You asked in the post I replied to how you could be more polite. I answered that perhaps you should start avoiding using language that makes people feel like they’ve done something purposeful to hurt you. Telling the waitress, even with a smile, that she wanted to remove part of your body by her request is in-your-face. Look at the alternative language I suggested in my earlier post. It is much less confrontational, even assuming you weren’t intending to be confrontational.
You didn’t know that intially, which is why I suggested you make your specific needs known or leave, without implying they were being difficult just to screw you over. Which may be exactly how you came across.
And why this? This is exactly my first reply to you ever and you immediately throw this attitude at me, as if I was being deliberately obtuse just to piss you off. You asked a specific question and I answered it to my best abilities. You didn’t like the answer so you acted in jerky manner to me. Perhaps your date saw something in your behavior and had some insight to offer. Or is no one ever right in critiquing how you come across?
I apologize, I have just become SO accustomed to addressing the same things OVER and OVER and OVER when the questions could be found by just reading the original postings. Forgive me for becoming slightly annoyed.
I don’t think he’s specified, but I’m guessing they may have been seated in a booth, and the OP wanted to have his chair beside him in the “walkway.” (I’ve worked in a restaurant that had a series of booths with a walkway between them, and we also would not allow people to put chairs/strollers/etc. in the walkway, for the same reason.)
I can only speculate, though, and since he’s announced he’s left the thread forever, I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Ok ONE last time I’m back lol Just to say…See? Another example of someone who hasn’t read the thread. I DID specify. NO, we were NOT in a booth. We were seated at a table. I got in the reg table chair because my wheelchair didn’t fit into the table comfortably and I wanted an enjoyable dining experience. OK-I’m out.!
I have also been in restaurants that told me that child strollers needed to be left at the front. The hostess asked me to leave the stroller at the front and I did. I don’t know what would have happened if I had refused.
Then they probably could’ve/should’ve accommodated you somehow, unless the tables are inches from each other and/or they were expecting a tour bus of competitive eaters to show up. It sounds like you dug your heels in quickly (so to speak) and so did they.
In reading your three threads (parking lot, airplane and this one) you react very hotly and very aggressively when you think you’ve been wronged. Accusing people of NOT READING when may be they just missed a small detail. Not giving people the benefit of the doubt. Being rude and using all caps as if you were poking your finger in someone’s face to punctuate a point. Responding very hotly at the first negative response.
The three issues I referenced all have cores of legitimacy, but when people try to point out another way of thinking about it, a more constructive was of responding, some detail perhaps you haven’t considered etc you get so hostile. Why should I imagine you’d be any different in real life? Even your date was embarrassed.
I’m not saying this to be jerk, but to explain why you’re getting more negative reactions than on the surface you might expect. Truth may be on your side, but man, your attitude makes it hard to see.
…because of the way in which the OP described the incident? There was no sufficient sign of accommodation or the manager working to resolve the situation in a way mutually beneficial to all.
Think about it this way; I am one person here, sharing these very personal stories with hundreds (who knows, thousands?) of unknown people here on this board. These “suggestions” from all these strangers are coming at me from every direction, with none of personal connection or responsibility that, in real life, would necessitate, or bring along, a bit more understanding or comprehension. I have felt absolutely bombarded here by people who will live their entire lives without ever knowing in the slightest bit what the world is like from the perspective of a wheelchair. So yes, I do get hostile here, but it’s only in response to others’ hostility. I have many, many other people in wheelchairs who look to me as a source of advocacy for their rights. I know I am pursuing the right path. Am I doing it in the right way? Perhaps not. But that is part of life. Figuring things out as you go. And let me say one more thing; of all the issues I’ve brought up here, the issue of planes and accessibility is the one that I have felt LEAST strongly about. It is the issue I have felt most swayed about since hearing everything everyone here has had to say. If every single post of mine regarding that subject were to be read (and Im not suggesting that) one could see a sort of evolution of thought on the matter. I start out demanding the airlines completely change and I end by wanting nothing more than to be able to “opt out” of some of the most-restrictive of the aisle-chair safety belts (which are designed with the most severely disabled in mind). So I have absorbed what people have offered and I appreciate it.
I have to say, as someone who’s been living with or married to a disabled person for 20+ years, that a lot of people who don’t want the disabled around play the “it’s against safety regs/fire code/etc.” card frequently.
When that doesn’t work for the Other Half sometimes they drag me aside and say things like "Can’t you get him to leave? He’s making other people uncomfortable! They don’t want to look at people like that." Or worse things.
Someone genuinely interested in serving a disabled customer would have tried to find a compromise to satisfy both the fire code and the customer. Or explain/ask “we have to keep the aisle clear - how do we do that and keep your chair at hand? Any ideas?”
Then again, some people in wheelchairs are assholes. I was working at store once when I needed to restock some shelves that just happened to be near a customer in a wheelchair. She got pissed off, hissed “You don’t need to watch me! I’m not going to steal anything!” and got me in trouble with the boss saying I was harassing her. Excuse me? I’m wheeling this handcart of 40 lb boxes over to empty shelves and using them to stock said shelves as I was instructed to do by the boss before you even came in in order to keep an eye on you? WTF? I wasn’t even looking at you, bitch.
Which is not to say McGarry or the hostess or manager in the OP were necessarily being “bitchy”, just that there are several possibilities here.
Fine, I have been here long enough that I am not a strawman.
You have a problem with us wanting to have a reasonable attempt at a normal life?
Not all wheelchairs come with desk length arms, or liftable arms. In fact those tend to be options one has to pay for. Frequently when you get a chair, the insurance company has the ultimate say in what they will pay for, and if you want options they tend to get denied and you have to pay for them yourself, and frequently us gimps are marginalized enough that our incomes are limited and can not afford to get the options that would make life much easier for us. I have had cars that cost less than many wheelchairs, and I am not talking about power chairs.
If this was the pit I would tell you to kiss my ass.
The strawman is that there are people in this conversation who are taking any position on this issue because they want wheelchair users not to be independent.
You’re not allowed to ignore laws if you think you know better.
We don’t even know what the fire code is (the OP says he didn’t check because he decided it was “bullshit”) but requiring others to break laws on your behalf, even when it would appear to you that they should do so, is not possible under the current legal structure.
And we’re talking about the guy who insisted an airline redesign and rebuild a plane for him. I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t pleasant from the get-go. That’s not conducive to persuading people to break laws for you and risk large fines.
LMAO…YEah!! Even if it KILLS them!! I mean, we live in a civilized society here, if we don’t obey all the laws, them none of the laws mean anything. :rolleyes:
And I doubt it really was a violation, they just didn’t want that chair there. I know no one else has the advantage of knowing the particular layout of this restaraurant or my wheelchair’s placement in it; but how exactly a folded up wheelchair which is pushed up right next to my chair at the table is in any way a fire code violation is a complete mystery to me. Even IF the restaurant had been more populated. But it was empty. I guess I would have been a fire code violation myself if I had decided to remain in the chair. “I’m sorry sir but we’re going to have to ask you to leave. Your presence here is a fire code violation.” Ha! “We can offer you some food behind the bar, though. Just dont let anyone see you.”
ONE last time I’m back lol Just to say…See? Another example of someone who hasn’t read the thread. I DID specify. NO, we were NOT in a booth. We were seated at a table. I got in the reg table chair because my wheelchair didn’t fit into the table comfortably and I wanted an enjoyable dining experience. OK-I’m out.!