October 29, 12
English 59
Professor Arndt
Invisible disabilities

For years there has been many struggles for people with disabilities in different types of environments. One specific environment that I have experienced a couple struggles for people with disabilities is in the common environment of a restaurant. For example, there are many people that go through the struggle with being deaf, being blind, and being handicap. I have thought about a couple of solutions that could help people like this make life a lot easier for them and a lot more comfortable. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to put the extra effort to help the people in need of some special assistance, and applying theses solutions I believe can help out the people with disabilities. One of the environments that I’ve came across and have personally experience seeing is in the restaurant environment for the people with disabilities; specifically problems with being in a wheelchair, being blind, and not being able to verbally communicate (deaf). There are a number of problems that I’ve seen in this type of work environment. First off, I feel that some restaurant’s its hard for someone in a wheelchair to maneuver themselves in circumstances where the restaurant is not wide enough or isn’t providing the right size or comfort for someone with the disability of being in a wheelchair. For example, there’s been a time where I’ve seen someone in a wheel chair come into our restaurant struggling because they cant open the two sets of doors that are provided to step into the restaurant. Putting automatic doors for those who cant open the double doors should solve this problem. The other problem with the disability of handicap people in wheelchairs, is the hallways that are not wide enough space that is provided in our restaurant. Its very hard to get around, its narrow and something I’ve noticed specifically its nearly impossible to get around our salad bar area due to the lack of it being to high and very limited space. The other disability I think we should address is people who cannot communicate because they are deaf. There’s been a specific problem that I’ve seen at our restaurant when people with this disability have to point at the menu to try and communicate with the waiter what they want and how they want it, or with/without something specific. Instead of going through this trouble and making it difficult for the person with this disability, making it awkward and not comfortable for them, we should install ipads onto the tables. In doing this, yes it would take away from having waitresses but computers are our new technology now days anyways. So the ipad would have the menu and they could just choose what they want, how they want it, and with or without something specific.