I have to say I saw quite a disturbing sight a few weeks ago that still bothers me a lot today. Usually I can just wipe something away as a “that’s life and it happens” moment. Not this time for some reason.
I was in a place of business the other day when there was a special customer in the store. This gentleman was older, a little weathered, and you could tell he had been through a lot in this life. When I spoke with him, he was nice and polite in a very meek voice.
This gentleman was purchasing a shopping cart of goods with the lady I will assume was his wife or partner. Like most customers, he went to the check out and pays for his goods. This is where things went incredibly wrong. An employee asked him about two other bags that he had in his cart. It should be pointed out that these bags were marked and from another store. I have no idea why this question was even asked. Needless to say, the customer freaked. He screamed at employees and yelled curse words at them. His anger was very apparent to all. Being an employee there, I was asked to come up from and when I did I just stood there. Once his goods were finally paid for, I asked him if he wanted help with the carts he had. This was taken with the same low, polite voice that he originally demonstrated,
Once he left the store, employees were talking about how rude he was and could not believe the way he acted. I just shook my head. I pointed out to more than one that he was disabled and mentally impaired. This was the part that bothered me.
In today’s world where we teach and scream inclusion and tolerance, absolutely no one demonstrated any that evening. Most of the people that I spoke to did not even realize that the person they were talking about was disabled in any way.
Now this is what I saw. This man was in his mid sixties; face completely weathered, arched back that looked painful, head off to the side or turned, and something different about his eyes. He spoke slowly unless enraged. When he was not enraged, he seemed like he did not know what had just happened.
I do not understand why no one else saw this at all and just completely judged a person without paying attention. Now most of the people involved would not want to be judged however had no issue in doing it. I have no idea what may have been wrong with this man. If could have been that he was abused and it wore on him. He could have been impaired in many ways. It was not for me to know exactly what may have been wrong. It was up to me to understand that I had no idea what had happened to him before he walked in the store. This part I will never know. It is also none of my business.
The biggest question I have is do we look at other people or do we just look at ourselves. I know most people want understanding when talking about themselves but I am trying to figure out why we cannot give the attention or respect to another person whose world we may know nothing about? We would want people to when it comes to us.
