My dude told me he had a meltdown in McDonalds this morning. The store was understaffed and didn't have a person working register, and they were only taking kiosk orders inside.
He gets told this after waiting at the counter for twenty minutes. No offer to help, just told to use the kiosk.
Except, there's a problem with this.... He doesn't know how to use the kiosks. He finds them overwhelming, panic inducing and he's extremely afraid something will go wrong in the process of using one. So, he doesn't ever use them and finds the mere suggestion upsetting.
So, he started to have a meltdown about being required to use the kiosk, got very short with the employee who told him he had to use it, and went to leave without buying anything because he didn't want to be having a meltdown in public, when another employee intervened offering to help.
He didn't really want the help at that point because he was melting down and having trouble talking and just wanted to leave, but he did want food so he let her help and they got through the transaction the old fashioned way in person at the counter.
But not without him feeling deeply ashamed and embarrassed because he isn't able to use a McDonalds kiosk on his own or ask for help without being visibly upset about being asked to use the kiosk in the first place.
It's a story I share because I feel like it's the sort of thing that's an underrepresented experience within online conversations about autism and the autistic experience because I feel like the more common sentiment I see is how the kiosk ordering is great because you don't have to talk to a person.
I think an area of accessibility where many of us have a huge ableist blindspot around is how difficult an allegedly "easy" form of technology can be for some autistic people who don't have a lot of familiarity or comfort around tech.
@spika@actuallyautistic "Different - not necessarily better or worse, but just different, especially in aggregate" is how I feel about much of what gets passed off as progress. Which sounds fine, until one considers the expense and disruption involved in all this lateral shuffling...
@lolcat@spika@actuallyautistic Was talking about this to in-laws, in their 90s. Some change is good & helpful, some is necessary. A lot of change is unnecessary, costly, unsustainable & involves effort & support to adapt, making it alienating & overwhelming.
@Susan60@lolcat@spika@actuallyautistic Creating an unstable environment by constantly changing things is literally an abuse tactic when done deliberately in interpersonal relationships. The fact that technology is moving so fast that it's considered normal to be left behind by a certain age may not be intentional, but it's certainly taken advantage of by profiteers who swoop in and scam people who are confused and just trying to understand.
@Vincarsi@lolcat@spika@actuallyautistic I think that a lot of technological change is about profit, making the last model redundant & making people feel obliged to buy the latest model in order to keep up. And yes, this makes it easier to exploit anyone who is left behind, but not just by exploiting their ignorance. The more alienated they are, the more lonely & vulnerable to friendly overtures they become. No one wants to spend all of their time being defensive & suspicious either. Maybe such people (and I’m aware I’m slowly becoming one), need to formulate a list of trusted people they can turn to when in doubt - people who won’t belittle them, let alone abuse their trust.
@spika@actuallyautistic Would it have been better if the automated option had been an app on his phone, where he already has any accessibility settings and/or assistive technologies he needs?
@matt@spika@actuallyautistic no.
This is the problem
BEING SURPRISED AND THEN TOLD TO DO SOMETHING STRESSFUL, COMPLEX AND UNEXPECTED AND IN A SOCIALLY DEMANDING SITUATION
Thank you so much for sharing this experience with the community.
It's true that this is seemingly unusual, or even opposite of the general sentiment among #ActuallyAutistic people, and that makes it more important as a piece of very useful information.
It's an opportunity for us to remind ourselves that everyone's social experiences, support needs, things they can and can't do are different, and not any more or less debilitating in and of ithemselves without taking into account the context.
Personally, I am in the "more comfortable with the kiosk" camp so I took a minute and imagined if I wasn't. I really think it reminded me to keep my judgemental urges in check.
@CynAq Yeah, it's definitely been a very eye opening experience, especially since my own is very different. I'm much more on the tech literate side and was a front end web dev for years. Something like ordering food off a screen seems pretty basic boring thing to me, so when I learned trying to accomplish tasks like that were a big struggle for him.... it was both a point of frustration and curiosity for me.
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