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People with special needs should not be handling food in a restaurant, OR be anywhere near food prep or serving areas. That's insane. Think of the potential contamination risks to customers by people who cannot grasp food safety. The customer was right about the sign. It will alert customers to go somewhere else with less potential risk, but something tells me that manager will be shown the door.
Maybe the employee had the job of wiping tables, sweeping the floor, filling the silverware trays, who knows? My guess would be the customer just glommed onto the first employee they came across and then got mad when that employee was special needs and unable to meet their request/demands.
We used to have a special needs employee who was only there a few hours each week to straighten and do some light cleaning. Because she was on the sales floor doing these tasks sometimes customers would ask her for help, not realizing at first she was special needs. Most people were nice about it, some were occasionally confused, but every once in a while we'd get some idiot who would get ugly, either to her face or to complain to another employee that we shouldn't have 'those' people on the sales floor with the 'regular' people.
Seriously, if you can't help acting like a donkey when you run across a special needs employee you probably aren't the kind of customer a business wants anyway.
Reading the comments on this thread, this story does seem a bit unusual. Why did the manager not just fill the salad bowl herself or have another customer do it while the manager was talking to this potentially hotheaded customer?
I’m sure he or someone did, however the customer wasn’t complaining about the lettuce at the point he went to the manager, he went to the manager to complain specifically about the employee.
People with special needs should not be handling food in a restaurant, OR be anywhere near food prep or serving areas. That's insane. Think of the potential contamination risks to customers by people who cannot grasp food safety. The customer was right about the sign. It will alert customers to go somewhere else with less potential risk, but something tells me that manager will be shown the door.
I highly doubt that. 10 of his 16 employees are special needs, this man is doing a great service to the community. The autistic employee was NOT in charge of food that is the whole point. The customer wanted him to do something that was not in his job description. The manager explained to the customer that he wasn’t trained to do that job that he wanted him to do.
I don’t think people with autism are any more likely to be dirty, in fact they may be more likely to be clean freaks ala Sheldon on the Big Bang theory. However when I worked at Dominos a lot of the teenage males who were not special-needs did things to the food that I never would’ve done (when they knew it was a non-tipping customer). There’s plenty of videos online that show what resentful young men do on a regular basis in fast food restaurants and other restaurants. Special-needs employees are normally very grateful for the job, do as they’re told and anxious to do a good job.
Special-needs employees are not standing around picking their noses and then making you a sandwich, your prejudices have no basis.
I don't know about degrading, I'm still searching for the word I want.
So...uh, the manager put a sign on the door saying, what, "We hire people with disabilities, so:
-- be patient with employees who may appear to not understand your question?
-- try to understand if employees move slowly
-- please understand out service maybe slower than usual...
-- what exactly?
To be honest, as a customer walking in the door I don't know what I'd think about that.
Glad they warned me so I'd be more understanding?? or bad for the employees that a sign had to be posted making excuses -- OK "explaining" why their performance is "different" from others who work there.
The manager should have just fill the salad bowl and moved on.
I suppose depending on how angry or irate the customer was -- the manager -- any manager would offer an explanation in that case. But I'd have to either see and hear video of the tone in their voices, see body language for me to know what happened...and whether the manager or customer or BOTH didn't handle the situation correctly.
The manager sign simply said “we are an equal opportunity employer and we hire all of God’s children.”. What you were talking about, is what the customer wanted them to put up, a warning of sorts that the employee was autistic. Instead he put up the one I quoted, which to me is lovely.
There is no reason to believe that the salad bowl wasn’t filled when the customer complained about it, but he didn’t just want lettuce at that point, he wanted the employee admonished for not doing so when the customer asked him to. That is when the manager explained about the employee being autistic and not trained to do that. Just because the manager took the time to explain about the employee and why he wasn’t going to punish him, does not mean he ignored that the salad bowl was empty I don’t know why people think that.
People with special needs should not be handling food in a restaurant, OR be anywhere near food prep or serving areas. That's insane. Think of the potential contamination risks to customers by people who cannot grasp food safety. The customer was right about the sign. It will alert customers to go somewhere else with less potential risk, but something tells me that manager will be shown the door.
You must not know any special needs people. Some are OCD about handwashing. Most all I have known whether autistic or MR are good on following routines when they learn them. If handwashing or countertop cleaning is part of the routine, they will do it every time and remind others if they forget.
You must not know any special needs people. Some are OCD about handwashing. Most all I have known whether autistic or MR are good on following routines when they learn them. If handwashing or countertop cleaning is part of the routine, they will do it every time and remind others if they forget.
There was a car wash near me that had a young man with developmental disabilities working there. This place was kind of a drive through manual/automatied combo car wash, where the kids told you where to stop at each station, scrub the wheels, dry it etc. I always enjoyed watching him work. When he waved me forward and put up his hands for me to stop, i could tell he took his responsibility very seriously (although he was a bit stingy with the Rain-Ex lol). He looked very proud of himself.
He was there for probably 10 or 12 years, then a couple years ago it got sold, and the new owners made it fully automated. I felt so bad for him I’m sure he was devastated to lose that job. That owner could not have asked for a more loyal or harder working employee.
Reading the comments on this thread, this story does seem a bit unusual. Why did the manager not just fill the salad bowl herself or have another customer do it while the manager was talking to this potentially hotheaded customer?
I googled for another story, nothing more to read. Only one story that has comments and none from the customers point of view. I even went to their FB page, not seeing anything there either so I'm not sure where on social media this is heating up.
Well, the customer wasn't getting the service expected. The autistic guy can work somewhere where he won't interact with customers if that is a problem. I'm sure there are plenty of autistic people stocking shelves at the grocery store, and that is a good job for them.
Well, the customer wasn't getting the service expected. The autistic guy can work somewhere where he won't interact with customers if that is a problem. I'm sure there are plenty of autistic people stocking shelves at the grocery store, and that is a good job for them.
It's cute how you put all people with autism in the same basket. Speaks volumes.
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