Slightly Controversial

[friendofjimmyk]

This is nowhere near as bad...but along the lines of a customer asking, "have you....?" and before hearing the answer launches in to a tirade about why your place of business should cater to whatever it is they are bitching about....

I was working a hostess stand at a busy hole-in-the-wall establishment. It was not the best looking of places but the food was out of this world and really cheap. Anyway....

A lady comes in with baby in a stroller and the first thing she asks...

"Do you have a diaper changing station?"

Now, this is not something I've ever taken notice of in our place before. I use the restroom off the bar which is supposed to be for employees but other patrons use it as well. I know that there's not one in there but I'm pretty sure I've seen one in the customer restroom. So, I tell her....

"I know there is not one in the bathrooms off the bar, but I'm pretty sure there is one in the bathrooms over there." and I point in the direction of the bathroom. I then offer to walk her over and show her figuring she needs to change said baby now. But I was mistaken...her response (to the best of my recollection)...

her: "Well, WHY NOT!?!?! Why do you guys not have a changing station!?"

me: ma'am, I'm pretty sure we do, I've just never taken notice to it as I don't use the restroom I'm sure its in. I can show...

her: No. I don't need it now. BUT what if I did need one later?! What will you do THEN? Every restaurant NEEDS to have a changing station! If not, they are discriminating against mothers...AGAINST FAMILIES!

Me: I'm sure we have one...

her: For your sake, I hope you do too!!

of course, after seating this changing station wench, I went to the bathroom I thought I saw it in and I was correct, there was a changing station in that restroom. I wanted to go back and tell her...but I decided that was a battle I didn't want to fight.

[Fawn]

I'm not going to get really into this topic because I am Mentally Disabled (even though you wouldn't notice it unless I showed it unexpectedly) and I have a VERY hard time finding jobs.

I agree that he shouldn't have gone that way about it. He probably talked to someone or has friends that have problems getting jobs due to a disability. Not all disabilities are severe either, but are enough to cause problems with life. So people work around it, which is what someone with a disability requires and its not that hard to do either..

Anyways, whatever, rant over..

[poofy_puff]

This is coming from a girl who is partially blind and once worked in a bar. No, I didn't have a mental disability, but the lighting really affected what I could do. Needless to say, I didn't work there very long, because if I couldn't see, I wasn't helping much. And I realized that.

You are the first person with "partial blindness" that I have ever heard of working as a picture framer. I worked as a picture framer for 7 years, and while many of my co-workers wore glasses, none of them were sight-impaired to the point of using the "b" word to describe the condition. I don't know how many applicants with disabilities we had; it has been over 10 years and I worked in several different places. The Harvard Coop had some Chinese women working in framing, but they weren't disabled, they just didn't speak a lot of English.

[itsame]

SC: Hmmm, I notice you don't have any disabled people behind the bar.
...
SC: That's discrimination.

Proper response you could never get away with giving:

"I notice you don't have any black/hispanic/female/whatever carers. That's discrimination."

[redmountaingoldfish]

SC: Hmmm, I notice you don't have any disabled people behind the bar.
SC: That's discrimination.

You: Hmmm, I notice none of your care givers are (insert minority they are missing here)....


Stalemate!

SC: Hmmm, I notice you don't have any disabled people behind the bar.

You: How would you know? Not all disabilities are visible you insensitive prick! **start tearing up**

You Wins!!!

SC: That's discrimination.
SC: I bet they weren't hired because of their disability.

You: And that's slander. Point. Set. Match.

You Wins Again!!!!

[Saydrah]

While it's nice to hear of a carer who gives TOO much of a damn rather than the opposite (heard the other day about a caregiver who was refusing to let her employer, a man with physical disabilities, order what he wanted at a restaurant until someone came over and gave her a piece of their mind), that's NOT the way to go about it.

NON-SC: "Hi. I was wondering if you folks have considered hiring a person with a disability when you have an opening? I work for xxx and I always try to make sure local businesses are aware of the contributions people with disabilities, both physical and otherwise, make to communities and in the workplace. It's important to me that my patronage go to employers who are aware of the underemployment of qualified individuals with disabilities, and who are doing their part to end that discrimination."

Easy as that. Gets the point across, unusual enough to potentially earn a mention to whoever does the hiring, and non-sucky.

[cj1991]

I'd like to know what a caregiver for disabled people is doing bringing them to a bar. Are they buying them liquor? Seems odd to me.

I went to an "all male revue" once with some people I know, and was shocked that there were two women there in wheelchairs. They were very disabled - they were wearing bibs, and one had a helmet. They made noise, but didn't speak. I don't know who I was more angry at - the caregivers for bringing them, or the men in the revue who would gyrate at them. Disgusting on both levels. Trust me, those women in the wheelchairs didn't ask to be taken there that night.

We also had a Down Syndrome man fall off the skyride at a local amusement park because his caregiver let him on the ride by himself, and he panicked when the ride stopped to let people on, and he pulled up the lap bar and fell about 30 feet. He lived, thank heaven.

When I worked in the office of a collection agency, we had people come in all the time that were being forced in by their disability or workman's comp facilitators to look for work. The facilitators would call in complaining a number of times that we didn't hire the people they sent in. Well, if you send in people with carpal tunnel, or people with speech/sight/hearing disorders when the primary job duties are to type, and use the phone, then we're not able to use them.

