Pam

In our area, several very large stores and restaurants are involved in a program where mentally and physically challenged people are given the opportunity to work as baggers, check-out people, busboys, kitchen help, etc, but with supervision from a program director who goes around checking on them from business to business. They are also picked up and delivered to their jobs. Some look "normal"---whatever that is---others you can tell right off they are mentally challenged. As a customer, it does help you build your tolerance for other people who may not work as fast as others. I have a friend who was part of this mainstreaming program and she got paid peanuts but loved her job as a bagger so much that she would have done it for free. It's been several almost a decade since this program started and now everyone is used to it.

Tolerance is something you can learn. Intolerance is not written in stone. It just takes awareness of your surroundings and being open to hearing the ideas of others.

Jean

I used to go at 90 + miles per hour, and slow & slower are a couple of my speeds now also. We have stores with mentally or challenged people also. My husband is impatient with lines. He is learning tolerance and to notice that some people have disabilities.. He is learning patience and awareness. I think when we get tired it's hard to look around and see what is going on around you. You just want out as fast as possible to get to a "comfort zone" so you don't "crumple in front of others. Fatigue can hit like a ton of bricks and it is hard to focus on others when you are having all you can do to "maintain". My husband says why push yourself to that point, but sometimes it just hits...

Bonnie

Mom and Bonnie,

Thanks for the replies. Bonnie, I think you are being too kind, giving me a justified reason for feeling intolerant. Tired or not, I still need to learn to loosen up and put into practice what I've thought all along. That it is great that stores hire the disabled and handicapped and mentally challenged. But also, we as a public need to become more aware and tolerant. I have learned my lesson.

Pam

Pam,

It seems like the person who was perhaps handicapped and working was put in the wrong area to work. A checkout,I don't believe would be appropriate place for someone slow to work.

The other day I called Bell Canada for information on a listing in the phone book and the guy was stuttering. as a nurse I have aquired tollerance to people who

have deficits,but I found it difficult to be tolerant of him.

Take Care

lorainelm

hey Pam:

It is sad that after going through stroke you still haven't learnt patience what I truly believe that any adversity hit in my life is opportunity given us to grow spiritually and rectify our flaws, atleast you are feeling remorse for it, you recognised your mistake so next time you will be more tolerant, nothing in life is waste if we learn from it

Asha

Sister Pam

i have been thinking about this issue since i read your blog. it seems that, for me, i tend to be intolerant when i am feeling stressed-out, angry, depressed, or all of the above. these negative feeling states tend to make me less able to tolerate other people's imperfections.

you were with your parents when this incident happened. i don't know about you, but when i am with my parents i tend to become stressed-out easier than when i am not in their presence. it was so much easier when they lived in Florida for half of the year.

i have been also thinking about your blog in terms of why people who define themselves as 'conservatives' tend to be more rageful and vitriolic in their rhetoric and actions then us more 'liberal' people. part of their rhetoric involves standing up for a simpler, happier, America, with correct, consistent, unitary, and "Christian" moral and family values, but i believe it's because they're rageful, depressed, stressed-out people. racism, sexism, and classism always flourishes when times are tough financially and socially.

in visual terms, i think that the bag of 'con-nuts' is bigger than the bag of 'lib-nuts.' i think that someone has also put their bag into a big pan with butter and sugar and cooked it over high heat, resulting in a large mass of 'con-nut brittle.' maybe it should be boxed and sold.

i think that maybe i'll blog about this when i feel like blogging again.

sister sandy (one is for you)

Sister Sandy,

Wow, I hope that all that malarky about the conservative BS was aimed at someone else and not me. Remember it wasn't I that labeled you a "Lib-nut". A snob I can sometimes be without a doubt, but a conservative? Please cut my only good arm off instead of calling me that.

Pam

I'll have another.