Children with Special Needs
I shall be diplomatic now because this isn’t my story to tell.
My son, the birthday boy and host is busy, occupied, as we order our drinks in the restaurant. His friend makes two strenuous attempts to request a beverage from the server. His voice is as clear as a bell and quite as piercing, but the message has failed to penetrate. I intervene:- “yes he’d like half Pepsi and half Sprite please?”
The server is perplexed and distracted as he mines for information. From a distance we look like any other party of 12. Close up, it’s different. It takes a different format in each child. Collectively it can be disconcerting. It’s as if we each have three heads, fluent in Swahili.
“Er?”
“Can you do that? Mix Pepsi and Sprite in the same glass please?”
“Er….well…..um?” Throughout our exchange, our young friend repeats his request in a loop of ever increasing frustration, since my translation appears equally as useless.
“Do you think that would be ok.?” I ask as I try to arrest the server’s attention.
“Is he er…..does he…….is he…….does he have…..special needs?”
“Yes Sprite and Pepsi, mixed in the same glass please, special order.”
“Right.” He disappears without a murmur, to return shortly afterwards. We go round the table for the food order, until we reach our same young friend, “chicken nuggets please and no fries.”
“Would you like fries with that?”
“No fries.”
“It comes with fries. Would you like fries or one of these other choices, see at the bottom of the page?” Persists the server.
“No fries.”
“Would you like something else?”
“No, no fries.”
“You don’t want fries?”
Our young friend turns to me for full on eye contact, the faulty conduit, gives up on the server, to explain what should not need any further explanation. With an electrically charged tone of voice that carries over 10 tables in the noisy restaurant, “don’t give me fries, don’t give me anything with potato products or I’ll vomit.”
The server flinches, stabs himself in nose with his pen – a gasp and a laugh of relief as he skuttles off to the kitchen with mirth. My daughter watches him leave without initial comment, until she is quite certain he is out of ear-shot, “I never thought you need good listening skills to be a server.”
“It a much more highly skilled job than most people realize, at least if you want to do it well.”
“I wouldna believed it if I hadna heard it for myself.”
January 19th, 2010 at 12:14 am
And those were such simple requests! Good grief!
January 19th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Got to say, I’m on the side of the päivänsankari’s friend there… cola AND Sprite in the same glass … so much better than either alone!
What gets me:
“Chicken nuggets an no fries, please!”
To which the response is:
“Would you like fries with that?”
Priceless example of crackpot standardisation!
January 19th, 2010 at 2:01 am
Amazing how hard it can be to communicate with people even when they are listening. Sometimes I think the world is so attuned to typicals that you have to teach people like the server to hear with their head as well as their ears.
January 19th, 2010 at 4:59 am
In the server’s defense, after a long day on your feet it does get harder to do your job well. I think they probably go on autopilot after a while, and handle every customer the same way. If this one was tired like that, I really wouldn’t blame him for tripping up over the kid’s requests.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:50 am
oh my! that’s a riot honestly. my daughter is into ordering her own foods. she’s on a gf/cf diet and has her wants/needs down pat. the sever will turn to me asking what I want for her and she’ll speak up in exact with what she wants. “grilled chicken, no milk or gluten, a sweet potato with no butter and a water”.
when I was a kid I liked half pepsi/half mountain dew. (seriously, ewwww! but I loved it back then!)
January 19th, 2010 at 6:30 am
What exactly is so difficult to understand in “no fries”?
January 19th, 2010 at 7:58 am
Sometimes when that sort of thing happens to us, I believe it is the server who is “special” and my kid is the normal one. Sheesh. How could they get the NO FRIES thing wrong? And, people have mixed soda for years! DO IT!
January 19th, 2010 at 8:16 am
Well, I’m overwhelmed even thinking of getting out with all our “special needs,” and nevermind those of the server LOL. LOVE how you glanced right over that question with “Yes Pepsi and Sprite in the same glass,” as no matter how I think on it, that’s the quickest way ’round it without an embarrassing tiff.
Sigh.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:10 am
It sounded like something from a movie, I am so grateful to have the internet as an extention of my brain to be able to sift ‘Jack Nicholson’ and ‘diner’ to find the great moment in cinematic history that puts your situation on film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXVP5lSF1s
January 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
I would have been so sorely tempted to say ‘Which bit of NO don’t you understand?’. There comes a point where I get exasperated, you handled this so well, unlike the server! Jen.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Wow. Perhaps you should have used a story board for this kid!! Obviously he needed a little help understanding this seemingly basic concept.
I just love stupid people…
January 19th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Great reply to the ’special needs’ question:”special order”.
I wonder why the server was so determined this child get fries?
I like rootbeer and diet pepsi mixed, myself.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
That reminds me of the scene in the movie “Five Easy Pieces” in which Jack Nicholson tries to get his sandwich made the way he wants. He explains in very simple language how to do that, and is not only not understood, but the waitress gets all hostile on him.
@chaotic: I have waited tables, even though a bit “excessively earnest and socially awkward” myself. I always understood that my income depended on getting the customers exactly what they wanted, within actual limits of what was available from the kitchen, and what said customers were willing to pay for.
That waiter is incompetent. I would hope that y’all gave him a very small tip, but large parties generally get a 15% tip added, no matter how bad the service.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Hmmm, we’ve had miscommuncation at restaurants before. As long as the server isn’t rude it normally just ends up as a funny little situation. I’ve recently stopped ‘outing’ Patrick when we go out. With interesting results.
Oh, I’m blogging again. First post is a bit of a boring update, but I’m back at it (hopefully daily).
January 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Oh, livsparents? I hadn’t read the comments when I posted mine. Great minds think alike!
January 19th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Well, not _all_ of the comments.
January 19th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Perhaps the poor kid just needs to go back to serving school and fine-tune his listening skills a little bit. Though I suppose it’s also highly possible that he’s fairly new at the job and this was one of his first big “seatings”.
January 19th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
It can be amazing how thick people can be if you want anything or say anything off the beaten path. I love saying the unexpected (but relevant!) in my course lectures- the students tend to remember what I was talking about, because it stands out! And there is nothing better than answer something relevant to “How are you?” other than “Fine”. Really catches folks off-guard.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Wow. I hope the server is new. You’re right, though. A good server takes more skill than most people (and their pay) gives them credit for.
January 20th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Seems to me that with very little cue, one could immediately go into a format of treating anyone as if they have ’special needs’. Adults with ’special needs’ are in many employments. We find the most consistent need to be e-special-ly communicative with the office persons at a school or church. Don’t know why, but these people usually require extra care to get our needs known.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:05 am
HAHA! Oh wow. I guess he wasn’t working there to put himself through college to become a rocket scientist, then
January 21st, 2010 at 8:40 am
LMAO! Whoo boy…
January 21st, 2010 at 9:28 am
Hi,
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January 21st, 2010 at 6:42 pm
What ever happened to ‘the customer is always right!’
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Bayla is an obvious spam troll. Do not click on that link!
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 pm
@ Sue: When I was waiting tables, I asked my boss the headwaiter how much sh!t I had to take from the customers, and he said, “All of it.” It was right stressfull at times, and our restaurant was on the top of a building about 20 stories tall, and there was an open-air walkway outside, with a safety rail which really wasn’t that high. Nonetheless we managed to control our violent passions and give good service.
If I had to be nice to unreasonable customers (and I did) I have absolutely no respect for that doodah of a waiter who failed to understand and comply with a reasonable request, spoken in short words of plain English.
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:39 am
What was so difficult to understand about the orders?
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:33 pm
If I was me (and my son) Jerkulies will have been fired by now. Sorry but that really makes me so mad!!