Believe me, I am 100% for giving the disabled jobs, but for their own safety and for their own abilities, some jobs are better than others. Of all people, the smart-alec caregiver should realize that.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Thank god stupid like this hasn't been covered under the equal-opportunity employment laws yet.

Could you imagine if you were required by law to hire a certain percentage of applicants who are self-important morons? Where would you put that many managers!?

There are many of those . . . they all seem to work for the Kitty.

[AngryCas]

You are the first person with "partial blindness" that I have ever heard of working as a picture framer. I worked as a picture framer for 7 years, and while many of my co-workers wore glasses, none of them were sight-impaired to the point of using the "b" word to describe the condition.

Well, I guess the fact of the matter is, I am legally blind in one eye, but my other eye is great with color theory. It takes me longer to do things such as measuring (my boss didn't understand why I would triple check my measurements often) but I make up for it in how fast I can put ideas together. I remember the first time my boss found out about it, she actually felt really bad. I was cutting a piece of glass, and we measure it to the left. Well, my left eye is the problem. She kept saying, "No, you have to put it to the line! TO THE LINE!" and I kind of just smiled and kept situating the glass. Finally, when I stood up, I admitted to her why it took me so long to cut glass, and she was like......Ooooh! That makes a lot of sense now!

[poofy_puff]

That's just groovy... at least you have one eye that works!

[MMATM]

Not to offend, but anyone with a mental or physical disability that's so severe they require someone else to order their food for them, has absolutely no business serving alcohol at a bar. Food? Maybe. But there is a high degree of responsibility in bartending and someone who isn't able to accept that responsibility should not be considered.
This is, of course, assuming the disabled individuals in the OP genuinely needed the caregivers to order for them, rather than the caregivers simply extending a courtesy to their clients.

Also of note, how did the caregivers know that the staff working at the time of their visit were the entire staff, and that there wasn't a disabled staff member who only worked certain times or days of the week? Assumption strikes again.

In an effort to keep this thread out of Fratching territory, I'll only touch on the fact that there are certain jobs which, no matter what accommodations are given, cannot be done by certain people. Period. Anyone who can't seem to understand that concept is trying to weasel money out of some overzealous legislation. Probably including the caregiver in the OP.

[Pagan]

I'd like to know what a caregiver for disabled people is doing bringing them to a bar. Are they buying them liquor? Seems odd to me.

Well, customersruinmylife (and correct me if I'm wrong, customers) is in the UK. A lot of the bars there serve food as well. They're not like bars in the US, where people go just to get a drink.

t takes me longer to do things such as measuring (my boss didn't understand why I would triple check my measurements often)

Well, you know the old saying, "Measure twice, cut once." Or, in your case, three times! You could always tell people you're just anal. (I am, I do measure things 3 or 4 times, and, except for being near-sighted, my eyes are fine!)

I have practically no audio memory. I guess you could call it a "disability". To me, it's just a pain the butt and I've learned to work around it. Except for music. That I can recall almost perfectly. (I can identify Duran Duran songs from the 80s just from the bass line.) Conversely, if I see something, I have almost eidetic memory.

[bainsidhe]

I definitely agree that each job requires a certain skill set which may, or may not, exclude a group of people. I remember back in my hotel days (worked in the on-site restaurant) when a woman applied for the hostess position. She was confined to a wheelchair and I felt real bad for her because I just knew she wouldn't be hired. The hostess position required weaving through tables, which don't always have much clearance. It also required playing busser and cleaning/carrying large, heavy trays of dishes around said tables and through the kitchen. I got the feeling she had been having a tough time finding work and that really sucks.

I currently work with a few deaf people at "Big Box Retail". One of them I talk with often. He is very intelligent and used to work in a bank for many years before being laid off due to the economy. He has been trying hard to find other work, but because he is deaf, he is having a hard time. He can't do phone work, people who call to schedule interviews have to use the phone designed for deaf ppl (sorry, forgot what it was called) which can make call-backs/phone tag difficult and frustrating, and I think there is a general stigma associated with any known dissability. He's been looking for a while now, but in the meantime he is stuck in retail hell.

[blas]

I would like to say that I have nothing wrong with everyone being given a fair chance.

Having said that, after what happened with DipShit, I don't know if I can handle another trainee with a learning disability. I am trying to be as polite as possible and not try to sound like a bitch, but I am NOT certified to teach people with learning disabilities like he has. Another trainer, Ben, was given a guy who must have some sort of austism. None of us were made aware (and Ben really has never even known a person with autism before so you can only imagine how confused he was!) and both of us ended up having the most stressfull times imagineable. We were forced to train people that we have no experience working with.

Again, I say this with the utmost respect. I am not being a bitch who is saying "I won't train retards!", I am just saying that I am one of those people who has no business teaching people with learning disabilities.

I hope nobody thinks less of me for writing this. I have nothing against people with learning disabilites. I just recently learned that I do not have the patience to teach them.

Now, if we are just talking about stupid people with no common sense (although some of us just decided that DipShit wasn't even disabled, that he was just plain stupid with no common sense).....I have to put up with them. I don't like it, but I have no other choice.

[myswtghst]

Again, I say this with the utmost respect. I am not being a bitch who is saying "I won't train retards!", I am just saying that I am one of those people who has no business teaching people with learning disabilities.

I don't think any less of you, and I think you phrased this very well. It's not a personal prejudice, it's the awareness to know your limits and capabilities, and to know that it would be doing both of you a disservice to have you training someone you're not prepared to train. Nothing wrong with that, IMO.