I work in a small chicken place in a relatively rural Australian town. We’re between two larger cities, so we often get a lot of people coming in from the highway. We also get the same bad jokes all the time from customers thinking they’re being funny, so our manager takes them on thanks to our store being privately owned and not a chain.

I am taking orders at the drive-thru.

Me: “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Customer: “A million dollars!”

Me: “With or without cream?”

Customer: “Huh?”

Me: “The ‘Million Dollars’ — the shortbread syrup flavoured coffee drink. With or without cream?”

That’s when the customer notices our expensive “specialty” drink selection at the very bottom of the menu with a lot of creative names. At this point, the customers can usually admit they made a joke lame enough to warrant a menu item being named after it, or they pony up. I honestly thought no one would spend $12 on a crappy coffee drink instead of admitting the former, but I guess my manager knows retail better than I do.

Customer: “Uh… without cream. Please.”

Other drinks on the “specialty list” include “The Winning Lottery Numbers”, “Your Phone Number”, “World Peace”, and so on…

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This took place a few years ago, and for some reason which I cannot remember, there was a shortage of some chicken products in my area, and unfortunately, that included frozen chicken nuggets.

I am struggling to find any crumbed frozen nuggets around. I have been going from supermarket to supermarket to find them, and all my relatives are also looking.

I am sharing my frustrations with a coworker over lunch at work when some other staff hear our conversation. Another coworker who was listening to the conversation, as we do have a small lunch room, interjects.

Coworker: “Or you could just not worry about it and make your own.”

Me: “I need them for my son, though. It’s the only way we can get him to eat meat. He doesn’t like it when I make them from scratch.”

Coworker: “Or you could just make him eat it.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s not going to work. It’s not worth the meltdown when I know he is 100% not going to eat it.”

Coworker: ‘“Sounds like you’re a soft parent. I just put food in front of my kids, and they have to eat it or they don’t eat.”

Me: “Good for you. It must be nice having kids who don’t have autism and don’t have any food aversions and will put up with that.”

Coworker: “Come on. Your son will eat it if he has no choice.”

Me: “He actually won’t. We tried the tough thing where he had to eat or didn’t eat at all. He starved himself instead. He literally will not eat it and will go to bed crying because he’s hungry but can’t bring himself to even touch those foods. And it’s not something he’s been taught, either; when he was a baby and we did baby-led weaning, I put ham and avocado on his high chair, and he screamed until he nearly passed out.”

Coworker: “Well, maybe if you do it consistently, it will work. You’re pandering to him!”

Me: “Wow. So I should just let my three-year-old starve and cry and traumatise him because a chick at work who is completely unqualified on his condition says I should? No, I’m going to listen to the professionals that I’ve been taking him to, who actually understand him and want to help him.”

Coworker: “But… I am trying to help. I have three kids, and they are older; I’ve been through the picky stage.”

Me: “No, you don’t want to help. You want to sit on your high horse and judge me, my parenting, and my son. And this isn’t a picky stage; this is a genuine condition that he will live with forever, and we are seeing professionals who are helping him learn to cope. Plus, it’s not even like he’s only eating junk food; he won’t even eat chocolate or lollies. He will only drink water, no juice or soft drinks. You have no clue, and you’re taking the opportunity to be judgy.”

My coworker got really quiet and left before her lunch break was finished.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first or the last time I’ve had a conversation like this. Thankfully, my son’s therapy has helped, and although he still avoids most foods, we have been able to get him to try some new foods. Now, he will eat beef sausages!

Schools are constantly trying to accommodate the needs of students, but they often forget that staff have diverse needs, too. This happened to my dad when he was attending professional development on accommodating disabilities.

Presenter: “It’s important to remember that your students may not know that they have additional needs, or they may not be able to express what they need. It is your job as teachers to anticipate their needs and accommodate for learning styles, abilities, interests, and needs.”

Later on, the presenter put four large coloured squares on the floor next to each other: yellow, blue, green, and red. They were reading out a scenario, and the teachers had to stand on the square with the accommodation they thought would best suit the child. As they read out the scenario, most teachers moved to a square, except three male teachers, including my dad.

Presenter: “Do you need me to reread the question? Or are you still thinking?”

Dad: “No, we know our answers. But we’re colourblind, and you’ve put the green and the red squares next to each other. None of us know which one is which.”

The presenter was very embarrassed and quickly shuffled the squares around, quickly scrawling labels on sheets of paper to help the colourblind staff. However, my dad appreciated the irony of someone lecturing about anticipating disabilities while failing to do the same in the presentation.

Customer: *Presenting a military ID* “What is your military discount?”

Me: “We don’t have one.”

Customer: “What?! Why not?”

Me: “Well, first of all, your ID states US Navy. We don’t even offer military discount to our own military, let alone that of a foreign country.”

Customer: “I’m not foreign! I’m American!”

Me: “You’re in Australia, mate.”

Customer: “Exactly! That means you’re the foreign one!”

Me: “Either way, we don’t offer military discounts.”

Customer: *Walking out, muttering* “Stupid foreign burger places!”

In my very late teens, I was asked to pet-sit for my minister and his family while they were away to visit relatives. As their cat was easily stressed out, they wanted to keep him — and therefore their other pets — at home and have someone stop by for a few hours each day to take care of them. It sounded like an easy gig for a teenager on summer holidays.

Two days before they were set to go away, his wife met with me after the church service to provide me with a list of things they’d want me to do. All of it was reasonable, except for one item on the list that read: “Juice boxes for Andy and Phil on Thursday”.

It turned out that when their son was a toddler, he loved trucks. Therefore, he loved to see the garbage truck come by every week, and in the summer, he was very worried that the garbage men would get too hot in their truck.

In the spirit of encouraging kindness and generosity, his mother allowed him to go and give the garbage men juice boxes when they came by so that they’d have something to drink.

And then they just kept doing it, giving their local garbage crew juice every week without fail. It was now a tradition that multiple garbage crews had lived through and passed onto the next. 

Yes, Andy and Phil got their juice boxes. After fifteen years, I wasn’t going to be the one to break their streak!