Alright everybody, GROUP HUG!
[[[[[Hug]]]]]]
Cheezit, get your ass away from my hug. This is for caring adults only!!
No problem, CNoteChris. I have no idea how or why you read that into what LouisB said, but I certainly didn’t want to hijack Diane’s post over it.
BTW, Diane, count me in with the “Well done” crowd; you handled the discussion very well.
As a person who has a mentally retarded cousin I thank you Diane for talking to this boy with respect and humanity .
cheezit, really are you serious ?
I do want to say that I’m with Bear_Nenno you should try to find out who his mother is and let her know that her son is possibly leaving himself open to some sick f**k taking advantage of his innocence ( it’s a disgrace that we have to think about these kind of things but there are a lot of very sick people out there 
:mad: ) .
The reason why it’s hard for mildly retarded people to hold jobs dealing with the public is . . . well, cheezit. I am sure he would prefer the more historic solution of keeping the village idiots out of view.
Thanks Diane. When you see John, again, please don’t even bring it up. If he does, just remind him that you are really a still a stranger, and perhaps you should not be talking about bathroom matters. I doubt you needed that advice, though, you seem filled with good humor and kindness. John lucked out, this time.
(The reality of this little drama is likely that John had had a toileting accident, and was uncomfortable, and dwelling on the fact that he had a long wait until someone who could help him was likely to be available. You talked like a very nice person. Maybe nice enough to solve his problem. It was outside the range of your normal life experience, and most other people’s as well. Sadly, it was not outside of his.)
These people are here to struggle through life looking for the same thing as the rest of us. Each other. John found a human being.
Tris
God saw you do that. I know he will remember it, when you see him.
I work with mentally retarded people, and have changed many a diaper, on males and females. It’s something you get used to (and you always use GLOVES!)
Diane, you handled it all perfectly. Bless you. These are real people, with real parents who love them. And with real feelings. This guy sounds like a sweetheart. Too bad he has to wear diapers. Maybe he’ll eventually learn to not need them (I dunno.) It can happen. He’s probably learning a lot by having this job - and he’s still relatively young - 18. He just needs to be shielded from phobics like cheezit, though. I don’t think cheezit is BAD, just really, really ignorant, and very phobic about retarded people. Retarded people definitely pick up on that feeling.
I got off on a tangent that might have been misguided. I apologize to Diane for hijacking her thread, and those that have to wade through my outburst to follow the O.P…
If it hasn’t become obvious to you all by now, the issue hits close to home. My guard was up because of Cheezits’ comment that ‘they’ should not be working with the public if ‘they’ might say something that, said by anyone else, could be taken offensively.
His comments were not being said by someone ‘normal’. It was coming from someone who is mentally impaired. Being mentally impaired often means you can’t distinguish between what is appropriate and what is not.
John was being polite, engaging, and courteous. He was doing his job. He was doing his job above and beyond what is required. In his mind, he never said anything wrong.
Diane handled the conversation in a way that most people couldn’t have. She treated him with respect.
I can’t tell you how rude and obnoxious people can be with the mentally impaired. I see this and it enrages me. These same people can laugh and humor a child that says the same thing, but put a grown-up body behind the comments and they become uncomfortable and want it to go away. That’s what’s truly sad.
I think programs that involve engaging the mentally impaired into actually living a life should be commended. If you saw what having a job, a job most would turn their noses’ at, means to them, the pride they feel, you would truly be inspired.
The original point of this post was my criticism towards LouisB’s comment and how I reacted towards it. I don’t know why, but it set me off. It seemed to say to me that the purpose of ‘these’ people is to make ‘us’ feel better by helping them. That’s not the case.
I enjoy seeing them live their life and work, contributing to their own self worth and well-being. After being surrounded by people cynical and jaded by their own job, it becomes refreshing to see someone who truly enjoys it, especially a person who, until recently, has been shunned into a life of seclusion by the public.
With that said, I hope I took the post wrong and apologize again for any hard feelings. It was a knee-jerk reaction.
Furthermore, I’m not trying to be the gloomy gus. I’ve seen and heard stories like this one that can completely crack me up.
Chris
The world needs more Dianes. I’m a teacher certified in both “Special” and “General” Ed. (don’t you just love the labels), so this is a subject close to my heart. When I first read the words, “mentally retarded” and “sad,” I wanted to scream, “It’s not sad!” I didn’t though. I learned very quickly that Diane wasn’t saying what I had first assumed. I just wanted to remind everybody that most children and adults who are mentally retarded are just as happy with their lives as are those among us who are labeled “normal.”
CNoteChris said:
Why my post would say that to you and not to others I don’t understand.
I said that I didn’t have to explain a (expletive deleted) thing to you and believe me, I meant it. That said, I personally believe that God sets these retarded, challenged, special, less-than-well equipped people among us in order to give us the opportunity to extend charity to them. They are not, in many cases, able to survive on their own and yet in many cases, they are warm, loving, courageous and trusting people. They deserve their chance and too often they are denied that chance. Diane treated the young man in question with consideration, tact, and courtesy. She acknowledged his humanity and his right to a place among us. In my view, she treated him charitably.
