When I got more than just pizza
I appreciated Pizza Hut telling me that what happened had been extremely difficult and painful for them too as it was for me.
COMMENT
It has been quite a lengthy and unbelievable week for me; even though it hasn’t ended yet.
As I pen my thoughts, it will be All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween later tonight. And in a couple of days – the Festival of Lights or Deepavali, celebrated by Hindus the world over, will come on.
Funnily enough, I can think of nothing more apt than these two occasions to best describe the most unexpected and larger than life week I’ve had in less than seven days.
And all I wanted to do was to have some pizza for lunch. A very bad choice indeed for the first day of the week on a Monday!
Many of you know the story already. My nightmare in Pizza Hut, Mid Valley, began with unfriendly waiters – who might as well have been daytime ghouls at work in aprons.
The manager turned out to be a proper “zombie” herself who instructed me to leave my wheelchair outside of the outlet and walk in; if I hoped to sink my “fangs” into any one of her mouth-watering pizzas.
And it just got horrifyingly bad to worse from there.
A friend who tagged along with me, the customer care head from Mid Valley who rushed to the scene after I had SOS-ed him for help and I literally gasped disbelievingly after we were told something even far worse than something that could have emerged out of Dracula’s Castle.
The icy cold words were: “The ‘no wheelchair rules’ were authorised by the top management.”
They might as well have let out a colony of wild and starving vampire bats at us. My able-bodied friend and I quickly got the message.
We decided to take our hungry tummies and wallets to Secret Recipe instead, where we got promptly served, wheelchair and all, minus the horror house treatment.
But I tell you something. Even if you have been in a wheelchair for as long as I have – 43 years – and 53 years as a disabled person, something will still give in such situations.
I recall crying myself to sleep that night (yes, grown men and councillors do, in fact, cry sometimes!).
Despite having struggled as a boy in a wheelchair against every obstacle imaginable in my way over the years to the present day, this was the first time I recall someone audaciously telling me that not only was my body not good enough for them, I had to lose my wheelchair as well if I wanted to have a piece of their pizza!
No matter how strong a disabled activist one regards himself to be, guess it is never easy for anyone to take things when one is hit very hard from down below the belt.
Then, I did the other thing I normally do when I am down.
Tears of joy
I decided to talk about it with my friends in the social media. By the next morning, I was crying again. But this time it was distinct tears of joy. I couldn’t believe how the few words I wrote in my blog had overnight gone viral.
Soon everyone, including the mainstream media, were calling me up for the story.
The calls also came from Pizza Hut Malaysia who requested for an urgent meeting to find out what had happened. A meeting was agreedon Wednesday morning that lasted three and the half hours.
Together with a couple of my friends – including the one who was with me during the ordeal on Monday, I met up with the following persons: Senior General Manager Low Kang Moon, Deputy General Manager Lim Siew Lay and Deputy GM Group Corporate Communication Wan Esuriyanti Wan Ahmad.
I insisted that we meet at the “scene of the crime” which was in their Mid Valley outlet. This was because I wanted to show them firsthand what had transpired there.
I also showed them the area where I wanted to be seated when I was rudely and sternly told by one of the waitress that my “wheelchair wouldn’t fit in there.” In actual fact, at least more than half a dozen wheelchairs could easily park in there along with able-bodied customers.
We moved to another venue in a hotel to have our discussion. I was a bit tensed wondering how the Pizza Hut officials were going to react to me.
What a relief it turned out to be. They were not at all defensive or uttered a sarcastic remark to me during the time that I related the whole episode to them. They listened patiently and intently – one of them diligently taking down notes of what I said.
In fact it looked as if she was noting down each and every word.
They never gave any excuses for what happened. They only sincerely and unequivocally apologised for everything.
Looking at their faces, I could see that they were rather shocked themselves at what they had heard from me. Some of them even glanced at the floor a couple of times, as if in embarrassment.
Although they didn’t put their staff down even once, they never gave excuses, justified or condoned any of their actions. I was glad to hear, though, that the manager was already “on leave.”
I told them that she needed counselling on her obvious prejudicial, totally unsympathetic and ignorant attitude about disabled persons. They nodded.
The Pizza Hut management did not interrupt me at all whilst I was talking.
In fact, it was me who interrupted Mr Low (who insisted that I call him “Moon” and kept joking about his name) when he remarked that his store manager had made a “mistake.”
My suggestions to them
I said,“With due respect a ‘mistake’ Moon is if someone spills ketchup on you whilst they are serving you; not when they tell you wheelchairs are not allowed in the restaurant especially if people can’t get around without them.”
I made a number of suggestions to Pizza Hut that day which they said they would seriously look into.
These include the pasting of wheelchair logos in all Pizza Hut outlets with the words, “We love wheelchairs! Come on in!”, to creating a new policy where patrons with wheelchairs and other physical disabilities will be seated and attended to at once.
The most important was special training on handling disabled customers to all staff about those who require mobility aids like wheelchairs, walking sticks, strollers and so on. They not only took this suggestion up very positively but also invited me into a special team that they will set up very soon to carry this out.
I also asked for special discounts for disabled persons with welfare identification cards – especially for home deliveries. Able-bodied customers – unlike the disabled – enjoy the privilege of having a choice if want to eat out or call for pizzas at home.
As councillor for the Petaling Jaya City Council or MBPJ, I also offered free technical advice from our engineers on how to make their outlets in PJ disabled friendly such as wheelchair friendly ramps and toilets.
I also suggested they build covered car parks in all of their outlets in PJ – and MBPJ, on its part would do its best to allocate the special lots for them.
I appreciated Pizza Hut telling me that what happened had been extremely difficult and painful for them too as it was for me. They kept thanking me for my “very useful feedback” which they said was invaluable in helping them serve customers with special needs better in future.
I told them that despite the unfortunate incident that had taken place, I had never lost my confidence in the goodness of most Malaysians – namely the hundreds of people out there on Facebook, Twitter and others whom I don’t even know, who were encouraging me on during my ordeal.
I was deeply touched not only by the messages of support and love sent to me by strangers from all walks of life and ages, but I was also very moved by the comments of support they were posting at the same time on Pizza Hut Malaysia’s Facebook page.
The victory of light over darkness was what it was for all of us in learning our lessons – and experiencing the turning of something initially very nasty and negative into a point for understanding, healing, love, forgiveness and most importantly of moving forward in creating a better world for the disabled.
I thank all my new friends out there in the social media, as well as my newfound friends in Pizza Hut Malaysia’s top brass for joining together in this important struggle to fight against discrimination towards people with disabilities.
