Long story short, and first of all I love my WinCo grocery store, so I’m not saying anything about them, but the checkout lady asked me as she was finishing up the person in front of me, if I had a face mask. I told her I don’t wear them because it messes with my hearing aids. As soon as I said I don’t wear them, she looked down at the items she was scanning shaking her head. I was like fine, I can deal with this. Then as it was turn for my items to be scanned, she huffed and puffed and started pressing this button behind her, which I assume was a silent alarm for a manager, because one showed up immediately. The check out lady said something to the manager then she walked away and the manager was all smiles and asked if these were my items and began checking me out.
The lady walked away very pissed and I called her out on it, I said loudly while pulling out my hearing aids, look I really do have hearing aids! She kept walking and the person who was bagging in front of me looked at her then me and shook her head. She and her daughter were supporting me and saying if you can’t hear or it imparts your hearing, what’s the problem? I said I know, and then I said, I can’t believe the discrimination that just happened! The manager apologized and said she’d talk to the clerk later about it. I said as I went to bag up my stuff, “tell the lady I’m sorry for upsetting her so much”
Anyway, stupid cashier, understanding manager and totally supportive customers. Just couldn’t believe it actually happened, and to me!
This is disability discrimination. File a police report. You can be sorry for the poor ignorant woman, but that doesn't mean you should allow other people with disabilities suffer because of that woman's deliberate illegal actions.
She will do that again, and perhaps to someone more vulnerable.
I don’t know, I’ve never thought of myself as a person to go to court over something like this. The manager was great, as where the other customers. I think the fact that I was obviously offended at the total lack of care by the cashier was enough to get the manager to realize she needed to speak with her employee about what happened. If both the cashier and manager gave me lip service, then we’d be having a different conversation.