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.
