalk on it.

WITH glasses? I'm somewhere around 20/30. I almost never take them off when I'm awake, if I can help it. Modern plastics do have the lenses manageably thin (my first pair were literally glass!), but the power on those suckers still compares favorably to the Hubble I have, on occasion, been stuck at work with broken frames. Not that I would ever try to drive in that condition...ever. Nor would I know that doing so looks like driving through a heavy downpour without windshield wipers...Not at all >_>

My brother got the opposite issue -- Badly farsighted AND lazy eye in one eye, the latter of which was not caught/treated in time. Long story short, his OTHER eye is better than normal, at 20/10, but he still has iffy depth perception.

[Bardmaiden]

The fiance is almost legally blind, he is extremely longsighted. A lens fell out of one of his glasses and he didn't have his spare pair with him (they were in his locker at work for just such an occasion at work) so I had to guide him to the local opticians so they could sort it out because he literally could not see his way there.
When he was working his glasses broke and he wasn't near the depot he works from (and didn't have a pair on him *thwaps*) so they had to send someone out to take over the train he was working on at the time.

[ComputerNecromancer]

And how in the name of Zues am I supposed to know she was LEGALLY FREAKIN BLIND, when she looked me right in the eye at the beginnning of the transaction and had no problem pulling her card out of her wallet? And perhaps another form of tender would be more appropriate for it's ease of use for the visually impaired? Or, oh I dont know, maybe the Aunty who is doing nothing but standing directly next to said Blind person, could assist?

The Aunty is way out of line. On the other hand, "legally blind" is a lot different than most folks realize.

Essentially, it means that their vision can't be corrected up to 20/400 (if I'm recalling correctly). So what they see at 20 feet is worse than what you see at 400 feet.

Or in this case, what they see at 6 inches is what you'd see at 200 feet. So they can see you, and even look at you, but reading that screen or the like is out of the question.

I've got a legally blind friend. She can (on a *really* good day puzzle out those screens by getting her eyes within an inch or so. Most days she can't.

But she won't go on like that lady did. She only goes over the "legally blind" bit when folks are being *stupid*.

Classic example I witnessed: she walked over to a couple of clerks in a department store and asked "where are the bathrooms". Clerk points and says "over there". My friend repeats "Where are the bathrooms? I'm *blind* and I can't see where you are pointing. (waving her white cane at them.

She went thru the "where is it?" with them going "over there" *six times* before one of them finally *listened* and *told* her how to get there. This with her emphasizing "*tell* me where the are" from the second go round.

So you weren't being unreasonable. The Aunty was.

Though I have to note that *because* of things like blind customers, the terminals *really* need to have a display the cashier can see.