So this happened yesterday at a Mcdonalds in London:
We were in the queue buying lunch, and my dsis needed to use the toilet. She has a 'hidden' disability and requires the disabled toilet for her needs, but the disabled toilet was locked, fair enough, stop everyone from using it and protects it for people who need it, like my sister. So, dsis went to ask a member of staff if it could be opened for her.
Well, just our luck that she happened to ask a complete bitch. The staff member told my dsis that she could not use it as she wasn't disabled. Ok, fair enough she didn't know. So my sister then explained to her that she does have a disability but it's a 'hidden' disability, and she will need to use the disabled toilet because of it. The girl gave my sister a horrid look (which I saw and at this point I came over) and said, 'you don't have a disability, you look perfectly fine to me to use the toilets downstairs' Again, my sis explained that her disability is hidden, so you wouldn't 'see' it or realised it, but it still required her to use the disabled toilet. The girl then said, well if you can't see it, then it can't be that bad so you can use the toilets downstairs and in the time you have spent trying to get into this toilet you could have finished the queue for the downstairs toilets (!!!!!!!!!) my sister politely said, 'what do you class as a disability here?'. The staff replied, 'you have to be in a wheelchair, or have something wrong with your legs so you can't get down the stairs'.
My sister replied, 'well I think you need to go on some disability awareness training, because some people, like me, have disabilities that are nothing to do with their legs and still need to use the disabled toilet.' The girl then asked my sister very rudely, 'what is your disability then? Because I can't see anything wrong with you' (!!!!)
My sis did not want to publically announce her disability to the whole of Macdonalds, but the total irony was that we had just finished doing the London Walk for Crohn's and Colitis and we were still wearing our tshirts!! So my sister said, if you want to know my disability, look at my tshirt, we have just come back from doing a charity walk for my disability, yet here we are being discriminated against because of it! The girl said, 'I'm not discriminating against you I just don't understand why you can't use the toilets downstairs, otherwise everyone will want this toilet unlocked for them.
I could not believe my ears at the rudeness of this young lady. My sister was absolutely humiliated (we were in public) and she was looking at us like a piece of shit.
So we told her to get the manager.
She huffed rudely 'fine!'.
We stood waiting by the disabled toilet and people were looking at us.
When the manager arrived with her, she said to the manager (before either of us could speak) these people can't be bothered to queue for the toilets downstairs- and she is saying that she is disabled.
And at this point my sister interrupted, 'excuse me I can speak for myself thank you very much!' We then explained to the manager what had happened etc. the manager did not ask any awkward questions or give us any funny looks, he simply took the key and opened the door and smiled and said no problem.
He was then extremely apologetic, and asked if we wanted anything free, but we had already bought out meals and to be honest after this incident we didn't even want to eat our food as it had left a bad taste in our mouth. I did see the manager take the member if staff aside and talk to her, but it didn't seem like she was being reprimanded.
Anyways, even this morning, thinking about it has got me livid and worked up. The irony that even when you are wearing a tshirt for Crohn's, you can still get prejudice right in front of your face!!
My sister wants me to help her write a strongly worded letter, as I often write letters of complaint for my work and it's my forte, but DH says that because the manager was apologetic and offered us a free food (which we had declined) we have no leg to stand on and we should just leave it....
AIBU to still be livid?