I feel so embarrassed and terrible

[crostina1]

I currently work at a hotel front desk. Around 2pm a man came in, there was me and a young girl both working at the front desk. When he approached the desk to me it appeared he was looking at and addressing my colleague. He asked a question and as he didn’t appear to be looking at me but my colleague, I ignored him but then my colleague didn’t answer. I look over at my colleague to see she was just doing our admin checklist and was obviously busy. The man then said “Hey! I’m talking to you. I’m hardly going to be talking to her when she’s busy and you’re doing nothing am I?” I acknowledged him and he then seemed upset that I had ignored him. I froze for a second out of confusion as he still appeared to be ‘looking at’ my colleague and then I apologised, and asked what I could help him with, but I think I had upset him.

He then actually addresses my colleague and said “Is my left eye drifting? I’m disabled, I have a form of paralysis and my eye does that, that’s probably why she ignored me.” My colleague then offered to help him out with whatever he needed. I obviously seemed uncomfortable (because I was feeling guilty) and whilst she was checking him in he looked at me and apologised and said I weren’t to know. Then I resoonded “Oh no, I’m sorry.” as I felt it was my fault and this seemed to irk him again as he sort of rolled his eyes and stopped talking to me, and now I feel I may have come across as patronising.

I feel like I was completely rude and useless.

Totally disagree with you @PanettoneMoly - I found it Excruciating. And people I can’t into contact with felt awkward every now and then , I had to deal with that day in day out, all day.

Even if she was busy working at a front desk position in a service environment you should both greet the customer, even if you just smile and say hello. If you had both just said “evening” this would’ve been avoided

he was rude, but so were both of you- and you’re being paid to be polite

So neither you or your colleague answered him?
Yes that is rude and unprofessional.

The eye issue is irrelevant here as even if he was speaking to your colleague then she should have looked up and acknowledged him or if you could see she was busy then you should have stepped in and said that you’ll sort that out for him.

He was rude but I would be too if 2 people were ignoring me.

You need to develop some more resilience if you're going to pursue any career that involves working with other people. Some people are dicks. That includes some disabled people. Not everyone that you have to work with is going to be nice or easy to deal with. You can't let people being a bit rude or abrasive make you doubt your entire character and life choices.

Unrelated but...when I was very young I worked in a customer facing role at a company selling high value products. The fact that people were spending big money meant that people had a very low tolerance for delays or any issues. And some were just dicks regardless. I used to get SO upset if a customer was nasty to me (despite the fact I was very much the messenger and had zero influence over the problems). They were almost overwhelmingly rich older men who clearly thought that as a 19 year old girl in a low paid job I was just worthless. Eventually my manager took me out for lunch one day and told me I had to stop giving it headspace because these people certainly weren't thinking about me 5 minutes after they've hung the phone up. They were going home and enjoying a nice evening, not even thinking about their order or about the way they'd treated me. Whereas I was going home crying to my boyfriend and not able to eat. But after that chat with my manager something just clicked.

You need to be able to leave that unpleasant moment in the moment. If there's something you can learn from it, great. Learn the lesson but don't carry the emotion with you. If it's just a case of someone being an arse to you, leave the whole thing behind.

What an incredibly rude man. It wasn’t you, it was him.

Surely it's easy to see how this happened though? OP thought - reasonably - that he was talking to her colleague and so she didn't jump in. The colleague wasn't paying attention because OP was manning the desk so why would she assume that he was talking to her? Neither of them were rude. It was a uniquely confusing situation.

( very un pc laugh about that)

OP
I think you will make an excellent OP. You seem genuinely willing to learn about people and how their disability affects them.
Live and learn.
Next time you’ll be more aware- not only of his disability but that disabled people can be rude assholes too

He was rude.
Please don’t let this one small incident question your future career
Get in touch with the Uni’s today!

He was probably tired of having this reaction from others, hence the irritation. Don't worry about it, it was an honest mistake and totally understandable. All a learning process.

I put the phone down on a guy and only afterwards found out he had a stammer and was my husbands work colleague. That was bad.

If your job is to help people at the desk and your colleague is busy with admin work and so you are the point person, then you speak to people who approach the desk.

OP may be too shy or insecure for this job if she will only speak to people who approach her and make eye contact and directly address themselves to her. There are many people who due to culture or disability or a number of reasons may not make direct eye contact and initiate a conversation. When I approach a cash register or a desk that has customer service, I don't expect to first make eye contact and then have to direct the person to help me. I assume they are in that space because they have a role and part of their job responsibility is to help people who come to the desk.

It isn't the end of the world but this may not be the job for OP.

Are people missing the fact that he apologised to the OP and said she wasn't to know?

Yes this! Thank you you explained it perfectly!

Thank you for the responses everybody, they’ve really helped. I have just told myself that I haven’t yet recieved or even started my OT training so I shouldn’t write myself off based on one incident.

He was rude to you op.

His disability is no excuse for that.

Press on with your new career. You are obviously a very caring person.