To be really fed up at thoughtless disabilism? Long rant, sorry

[Sixweekstowait]

Generally I just get on with having a disability- sometimes I feel sad at the things I can't do but generally I focus on what I can and I do amazingly interesting work where my disability isn't an issue and my intellect is what defines me . But this last week I've got really fed up with careless, thoughtless disabilism. Firstly, the selfish s*s at the station who think that the disabled spaces are there to make life easier for commuters being dropped off or picked up or for people calling in to renew their season tickets. Well on Monday morning at the height of the morning rush hour I'd had enough and one hapless commuter get the full force of my wrath. Other commuters stood around open mouthed of course and looking faintly embarrassed. Then an organisation I've just started work for wanted proof of my disability so I could claim for a taxi. First time I've ever been asked - wtf did they think I was doing? Putting on a silly walk so I didn't have to take the tube? And then the final straw today - Air bloody New Zealand ( of whom I expected better) wouldn't let me select a seat today when I booked online - because I requested special assistance - ie a wheelchair to the aircraft - I don't need it on board. They'll graciously allocate seats when we check in? This is Business Premier we're talking about ffs - I'm not going to be left with the last row by the lavatories. So yet something else to deal with - you can imagine the tone of the email I've just sent. FWIW - when I choose seats with BA online, they just shade out the ones by the emergency exits ( which I understand) and then treat me like a grown- up and let me choose my own seat. Feeling sad now - it's hard work being cross and fighting battles and sometimes I just want a big hug and for organisations / people to just think a bit and for me not to have to be a stroppy sod

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/scottharris/100076162/kanye-wests-idiotic-attitude-to-disability-is-symptomatic-of-a-bigger-problem/

Just checked - you need to search for "permanent" labels to get the non-removable ones.
I've been so tempted to get some for the idiot parents who think it is fine to park outside my mums house despite the "disabled person" sign affixed to the wall. because who cares if an ambulance can't get parked (as happened on Friday) just so long as their kids don't have to walk more than 10 metres. (I might be slightly bitter about this)

www.focusondisability.org.uk/parking-recip.html

Some info re other countries re use of BB and their equivalents. I always take mine to EU countries - some French supermarket chans have those ' take my parking place, take my disability' signs up in the disabled parking bays

My nan had a disabled parking spot put in for her by the council.

Now another person parks in it everyday because they can. My nan is still trapped in her home and the other person doesn't care

My local supermarket has signs in the disabled bays which say 'laziness is not a disability'. However they lose any brownie points they earnt by putting all the trolley parks halfway down the parking rows. So I can park right next to the door but then have to walk halfway across the carpark and back to get a trolley, so I end up having to walk futher than if I parked in a regular parking bay.

Bad planning of disabled facilities gets right up my nose too. Like the disabled parking places the council have now provided in the recently renovated town centre. They've made it look all olde worlde and traditional and it does look lovely. But using cobbles to mark out the disabled parking spaces?

And I won't mention the removal of all the 1960s flat concrete paving slabs which have been replaced with those small square unflat paving block thingies. You know the ones I mean? They make walking down the street with my rollator feel like I'm walking over corregated steel.

Yes it's really hard to get one. I think the worst part of their form is where they list the conditions that do not qualify (anything that doesn't stop you walking, though they will allow very severe mental health and learning disability it must be backed up by MRI/CT scans proving effects walking severely) and list of professionals whose supporting letters are allowed (in big bold letters it states no GP or nurse reports (though psychiatric nurses are allowed to do reports which annoys me as I have two specialist nurses willing to write letters about my physical conditions but it isn't allowed).

The worst is refusing it to people with arthritis because it is considered curable by joint replacements and physiotherapy. Except it isn't. Nor in my area are joint replacements done much anymore since they became classed as 'cosmetic surgery' yes really!!

Just read the Kayne story. Similar happened to me at a theatre in Croyden. Watching a comedy/music show; the band kept pointing at me and shouting 'lazy!' At the end of the song they made a big 'funny' deal about how everyone had been up dancing apart from the lazy one on the end.
Yeah, the lazy one at the end.
Also in a church at a funeral. Priest asked everyone to stand. Everyone else did. He stopped, waited, looked at me, said again 'everyone stand' whilst looking at me. I had to say 'no' out loud.

Bloody cobbles drive me insane not the old ones obviously but the new ones our council put in on the road edges just why I cant balane

Rant away, OP.
So sorry to hear the everyday hassles the disabled have to suffer.

When I'm reading a thread where someone objects to disablism, I normally report too. I assume they know more about the subject than I do.

Parking across TWO disabled spaces
Maybe clamp any car without a sticker that is in a disabled space ? Or one of those automatic penalties ? It should work for publicly-opened spaces.

RyanAir are mean shits, but especially so wrt disabled passengers.
Ryan are deliberate, NOT thoughtless, about discouraging passengers who need more time / help.

Surreptitiously (so you are not on CCTV) prepare a sticker with superglue and casually hold it a few secs against the car door, by the handle.

sympathies OP, behaviour like that isn't just thoughtless, it's shit.

My family happened to know plenty of people with varied disabilities when I grew up, so I hope I've always avoided making it harder for anyone to access anything. But it wasn't until I had two journeys with a wheelchair user on an 'accessible' bus that I realised how ruddy hard it can be (driver ignored wheelchair bill as 'so many kids press it' so missed her stop, van driver was parked at bus stop on the way back so driver couldn't lower ramp, etc. etc. etc. et bloody cetera). And that was just a snapshot of her life. Even her council flat had a lip at the doorway - the council were 'supposed' to do something about it but never had.

