You know if you had TOLD US THAT, we could have done something!

[persephone]

So, last night was my last night guiding on the Ghost Tours ( ) I've actually had very very good luck guiding -- I haven't really had to deal with many sucky people. But last night? This one lady took the cake. And it just amazed me!

So, our tour is a walking tour where we take you to five or six different haunted sites, tell you the stories, give you a chance to take pictures, ect. Lots of talking. It is publicized as such. Most people make reservations during the day (or before they ever come to the city -- it's pretty popular and does fill up sometimes) and, if there are any special circumstances, they tend to tell us then. I've had people come out on my tour with wheelchairs or scooters or with strollers. No big deal. We can work around it easily. We have had a couple of people come out that had vision problems. One came on his own with his seeing eye dog -- he let us know when he made his reservation, said he was vacationing alone and asked if it would be possible for someone to lead him. I said no problem at all -- we kept him to the front of the tour and I led him from site to site. He was very nice and very appreciative.

It is not uncommon for us to make adjustments so that everyone can have a good tour. However, if there is something we need to know so we can make arrangements, we have to, you know, *know*! We can't read your mind!

So last night, I finish getting ready and get out to the lobby just in time to see a lady giving our check in girl (I'll call her K) a cat butt face. K looks at me and asks if I know sign language.

I immediately know what's probably going on and I turn to the lady.

SC: Sucky lady
K: my co-worker, the check in girl
Me: tah-dah!

ME: I know a little bit, but not nearly enough to be able to interpret on a tour. I'm really sorry.
SC: You have to make some kind of arrangement.
ME: I really wish I could, but I don't know sign language, nor do I know of anyone I can contact that would be able to be here in time for the tour. (note: this was our last tour of the night and we were supposed to leave in about 5 minutes)
SC: Well, what am I supposed to do?
K: Are you still going to be in town tomorrow? We can give you vouchers for a tour tomorrow night. I'm sure by then we'd be able to reach someone and have an interpreter for you.
SC: No! We leave tomorrow and my son wants to do this tour! You have to accommodate us! The ADA* requires it!
ME: Ma'am, I wish there was something I could do, but there's nothing I can do at the last minute. If you had made reservations we might have been able to make arrange---
SC: (screaming and cutting me off) I did make reservations! I called this morning to make reservations!
ME: Did you tell anyone that one of the guests has a hearing impairment?
SC: Of course not! The ADA requires that you make accommodations for my son!


I just rolled my eyes and told her that she had three options: 1) She could get a refund and not go on the tour. 2) She could take a voucher and make reservations for a tour at a later date (and tell us she needed special arrangements!). Or 3) she could go out on the tour and interpret for her son her self.

She fought with us for a few more minutes before finally turning to her son, signing something and then turned back sighing. She said that he really wanted to go, so she would just "have to do the interpretation myself, I guess".

Her son ended up appearing to have a good time on the tour. He got some good pictures that he showed me and was grinning very widely when it was over. But his mother was grouchy the whole time.

And I did make some adjustments for her. I slowed my pacing down some (I talk VERY fast!) so that the mother could keep up and I made sure to maintain the visual parts of the tour that sometimes get lost.

But seriously. Her son was at LEAST 20 years old. From the sound of it, he's always been deaf. This wasn't some big surprise. How did she expect us to make arrangements for her without TELLING US ARRANGEMENTS NEEDED TO BE MADE?

That mother had a crazy sense of entitlement like I've never seen before!!


*ADA = American's with Disabilities Act. It's a piece of legislation that makes sure that companies accommodate people with handicaps. I think it's a great piece of legislation, but again -- some accommodations need to be mentioned before hand!

[Wade]

Good God, the lady is still babying her 20-year old son, like that? My wife is deaf, and she's been independent her whole life! Further, if the mother can sign, why is she bitching about not having an interpreter? The ADA act (of which I'm quite familiar) only covers access to facilities such as the front door, restrooms, etc. Being able to communicate is NOT covered in the ADA, otherwise we'd be screwed when it comes to foreign tourists. Maybe Big-Boy should learn to use a pen and paper, and maybe Mom needs to cut the cord.

[mattm04]

If I remember correctly the ADA requires that the person needing MUST request assistance companies can not ask.

[Seshat]

Speaking as a person with disabilities, I'd consider your suggestions to be perfectly reasonable considering the short notice!

And when I make a last-minute decision to go somewhere or do something, it's my own damn fault if I can't be accomodated at the event. Disability accomodation (beyond the obvious like access ramps and handicap toilets) aren't things that just magically appear!

[LibraryLady]

About 20 years ago we took the tour of the Chatterly-Whitfield Mining Museum. (Totally awesome, BTW) On the tour was a Dad and his deaf son. Dad did the interpreting. There was no problem at all and the kid, a young teen, really seemed to enjoy the whole experience.

[Dips]

The ADA requires reasonable accomodation. The mother's demand that you instantly produce a trained interpreter wasn't merely unreasonable. It was impossible!

Just another example of a customer who likes make up laws for her own convenience.

By the way, you handled the handled the situation very well. Kudos!

[Akasa]

As a disabled person and friend to a blind woman I can attest to the "you need to tell people!"
Like when we went with my grandmother to see the filming of Wheel of Fortune and she needed a front row so she could see. She told them as soon as she could she was blind and had to be as close as possible to see anything going on.

[persephone]

As a disabled person and friend to a blind woman I can attest to the "you need to tell people!"

Exactly! Like I said -- we are (well, they are, I technically don't work there anymore) MORE than happy to make accommodations, like leading the blind guy or providing wheel chairs to people who can't stand for two hours. Heck, if she had TOLD us, one of our store employees is the daughter of a completely deaf man. She knows sign language AND knows our stories very well -- she could have easily interpreted without a delay and without the mother having to possibly miss something while interpreting. She just lives too far away to arrive in 5 minutes! If the lady had just mentioned a hearing impaired son when she made the reservation, we would have been fine.

Some people.

[SuperB]

We signed up for a walking ghost tour one vacation when the kids were younger, 6 and 9 I believe. I could see the guy's hesitation at the kids age when we reserved and we immediately told him not to change a thing about his normal tour for the kids sake. They don't scare easily and in fact, we practically challenged him to scare them telling him he wouldn't be able to. (he didn't either)

The only scare that happened was the last stop. It was a field with a lot of supposed activity. I was walking next to this guy to the field and he damn near evacuated his bowels when a tree branch brushed his face.

The kids slept fine.

[tamezin]

*ADA = American's with Disabilities Act. It's a piece of legislation that makes sure that companies accommodate people with handicaps. I think it's a great piece of legislation, but again -- some accommodations need to be mentioned before hand!

This piece of legislation ensures that services are accessible. Your tour was accessible. You are within ADA guidelines.