But What If He's Not So Good At His Job?

So there's this guy. His name is Jim and I know him through blogging. He writes a lovely little blog called Just a Lil Blog and his daughter Lily has autism. He seems like a nice enough guy, though he is always going on about sporns and bacon and orange juice. Don't ask.

Anyway, Jim posted on Target's facebook page a few weeks ago about the cashier he had at his local store. You can read the post, but the gist is that the cashier likely was autistic, and that Target was awesome for hiring him because they recognized that someone who might be a little socially atypical could still do a great job. And this post went all kinds of viral (it's up to about 820,000 likes), and was written up all over the place.

My local Safeway grocery store always employs several people with disabilities. This is a Good Thing. This past summer, there was a young man with a cognitive disability who worked as a bagger. Since I generally went during the weekdays when it wasn't crowded, he was often the only bagger working so I saw him a lot.

This young man was friendly and polite and definitely not good at his job.

It pains me to say it. But he just wasn't a skilled bagger. He was very, very slow. He would fill the bags too light and with no sense of organization. He would stop and comment on silly things in the cart, like the Tasmanian Devil on some juice boxes, and if I had one of the kids with me he would spend a lot of time interacting with them (not always entirely appropriately) instead of bagging. The cashiers were kind and helpful to him, but they also ended up bagging most of the groceries.

And I somewhat shamefully admit that I would, especially if my own developmentally disabled child was with me, avoid his line or use self check-out instead.

This feels me with great cognitive dissonance.

I applaud Safeway for hiring disabled people and I want them to continue this. And if that person needs a little extra time to do his job, it should be no big deal for me or anyone to spend a couple extra minutes in line. Let's be honest, I was just going to waste that time on Facebook anyway.

But sometimes a person just isn't cut out for a particular job. I bet there is a job this young man would be very good at, but it wasn't this one. And I don't know that we do anyone a great service by allowing him to remain in a job that he isn't successful at.

I'm new to the issues of disability rights. In part, it seems, it must be about showing people that a disabled person can do just as good a job as someone without a disability, reducing outright discrimination. But it is more than that, isn't it? Maybe it also means that we also have a responsibility to find meaningful ways for people to interact in the world even if they aren't especially adept at it. I don't know and I don't know where the line is between the two.

I don't see this man at the store any more. I don't know if he was let go. Perhaps he was in a job rotation and his time at Safeway simply concluded. Or maybe his supervisors helped him find work that was more suited to his skills. Whatever the case, I wish him well.

Our First Target Meltdown

As you know, I have one typical child, as well as one with special needs. Watching Jelly, my typical two year old, gives us interesting insight into what a standard developmental path looks like. Although I do think this firsthand knowledge would have been helpful before Moe came along, because he is so delayed, they are sometimes quite similar, especially in terms of emotional development.

But they are also quite different. So many things come easy to Jelly, especially in terms of her motor development. When she wants her body to do something, for the most part she can just do it. Moe has to work really hard even to make a fist for a fist bump. He's only recently become fairly proficient at taking off his shoes, and can't put them on himself, where Jelly has been able to take shoes off and on for many months.

The biggest difference is their language development. Jelly has always been slightly ahead of the curve verbally, easily speaking in full sentences, and is working on concepts like when to use "ing" (as in Mommy is typing), and prepositions (in, on, behind, etc.). She practices these, speaking in sentences, and adjusting when they don't sound right to her. I'm not teaching her these things; she just picks them up. It's how most of us learn language, and it's fascinating.

You might think that this makes Jelly a much easier child to raise. Certainly her ability to say what she wants is very helpful. But Jelly is only two, so although she can talk, she isn't yet rational. Nor does she have patience. Very small issues or delays can turn into major tears, although she is getting better with concepts like "first, then" (as in, first we change your diaper then you can watch Dora).

I read often about the epic meltdowns of our autistic kids, often in sensory overloaded, and very public, places like Target. I've been lucky (excuse me while I go knock on some wood) that Moe is generally very well behaved when we're out and, as a sensory seeker, usually loves to be in bright, noisy environments. But I was still quite surprised that Jelly was the one who indoctrinated me into the Target meltdown club. My membership card should be arriving any day.

I was with Jeff and Moe, and the trigger was some perceived injustice around a hat that Moe had and Jelly didn't. She whined and complained for a while. When Moe was finally done with the hat, Jelly got to hold it for a bit. But I wasn't planning to buy it, so when we were done paying for the rest of our things, I gave the hat back. That was the last straw, and Jelly lost it. She was riding in the cart, otherwise I'm sure she would have thrown herself on the floor in perfect tantrum form.

It was also just about lunch time, and I'm sure that didn't help, but we couldn't go home because some people were coming to see it. So we decided a quick lunch was in order. We wanted fast, so we stopped at Carl's Jr. on the way home, thinking some fries and smoothies would help. Bad idea. This was the slowest fast food place ever. It took about 20 minutes from the time we ordered for them to bring our food. They weren't busy, nor was the food any better for taking that long. Moe and Jelly whined, cried, and/or screamed the entire time. It sucked.

The only saving grace was that Jeff was there. If I had gotten home and explained how Jelly had this horrible meltdown in Target, he would have sympathetically said "that's too bad" then moved on. At least he got to experience this particular hell right along with me. Lucky guy.