Every year on July 4th I participate in a 10k foot race down by the bay (I use a handcycle obviously). The first time it took me 3+ hours to cross the finish line. By that time most of the people had gone home but there were still plenty of people there to applaud when I finished. “A disabled person just crossed the finish line!” or some such was blasted over the PA. They gave me a big shiney gold medal that said FIRST PLACE. It was cute, and I really appreciated the applause. Over the years, I’ve made upgrades to my bike and gotten a bit faster. My last time was only about 25 minutes and I hardly broke a sweat, and they still gave me a medal. Not nearly as much applause though. I have about six gold medals hanging on the wall behind me.
The waitress definitely made a mistake, but I think most of the people in this thread are being a little hard on her. It’s not like she went through four years of professional waitressing-therapist school. She probably immediately went back to the kitchen and kicked herself for being so socially awkward.
I don’t think withholding a tip is an appropriate response. I think letting the management know how you prefer to be treated is appropriate. Then let management educate her.
Except isn’t Roy’s the sort of place where the entrees start at $20? I would expect a much higher level of training of staff like that than at my local bar, and would be rather more suprised.
I agree that no malicious intent was involved, but it was still pretty rude of her, especially the way she talked to my mom instead of me.
I work in a center with kids with all sorts of disabilities, birth through 18 years of age. We offer physical, occupational, speech and educational therapy. 180+ kids on our active caseload, and we see many of them multiple times per week. I’m just the secretary there, no special training for kids with disabilities, but I’ve found that they are just KIDS and want to be treated like kids - period. When they do well in therapy, or reach a major milestone - we celebrate! When they act out, we call 'em on it quickly. They are typical kids in atypical bodies with sometimes atypical minds.
Kudo’s to Raising Cane (best fried chicken in the south!). Last summer a group of our teens went there as part of their therapy to learn how to order, pay for their meal, etc. and the staff there was awesome. Please give them your business if you’re in the area! (no affiliation, just super impressed with the food and staff)
And none of us are immune… my mom used to get asked “and what will she have?” about my grandmother when they would go out to eat together. Grandma was perfectly capable of reading the menu and ordering for herself, but because she was elderly, she must not be, right?
Now, it is happening to Mom.
I’m waiting for my turn, and saving up all these responses.
In high school I once was out at a restaurant with a friend who uses a wheelchair. A waitress asked me (I suppose because I was sitting closest to him) “What’s wrong with your friend?”
Yeah. This was on a school field trip. She did not get a tip, and, after my friend quietly spoke to our teacher, the six meals at our table were taken off the bill.
My friends’ response was great, though. Something along the lines of “The rude, idiotic people who constantly assault me keep me from getting better.”
I usually ask “do you want a hand?” rather than “do you need help?” OK, except in one case where I pretty much grabbed the shopping bags out of the hands of this old lady and asked where should I bring them (she looked about 80 and had been dropping the whole thing to rest every few yards, I’d been seeing her since a block away).
I do need help myself sometimes, specially when I’m traveling with Mom and her humongous bags - and it’s a lot nicer to me when it’s phrased as “want”. So I assume the same works for others.
Manda JO writes:
> Except isn’t Roy’s the sort of place where the entrees start at $20? I would
> expect a much higher level of training of staff like that than at my local bar, and
> would be rather more suprised.
Do any places give their servers any sort of training beyond “There’s the kitchen. There’s the dining room. You walk from one to the other.”? And it’s now the standard rule for employers that you design jobs to have as little training as possible. That way you don’t care if your employees only spend a few months on the job before quitting and moving on.
The good places still do! My daughter worked for two years in a very upscale restaurant that’s been operating in the same location for over a hundred years. It’s difficult to get hired on there, they start everyone in the bar while they learn the ropes, then gradually bump them up to lunch shifts. Only the really good ones score dinner shifts regularly, but then again it’s not unusual for a server to bring home well over two to three hundred bucks a shift just in tips. This doesn’t count the slice of the bar tab–just what gets left on the table. They have waitstaff who’ve been there twenty years and they HATE turnover–this is why it’s not easy to get hired on.
My daughter had to learn every beer/wine/liquor option as well as every item on the menu–how it was prepared, what’s in it, where the damned fish was caught, everything! Not only are the waitstaff insanely knowledgeable about every menu entry, they’re extremely attentive, well groomed and expected to be able to field questions about the city, night life, what shows are playing, good after hours places and be up on current events. This is how a really GOOD restaurant stays on top–it’s not just the food, it’s the experience.
If the organization for which I work had its way, everyone would have ability awareness training—the person who would never dream of asking your parents if a menu was necessary right along with the person who speaks really loudly because, you know,k you’re “one of those people”.
I was once out with a gentleman who is blind when a woman approached. Cleverly noting his white-and-red cane, she asked me, “Is he blind?”
When I said, “Well, he isn’t deaf, so why don’t you ask him”, she called me a smart-ass. He handled the situation with much more grace than I did, being a disability awareness trainer by profession.
The same thing happened to me, lorene – I went to dinner with a blind friend, and the hostess turned to me and said in a loud stage whisper, “Can she read Braille?” To which I replied, “She’s blind, not deaf – why don’t you ask her?” and turned away. I din’t get called a smartass, though.
It was really helpful for me to spend so much time with my disabled friends. I learned so much about what to do – for example, offer help but don’t assume it’s needed; I knew one blind guy who, when a woman asked if he needed help going down a flight of stairs and he assured her he didn’t, insisted he did and grabbed him around the waist and practically threw him down the stairs, breaking his wrist in the process! (I’m still surprised he didn’t file criminal charges; I would have.) And, of course, seeing everything whiterabbit has gone through because of her height has been eye-opening for all of us. People can be amazingly stupid! But it’s hard to go wrong treating people with courtesy and respect, and never, ever assuming they can or can’t do something.
I agree you should write a letter, Carnick. A little further training for the staff (or any training at all) sounds like it would be a good idea. Hopefully your server will not treat anyone else the same way she treated you. Because she was just plain wrong.