In my late-university, early-real-world years I was a waiter at a restaurant in Toronto. If you’ve worked in the service industry you know that you end up in awkward situations and you have to react quickly. Such was the time I was to serve famous Canadian musician Jeff Healey.
My oldest brother was a huge guitar fan, and I just assumed that everyone my age had seen Road House. So I knew very well that Healey was blind. When the hostess seated him in my section with his party of four and forgot to give them menus, I was taken aback. I froze a bit thinking, “What do I do here?”
I was certain that Healey was blind (I later learned his eyes had been removed when he was very young) and couldn’t read a menu. And we did not have menus in braille. So do I bring four menus to the table or three?
What would you have done?
I chose to bring four and let the people at the table guide me. Beginning on my left I handed menus to the other three, then started to hand one to Jeff. That’s when his companion waved me off nicely. “Oh, that’s okay,” she said, gesturing for me to hold onto it.
I have always wondered if I handled that situation correctly. So I posed it to CNIB executive director Garry Nenson.
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“Absolutely,” says Nenson. “Generally speaking, 90 per cent of individuals that are deemed to be low vision or blind generally have some degree of useful vision. I think if you had only taken three (menus), then it may have caused rise for somebody to say ‘Jeez, you only brought three?!’ ”
Nenson says more restaurants and chains are finding ways to serve their visually impaired customers better.
“I was at a restaurant, maybe, three months ago and I got an iPad. And the iPad listed various wine selections and meal selections. And iPads, for the most part, are fully accessible. They have the option to increase the font size if somebody has low vision.”
I rue my misfortune of working at the Keg in those pre-iPad days. But I am now relieved from my wondering if I should have given a menu to a blind man.
“I think what you did was the proper thing,” says Nenson.
Whew.
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