Must be so wearing having to deal with all this shit all the time.

I got a severe telling off for not standing in the magistrates court. I was doing a law degree at the time so went along to watch proceedings. I have a hip defect and find transitioning from sitting to standing extremely painful, I have a chair at home which lifts me up and tilts. Because of the pain involved I either stay sitting or stay standing. The court usher wouldn't have it and ordered me to stand every time the magistrates came in or left. Which if you've ever been to the magistrates court you'll know is every few minutes. I tried to explain that I was disabled (had my rollator with me) but she was having none of it.

I'm battling a one woman battle on this front at the moment. The crass 'pretend not to understand' technique is being employed against me, and unfortuneately in a war of attrition, the healthy person always wins :(

Can't give real examples but it's stuff like ...

'we've known for four years that you can't use your arms, and have had medical proof from then, but we've decided that you MUST do this activity which depends on arm strength& dexterity in order to access something upon which rests the ability for you to do your job'

And then ignore 4,5,6 explanations as to why someone with no arms cannot be forced to use their arms... And get very angry and turn it into a really big issue... Then profess surprise that the constant demands and badgering, & the effort of constant meetings to discuss (push me into backing down), have made it very hard to do my job, and the effort involved has actually made me ill.

Then only backing down when it's put very clear to them that they're directly contravening the equality law, and them it's all 'but how were we supposed to know you had no arms! We didn't know that having no arms would stop you using your arrrrms!' etc etc etc.

It's fucking annoying, and actually incredibly hurtful. I hate being disabled :(

I had a woman yesterday (i think she was trying to be nice but it was awful) who was running a kids party say "right everyone has to join in with this, no excuses. Oh yeah, apart from the lady on crutches". I'm probably being oversensitive, but I wanted the ground to open up.

I take DS to a baby group once a week. They always start sitting on the floor in a circle to sing songs. I can't sit on the floor because I won't be able to get up again but they won't let me bring in a chair from the other room as it 'spoils the feeling' of the group.

Sorry this thread is turning into a complete moanfest for me. I have more. Unfortunately I have so much more.

Liverpool- not a moanfest at all. Obviously this thread is being read and contributed to also by people without disabilities and perhaps some of our comments might help everyone's general understanding - nothing from Air NZ yet.......

How can the general public be so bloody stupid? How long will it be before people realise that society needs to help those who need it not fuck them over.

Dontput

don't know if you watched the recent celebrity big brother and see the way a brain damaged man with hearing loss (the actor Gary Busey) was treated and nothing done to rectify the bullying.

MiscelllaneousAssortment sorry, I'm not quite clear what it is you're describing, is it possible to explain further?

I don't know if it's similar but I used to be a teacher. I was bullied out of my job a few years ago. One of the main reasons they had for trying to get rid of me was that 'it is impossible to teach effectively from a sitting position'.

So they thought the whole of the Disability Discrimination Act, and later the Equality Act, did not apply to me in my wheelchair because they believed this nonsense about teaching effectively!

Oh god yes, the 24 hr in advance travel notice on the railways.

Individual railway staff in my area are absolutely fantastic, couldn't be better, gold stars all round.

But the system...

No, I can't book the train 24 hours in advance, I don't know if I'll be well enough to travel by train tomorrow, and if I am whether the "good patch" will happen morning or afternoon.

Also, I don't know how long I'll be - I have to wait at the hospital or appointment-less bank like everyone else. But when I'm done I'll be knackered and need home ASAP.

And the on-platform assistance button... no longer rings in the station but in a call centre in another country. And rings. And rings.

And when they finally pick up they ask, "What did you want to know?" and have no idea what to do when you say, "I don't need information, I need a human right here to physically take me across the barrow crossing of this station with no lift". (Thank you nice other passengers, who when I trundled down the platform and bellowed across the tracks, went into the ticket office to raise a human.)

Ahhhh, that's better!

That reminds me, gwr are supposed to reply in 5 hours and i emailed them last night, no reply yet. Will twitter them now...

Sorry WhereDoAll it's really hard to think of an analogous situation without giving mine away and it's a bit delicate currently so the last thing I need is to be outed.

Let me have another think...

Kind of like your work, but not quite. Bloody frustrating that must have been. Did you ever get anywhere with them? People seen to dig in and entrench when they've decided upon their 'out' to the equality act. An 'out' which just wouldn't be allowed in a court of law but who wants to / can go that far?

Hummmm. I'm hearing alot of 'that doesn't fit with company culture' as the same kind of thing.

A few things that come to mind as i read this thread

Someone, I can't remember who, asked about doors to disabled toilets opening outwards. This is a legal requirement in the building code. Based around the idea that if someone falls and the door opens inwards there could be an issue getting help into them.

Someone else mentioned blue badges from a different country: UK blue badges are valid worldwide and AFAIK the equivalent are valid here.

Trains: technically you don't have to book but they prioritise anyone who has booked. I usually do know the day before I want to travel so do almost always book and have found some staff members push the "you should book" aspect as a need if they don't know me and I've not booked. One thing that I've found really useful is getting the direct dial number for my local station so if I want to leave earlier or come home later or there's a problem I can just call them and they sort it. They aren't supposed to give it out but if you're a regular and you can find a particularly helpful staff member they often will.