Okay, this is a subject I’ve written about before but I’m going to take a different turn in the telling. We arrived at a hotel with a booking guaranteeing an accessible room and there wasn’t one. The clerk, handed me a key to a room, not telling me that it wasn’t accessible, even though I’d asked. I was suspicious because he hadn’t answered my question so I asked again and was told that it wasn’t an accessible room. It all got worked out but … while it was working out I sat there wondering. If you forget the reservation, the guarantee, all that, how could he do that to another person. Human to human just send me to a room I couldn’t use. What did he think was going to happen. So, when I had a key to an accessible room, I don’t know what magic was worked to find me one, I said to him:
“Can I ask you a question, person to person, human to human?”
“Yes.”
“How could you hand me keys to a room I couldn’t use and keep silent about the fact that it didn’t meet my needs for accessibility? How could you do that to another person?”
“I didn’t mean to dehumanize you.”
“You didn’t dehumanize me, you dehumanized you. Aren’t you worried about that?”
“I didn’t have the room you requested.”
“No, I’m not talking about that, I wonder if it worries you that you could do that to another person?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
There was no oomph in his apology and I don’t believe he meant it much.
But, for the first time I really wondered about and worried about the person and the people who can so easily do that. What makes it possible for someone to simply dismiss another person as being real.?
I don’t know.
As I rolled to the elevator, he started to explain again about the room and I said, “No, man, you need to get this, this is about you, man, you.”
And I meant that, and believe it or not I thought and think that I was performing an act of kindness. I don’t know if you’ll all agree or not.
