by Blake Hunsley
I told a story the other day about having dinner out with a blind friend and how impressed I was by our server. Specials were thoroughly described, items placed on the table were indicated using clock face directions (coffee is at your three o’clock, napkin is at your nine), and my friend’s service dog was barely given notice, let alone any attention or objection. This isn’t always the norm, and it spoke very highly of the restaurant staff and the training they receive. I was so impressed I wanted to write about the experience, but I had to think of a poor training experience to contrast it against.
Which is when the following embarrassing memory came to me.
Years ago I worked in a grocery store and we had a customer I’ll call Syd. Syd was a regular, coming in about once a week. We had plenty of regulars at this store and our team of employees was a bunch of overly chatty Maritimers, so we got to know many of these customers very well over time. But we didn’t get to know Syd.
Syd had a disability that made engaging in any conversation difficult to the point of being painful. I know because Syd had a little plastic laminated card they’d show to people like me and my coworkers on first meeting to explain why they weren’t speaking, and why they’d react so negatively if spoken to. We say a lot at reachAbility that disability is different, not difficult, and that was the case with Syd. Customer service when it came to them just meant using gestures and body language and avoiding unnecessary speaking for at most ten minutes of interaction. Different, but not at all difficult.
Or it shouldn’t have been. I would love to tell you that we all, myself included, treated Syd with the basic kindness, empathy, and simple accommodation they deserved. We didn’t. We found Syd frustrating. We didn’t like that they would scowl and turn away from us if we forgot and asked how they were doing. We found it awkward to stifle our usual chatty selves and conduct our business with Syd in silence. Some people went so far as to hide from Syd when they saw them coming in the door. I’m sure Syd noticed, and I’m sure they felt terrible. I don’t feel too great just thinking back on it.
Were we all bad people? Debatable, but I don’t think so. Our actions certainly weren’t great, but as a team we were young, inexperienced, and had absolutely no training on how to help customers with disabilities of any kind. If a person in a wheelchair needed an item from a top shelf or a person with a white cane needed some guidance, I’m sure we would have all jumped to help. But a neurological condition we didn’t understand was too much of an obstacle for us. I have no doubt a service dog would have triggered some reactions as well, whether jumping to pet the friendly dog or insisting they weren’t allowed in a grocery store I can only guess.
In the years since working that job I’ve had a lot of training and a lot of experience with disability, including my own, including being frustrated by inexperienced folks who don’t understand and lose patience with me. I look back on how my colleagues and I treated Syd with regret, but also with a sense of disbelief. Education and life experience have completely changed my approach and deepened my empathy over time, and I’m relieved to say that someone like Syd would never receive such poor treatment today anywhere that I have any sort of say.
Just as good training made for a seamless dining experience for my blind friend, some basic disability confidence training would have made shopping for groceries a lot less frustrating for Syd. Simply having someone knowledgeable explain to us the ways disabilities can be more complex that what we can see, and that our inability to make a simple accommodation was likely causing Syd real pain would have changed everything. Syd would have received the respect and patience they deserved, our store would have made at least one customer happier and likely boosted our reputation, and my former colleagues and I would be looking back on our memories of Syd with a lot less regret and embarrassment.
