TreeHouseView

Sometimes a situation presents itself and it sticks with you for longer than you would have ever imagined it would. Such a situation occurred last night at a very well known fast food fried chicken joint, of all places. I won’t name it outright because to be perfectly honest, I don’t know the legalities surrounding trademark and copyright and all that mumbo-jumbo, so I’ll just err on the side of caution, and that will play out well with the theme of this story, so read on.

The Husband and I had stopped in to grab some quick dinner while running errands, as has been our habit these last few weeks as we have been moving since the majority of our kitchen is still living in boxes and is scattered across at least three different rooms in our new home. As we ordered our food at one of the two kiosks set up in front of the actual counter, I noticed a man at the kiosk next to us who seemed to be either either perusing the menu with great care, or he was struggling with the touchscreen technology, it was hard to tell which.

It was the latter, as I discovered about 15 minutes later as were about halfway through our meal and I saw that the man was still standing at the kiosk station, although he then had moved over to the one we had used to order our food. The fast-food place was fairly busy and there had been quite a few people who had ordered and gotten food since we received ours, includng what were probably several DoorDash type orders.

There were at least five or six workers that I could see behind the counter, and possibly more that I couldn’t see. All of this to say, this man had been standing at that kiosk for an inordinate amount of time–he was standing there when we waked in, and I have no way to know just how long he might have already been there when we made our entrance, and now after about 15 more minutes, he was still there.

Something wasn’t right. And I said as much to my husband, who said something that I can’t remember but essentially amounted to “don’t worry about it”. But I was worried about it, and I said so. And he asked what I thought I could do about it and I said I wasn’t quite sure yet, and that I was going to keep watching for a minute, because for the last 15 minutes, I hadn’t actually been paying much attention to this man except to see that he was stll there, so I didn’t have enough information to operate off of yet, and if you need to know anything about me, it’s that I am a very cautious person in almost all aspects of my life.

NOT A RISK TAKER.

So I watched for several more minutes and what I saw made me want to cry. This man, who was probably anywhere between our age and maybe into his 70’s, was obviously not able to navigate the touchscreen technology necessary to order from the kiosk, but more than that, he was absolutely frozen with what else to do. He would look at the screen, touch it a few times, look up at the counter and search for one of the five or six very busy workers to notice him, and when they didn’t, he would look back at the screen and touch it again, or glance over his shoulder as if looking for someone behind him. His face never changed–he had a very flat affect, and I began to thnk of patients I’ve cared for in the past who’ve had the same visage, which can be an effect from a stroke, and also side effects from certain medications.

He didn’t look angry, or frusrated, or scared. He looked lost.

And nobody seemed to notice.

Everyone just moved right on past him, as he continued to quietly struggle. So after a few more fruiitless minutes of watching him try to make eye contact with an employee, I got up and walked over to the man and gently touched him on the arm and asked “are you having some trouble?”

I could almost feel him sag with relief as he leaned toward me and mumbled, “I don’t understand it…”, as he continued to stare at the touchscreen with the same blank look on his face, the look that hadn’t changed as he struggled in front of all of these people who didn’t see him. I repeated what he said to make sure I understood him, as he was a little difficult to hear and comprehend, whether from an accent of some kind or maybe a speech impediment, or possibly a combinaiton of the two, but when he nodded his confirmation, I patted his arm and said, “hang on”, and then moved toward the counter to interrupt one of the very busy workers and said, “excuse me, but there is a gentleman behind me who is struggling with the kiosk. Could you please help him?”

The worker didn’t instantly jump out from behind the counter and move to the kiosk to assist the gentleman like I was hoping she would, but she did immediately say, “oh, he can come right up here to order”. So I walked back to the man and led him to the counter where he was able to order his food from a real live person who kindly took his order while my husband and I watched from our table after I sat back down. I informed my spouse that if the gentleman turned out to not be able to pay for his food, I’d be headed right back for the counter to promptly buy his dinner, and the man I married let me know he already had his hand on his wallet with the same thought.

(Side note: while the worker who took the gentleman’s order was kind and patient with him, my husband and I had a very WTF moment when we heard her offer him a discount but then ask him if he wanted to round up for charity in one breath. I have no words here.)

We had no reason to believe the man didn’t have the means to pay for his food, but in the time that had elapsed from when I realized something was off with this gentleman and when I had finally gone over to help him, we had run through several scenarios about what might be going on with him, and misfortune was unfortunately on that list.

It would explain the way the workers just ignored him. And that is terrible, but if he was a “regular”, then that might be one of the only explanantions for the absolute and complete lack of any recogntion of what was going on less than ten feet in front of their faces. It doesn’t excuse it in any way, but it would explain it. They were used to it?

But wait. It gets better. Or worse…

So while the man at the counter was able to finally order and pay for his food and we were settling back in at our table to finish our dinner, a crashing sound to our right caused both my husband and I to jump, and we looked over to see another man seated a few tables over from us staring at a neon sign that was now dangling and swinging precariously in the interior window by one little suction cup instead of two.

Right next to his head.

He glanced around and saw us looking and we all laughed nervously and then we collectively noticed that NOBODY WHO WORKED THERE EVEN BLINKED. Not one employee even seemed to notice what happened. Nobody came out from behind the counter. Not one employee even glanced in the direction of the noise that had caused us to jump and stop eating long enough to investigate. I watched again like I had watched when the man at the kiosk was struggling, and the employees that I could see just continued about their various tasks that seemed to keep them ever so engaged and didn’t seem to notice that a potential liability and future lawsuit (because America is nothing if not litigious) was occurring in their lobby.

I’m not sure what causes me the most concern out of this story, honestly. The more I think about it, the more disturbing it becomes to me–it’s a bit of a lens through which to view how we are currently going about navigating our world as a whole these days, I think, and I have been just as guilty as the employees behind the counter of burying my head in the sand in order to not get involved at various times in my life.

But not last night. Last night I chose to get involved and the risk paid off. I hope that fried chicken meal was the best mother cluckin’ chicken that man has ever had.

And Big Fried Chicken–it’s time to do better. Your mashed potatoes and gravy and your biscuits are top notch. Match your customer service with that and you’ll be #1 in the chicken-fried game, and these days that’s no easy feat with all the other chicken joints out there scrabbling for the top spot.

(We’ll leave their male military mascot and his listed “amateur obstetrician” stint for another time. Seriously, there was a giant print on the restaurant wall with a list of all the man’s prior occupations before he became the face of Big Fried Chicken, and “amateur obstetrician” was one. I’m just going to say that whoever the marketing genius is that came up with that little title might want to rethink it. Tout de suite.)

But more than that–it’s time we all do better. Keep your eyes and hearts open and help lift up your fellow humans. We all struggle now and then.