Pretty sure a tiny minority to no state health departments have bare feet policies for restaurants.
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As a 25 + employee of the Health Department, well lets just say we visit them often.
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Big! Roger That!
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It already has ended badly because she will have to remember her cruelty for the rest of her life. Perhaps she could have rejoiced for the little guy and his ability to live his life. So simple to wash the table. And sadly so simply for me or anyone to judge her decision because we weren’t there and she was. I’d like to say I would have done better but who knows. If there can be any good come from this era of hate maybe it will be that some of us will be more aware of the plight of others.
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I’ve been a server before.
I’d like to think that after my initial moment of surprise, I’d have treated that family as I would have any other customers, albeit with a little extra attention just in case they needed any special accommodations.
I agree that it’s nothing major to spend a little extra time wiping down the booths after they are done, and/or pitching that one container of syrup.
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If she had bragged on the little man for what he has accomplished just think how he would has glowed with pride. Perhaps another time. Maybe she could reach out to the family and offer her regret in some way to help the boy. Or maybe the damage is done and that’s it. Hope is so hard to come by these days. When Obama first started to run for office I really thought Hope would take root… More the fool was I.
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I’m sorry for you. Your life must be hard to have such fear. Not everyone’s disability shows but yours must be painful.
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I’d take Waffle House (if there were any in my area) over IHOP any day, after being served medium-rare pork sausage at an IHOP about nine years ago or so. I’ve never been to IHOP since.
Unfortunately, the larger American slow AIs prioritise blind adherence to S.O.P. over compassion in customer-service jobs and promise severe repercussions for those “human resources” who don’t comply. That’s not to excuse this manager’s behaviour but to place it in the context of a larger corporate culture of cruelty.
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Wait, what? How, pray tell, is anything from a foot (or a hand for that matter) touching the handle of a syrup dispenser infesting the food within, exactly? Magic plastic-tunnelling cooties bugs?
Help me understand this - and I say this as someone who routinely eats with someone who is immunocompromised - how precisely, are you eating your pancakes in such a way that the state of the handle on the syrup matters? Are you rubbing the handle on your pancakes? Are you eating them with your bare hands? Are you licking the syrup off the bottle afterwards?
Because to me a disinfecting wipe on the handle (which you’re already doing anyway, right, since you know, kids and hands and boogers and cooties and stuff) followed by a handwashing and a wipe on your utensils and you’re good to go.
I pour the communal condiments for my immunocompromised companion while they disinfect their utensils, then I wash my hands to avoid contact contamination after the fact. And that matters not one whit whether or not hands, feet, or mouths touched said handle.
So again… WTF are you doing with that syrup?
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*snickerz
That seems like such an innocent question, and yet…
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Totally agree. Actually that was basically my second point. The manage clearly effed up and is probably in the wrong line of work for her temperament, but to fix this will require the company explicitly update its policies and training to prohibit discrimination against the disabled. Unfortunately, that kind of meaningful and not cheap reform usually requires lawsuits. A Starbucks style day of discussion isn’t going to cut it, and most companies think they can get away with doing even less than that.
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Obviously the immunocompromised have a rational concern. For the everyone else…
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Oh… OH - you really don’t want to play that game with me. I didn’t purport to speak for anyone but myself, oh gentleposter. But I do think I speak for most people who aren’t doing… weird things with handles.
So what you’re saying, as I understand it, is: “I don’t want kids touching my syrup. Full stop. They can’t be trusted. The fact that I chose to relate this information on a post discussing how a disabled individual was discriminated against, despite the fact that *I would have requested private syrup anyway” is in no way an ableist, insensitive response to the situation or perhaps ill-advised and paints me in an especially bad light".
Think carefully before you answer.
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I think the immunocompromised know better than to eat at places like that. Or at least not to use the community condiments. I can ask my cousin, if you want. She had a heart transplant and is on anti-rejection meds.
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exposing your system to Waffle House
denny’s…the layer of grease acts like flypaper and traps the germs on every surface.
(at least i think that is their slogan)
Where does “gas station/convenience store food” fall on this list of potential point source of plague?
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most aren’t bad, but there are those few that will haunt your memories if you have to use their restrooms. If it looks like a trucker just birthed a zombie from their butt in there, i suddenly no longer have to go. my biology is protecting me. 
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Also, many three year olds are permanently sticky as well. Some are not scrupulous about hygiene.
I keep hope they’ll bring back the pork breakfast sashimi, but haven’t seen it on the menu lately.
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I think it also depends on the given situation. My recently deceased nephew (Epidermolysis bullosa dystrophica) was in pretty bad shape sometimes, but loved the hell out of dining out on pretty much anything bad for you, McDonald’s included. It was hard to deny him what he wanted because he suffered so much, and the doctors let him do it because "at least he’s eating’.
Relevant to the post, his hands were so bad that they stopped operating on them, and let the fingers fuse and clench into scabby fists. His mom would wrap them right up to the second knuckle, and he’d use those to pour bottles, and stick the fork in his bandages like he was Ash from Evil Dead. I don’t remember him being given a hard time about him touching anything, though.
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