If you consider that extending charity is for the purpose of making “us”, the charity extenders, feel better about “ourselves”, then I think you would benefit by looking up the meaning of the word.
I admire the fact that this kid actually engaged a woman in an engrossing conversation, which got her laughing and made her day. I can’t wait to try a similar approach at the Dopefest.
“Oops. Falcon, I went poo in my diaper. Ya wanna give me a hand?”
That’s why Diane’s the rockinest chick!
I said it, she is. Way to go!
It’s good to hear Dianes type of stories. When i worked as an arts and crafts counsellor for (what they called “specially”) retarded children, it was rare to see even their own parents behave in such a way. It upsets me to see “adults” roll their eyes at the comments these children and young adults make, but refreshing to see people like Diane really exist.
People like Cheezit don’t need to be harrassed about their own opinions and statements though, even if they are partly responsible for the trouble incurred on people like John. The Cheezits of our world will either eventually learn the hard way about reality and that you can’t run away and hide from it, or they’ll just never learn. Also, it may just have been a matter saying something before even thinking about it, which i do sometimes. Cheezit may not have read the OP in it’s entirety, which is still not correct if you are going to comment i suppose, but it’s enough being jumped on by a crowd of posters all telling you that you are wrong about something. I think at this point cheezit might get the point. If not, it wasn’t worth dealing with.
Diane, thank you so much, you did a world of good for that boy. He may not even remember it completely, but he knows he’s in a good mood and happy for some reason. Nice Lady!
Diane, add me to your list of back-patters. We need more people in the world like you.
However, I am imaging your mortification when he sees you in the shop next time. Because you made an effort to talk to him, he will make a bee line for you. Having made contact, he may just blurt out the dreaded request in abig loud voice for all your fellow customers to hear…
Cheezit has not responded since his first post and I am certainly not able to know what he was thinking, but I did not read his post the way others seem to have, at least I do not think so.
Okay, first it is not appropriate for someone to ask this, but of course the boy did not know that it was not appropriate.
Maybe talking to the mother would be better than the store manager.
I personally read his “if he is that bad” to mean if he needs to wear diapers and has accidents and cannot clean himself and potentially has to walk around with poo in his drawers for hours then maybe he should not be working, not that if he doesn’t know better than to have such a conversation.
I mean, maybe he only had an accident once and maybe mom comes right away, but if this is common and it takes a while to get cleaned up then it could be unhealthy to the boy and anyone else involved.
I do not think that cheezit was meaning that retarded people should never have jobs or anything of the sort, just that if he has a mentality so low as to need diapers then maybe working in an environment such as this is not the best for him.
I hope this does not come out sounding wrong. I am all for mentally impaired people having jobs, but most of them have the mind of atleast a 10-12 year old. If this boy is closer to 4 or 5 is that not a bit much for him?
Flame away.
Jeffery
p.s. I think you handled it best Diane.
Diane you must truly be a nice person and he saw that in you.
Cheezit what planet are you from?
DANG! I just read the responses to this thread and I really appreciate all the nice words! I am going to bring my 9 year old in here and let him read it. He is thinking I am the meanest mom around because I :::gasp::: won’t let him go outside until that pig pen of a bedroom is clean.
A little follow up to John.
I had to run up to the store again to buy a gallon of milk this morning. As I am standing in line I hear a loud voice say “HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO”. I turn around and he is bagging groceries in the line behind me.
I say, “Hi John” and wave to him. He smiles a big shit eating grin and says in a quieter voice, “Hello”.
I have been going to this store since it was built last October and have gotten to know the checkers pretty well. The woman who was checking my groceries has always seemed very nice and I have noticed that she is always kind to the disabled baggers (at least half of the baggers are mentally disabled).
I asked her if his mom has to come help him with “things” during his work hours. She said that he sometimes will ask her or another checker if they will help him in the bathroom. I told her that he asked if I could help him sometime if he needed it. She laughed and said that this was the first she has heard of him asking a customer.
She said that her and this other woman have told him that anytime he needs help he should tell them and they will have his mom come help him. Evidentally, it works out pretty well. I asked if it would be okay if I took him to the service desk and helped him call his mom if he should ever ask me and she said “It would be great”.
So that’s the plan.
My daughter said that she knows him from school and that he has a ton of friends (she really likes him a lot) and is pretty popular.
I’m not sure where you are coming from cheezit, but this boy has been working at this store since last fall and he is obviously doing well in a regular public high school in spite of the fact that he needs help with his toilet habits and that he sometimes says things that are not appropriate to most people. I think it is great!
I now must run and crack the whip. Intead of vacuum sounds, I am hearing Play Station coming from the bedroom.