#Vodacomstories nr 2 The Disabled Man
#Vodacom Stories: He was in a wheelchair. He came in to pay his bill. I was the lucky winner of his ticket that day. It was a Saturday and extremely busy. I needed to do the payment and get him out of there asap. Treating him with respect of course; courteous but fast. It did not go as planned and I am thankful for that.
You see, the wheelchair does not tell you half his life, half his stories, half his sadness. He was disabled in more than one way and I had to physically get the Sassa card from his pocket. I swiped it, he told me his pin, and I put the card as well as his receipt back in his pocket. He was rude, but I decided that I could handle his rudeness. I never expect the disabled to be nice, because sometimes I am not very nice. And I don’t even have all the problems he has. Him paying his bill with me rummaging through his pockets became a ritual for us.
It’s not okay to allow someone to jump the queue. But whenever this man came in, I would run to him and say, wait for me, I’ll be done with this customer soon, or I would bring him to my table directly. He sometimes asked questions, and sometimes I asked him questions. Not work related, but never too personal or invasive. Never more than, wow, the weather, do you prefer summer or winter? Or this band playing right now on Yebo Radio, I really hate the way the lead singer squeals… what music do you listen to? And so on. He spoke without any difficulty. I kept my composure and refused to feel sorry for him. I let him jump the queue as he was always only there to pay, and I knew where he kept his wallet etc. I didn’t trust any of my colleagues to treat him with respect even though they would have. I didn’t trust them to not say something in the back about him. I would have beaten up anyone who ever made a derogatory comment about him and my colleagues often asked me why I let him jump the queue if he wasn’t there for a sale, just a payment. Which of course we don’t get paid for. I ignored them and continued with the ritual until that one day he told me at the door that he wanted to take out a second contract and I saw his ID.
To me, he was just a cool dude in a wheelchair. Getting pension every month. I never knew he had a full life before he was in a wheelchair. I just assumed that the wheelchair was his legs since birth. Boy, I was wrong. I took his id and pretended that my printer was not working. I told him I was just going to make a copy of his id at the back office. And then I balled my eyes out. I felt a panic attack coming and decided that I would have to compose myself or tell him that the contract might be approved in half an hour or so. You see, on his id, it said that he was still young. 24. So young. But it was the photo that shook me to my core. There he was in an army uniform, a young black man, with muscles and pride. Not the crumpled bag of bones I had in front of me. Same eyes, same shy smile. The photo must have been taken between the age of 18 and 23. To this day I don’t know what happened to him; it doesn’t matter what happened. It happened, and then he was in a wheelchair. He used to be proud and strong and virile, and all of a sudden, he was not anymore. This was one of our last encounters before his mother came to close the accounts when he died. They never tell you this at Vodacom training, that you are going to deal with death. Death certificates and grieving loved ones. And that you might know the deceased. They cannot prepare you for it. Nothing can.
You may expect the physically disabled to be polite and nice. But you are confusing them with people who have depression. You see, the depressed, like Robin Williams, will most likely try to make you smile. It is something we are taught at a young age. To make people laugh instead of telling them how sad you really are. If you expect the disabled to be nice, you will have a huge surprise. I do not know one person who has dealt with a charitable cause who has ever really been thanked by those they have helped. It just doesn’t work that way and sometimes you have to allow people to have a little fit before you sincerely help them. If you expect thanks in this job, you are in the wrong industry. But I have to be honest, I have dealt with many difficult people, sometimes I handled it better than other times. I am lucky and honoured to have spent time with this young man before his death. He was a ‘difficult’ customer in more ways than one. But I felt as if he trusted me after a while and we had a connection. I cannot explain it. But it was there, a mutual respect of sorts. I started writing this because I thought of him randomly, and I missed our ritual. I believe that even though I touched his body to get his card out because he couldn’t do it himself, I did it without ever disrespecting his body autonomy. I did it, even though I felt uncomfortable and awkward. He must have felt the same way asking me to help him, me being a tiny white girl. I guess what I am trying to say is that it could happen to any one of us. And I hope that you will treat others the way you wish them to treat you given a difficult situation. Because you never know when it will be your turn at the other side of the table.
