Epilogue: In Which I Speak with the Store Manager

Magical horse. . . no affiliation.

Alright. . . not to beat this wonderful magical horse to death. . . but:

I finally got a chance to speak with the Target store directly about the cashier.

When I originally posted I had no idea the sort of attention it would receive, but once I realized it, I probably should have made it more of a priority to talk directly to the store.  Last night I resolved to get them at the very least on the phone.  I was too late.  This morning, eight days after the wall post, I spoke to the store manager.

Having never experienced this sort of viral interest in something I've said or written, I wasn't properly prepared for it.  What I learned from it was probably something that I should have already known; that when you post something for public scrutiny. . . the public will scrutinize it.  Hard.

There are things I would have done differently, there are specifics I would have left out.  There are rumors that I would have investigated prior to dismissing.  Looking back I know my heart was in the right place. . . but once the shit hit the fan, I probably should have reacted more quickly.

Right. . . I know. . . the store manager. . . I'm getting to that.  First, my apologies:

1)  I am sorry that I so cavalierly dismissed the notion that Target was anti-gay.  While hundreds of comments addressed this so thoroughly that I can't do them more justice. . . Target's CEO contributed to the campaign of a very anti-gay MN gubernatorial candidate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/27/target-homophobia-ceo-gre_n_660990.html

Their rationale was that he was pro-business, but when you back someone like that, you have to know that you're backing ALL of him. . . not just the pro-business part.  When you give hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a candidate, you probably should have made your peace with his whole platform.  Because people will find out.  

I've seen references to things Target corporate has done since to attempt to repair the damage they did to their relationship with the LGBT community, but it's really not my fight.  As I've tried to make clear, I'm not a Target corporate apologist, I just liked that the store hired a guy with autism.  The point is, I shouldn't have dismissed it without checking it out.  As one reader pointed out, had it been my daughter, and an anti-special needs contribution, would I have just assumed it was a myth, or would I have gone out and investigated it?  I know the answer to that.

Right. . . I know. . . the store manager.  One more thing:

2)  I am even more sorry that I potentially outed or exposed the cashier without knowing whether he was comfortable with that sort of exposure or that acknowledgement.  While I still believe what makes the story great is that he is an autistic (please let's not argue person first about this.  Please!) adult working (in an atmosphere where so many people regardless of diagnosis are unemployed) and doing a fantastic job.  When Huffington Post ran the re-post from my blog, they removed references to the city and the description of the cashier.  I should have done the same thing on my own blog post right at that moment.  Prior to that, I hadn't even considered the ramifications. . . but when they spiked it out in the edits. . . I should have done the math.  I have since done the same with my original post.  Of all the people who should be more sensitive to the social (or not so social) nature of autism, I should have been more aware that the enormous public scrutiny might be highly unwelcome.

So I finally spoke to the store manager.  I complimented the cashier.  I explained my concerns.  And she told me this:

He's doing great.  His autism was not a secret.  They told him about the story, specifically that he'd been recognized by a customer for great service (I don't know what else he was told about it).  He was then recognized at a team meeting for his excellent work. . . and given a "team card" (I have no idea what that is) and something else.  I don't know what "something else" was she said, but I'd already said, "what" about a hundred times at that point attempting to confirm bits and pieces of the overall puzzle while we talked so I just felt sorta warm and fuzzy that he'd gotten something out of the deal.  She said he's an asset to the store.  She said he does so many things for them, not just cashiering and that he has a great work ethic.

I told her I was concerned that he might be uncomfortable with the extra attention and she told me that she'd talk to HR to make sure, but that he seemed happy and hadn't come to her with any complaints.

All's well that ends well?  Maybe, with the caveat that I hope I learned my lesson moving forward.  I hope that's the end of it.  I hope that it's all positive and no negative, but I'm a realist.  Still, all things considered, this seems like it's been a good experience for everyone who isn't pissed off about how bad the post jacked up their Facebook news feed for the past week.

The Target Post

Yesterday I was reading something from a fellow blogger about how he always buys solid colored shirts at Target.  His wife had posted a picture of him on facebook, and it makes me laugh to tag pictures with ridiculous tags, so I tagged his pic.  He was holding a piece of bacon, so I tagged it "Bacon" (duh).  I tagged his eyes, "his eyes how they twinkled" and his cheek with "his dimples how merry" etc.  Anyway, I got to the shirt and tried to tag it "Target" and it said I didn't have permission.  Meh.  But that made me remember I'd been at Target over the weekend with Lily.

We could not find shoes for her to save our lives.  Leslie had already been to Target, and Macy's and Nordstrom's and Payless and had struck out.  She sent me out to get a new school backpack for her and I struck out.  But on the way out I thought. . . what the hell, I'll just take a look around for shoes just in case.  

Lily is autistic.  If you're reading my blog you probably already know that.  She moves her feet constantly when she's sitting.  When she was a baby she blistered her feet from rubbing them back and forth across the carpet of our living room.  We put socks on her.  At least no blisters.  The point is. . . she goes through shoes pretty fast, wearing holes in the fronts usually, because she likes the feeling she gets in her feet when she drags the toe of her shoes across the asphalt of the playground.  

We'd been cleaning out her closet a couple nights prior and dug up some of Emma's old Chuck Taylor's.  Well. . . Target sells those.  So I looked, and found some.  They're awesome for kids who drag toes because of the rubber toes.  Anyway, I found a pair in black and a pair in pink and I tossed them in the cart and we made for checkout.

As usual I looked for either the shortest line, or a long line of people with very little to buy, balanced out the math and ended up in line. . . I don't know. . . call it 3.  As I put the shoe boxes on the belt, I heard the cashier humming a little to himself.  I waited for the woman in front of me to pay.  The cashier put his hands on his head and hummed.  At first I thought for a split second that he was irritated with the woman paying.  That's ballsy, I thought.  You're so impatient for this woman that you're putting your hands up and humming?  But I noticed the hum never really stopped.  I noticed too that he shifted from foot to foot. . . side to side.  The fingers he had laced behind his head were fluttering against his scalp, but he took them down and told the woman politely to have a nice day as he handed her the receipt.  

Interesting, I thought. . . is he autistic, like Lily?  I was almost instantly certain that he was.  I wanted to say, "HEY!  AWESOME!  My daughter is on the spectrum!" but I didn't.  I didn't want to embarrass him or call attention to him.  So I just watched him do his job, like I would anyone else.  And he did it well.  

He did not make eye contact with me, but I only really noticed that because I was actively 'noticing' things.  I remember thinking to myself about a third of the way through the transaction, "Did he make eye contact?  I can't remember."  Lily looks me in the eye constantly, so I've never really gotten the importance of it, when I consider some of the other obstacles she has to circumnavigate.  He hummed when he wasn't politely communicating with me, asking whether I had coupons, taking payment, giving change, wishing me a pleasant day.  

And I thought. . . "Good on you, Target!  You hired a good cashier."  

And I remember thinking too that the symptoms manifest in the briefest exchange we shared at the register must also have been apparent to the folks who interviewed him for the job.  And they gave him the job.  

Okay. . . so on to the post.  After I tagged the picture (or failed to tag it) I searched for Target and figured I'd write a quick "Kudos" to them and ask a few people I know in the autism blogging community to just go read and like it because when I wrote it it was wedged (I'm not even kidding) between a wall post that said, "Target sucks" and "Eat a dick, Target."  So I wasn't particularly confident that what I posted would be seen by Target.  

I'm not sure what my aim was entirely.  I don't think I really thought it through, but it was at the very least "Hey, friends who have kids with autism and know me. . . or friends who have autism who know me, look at what I saw at Target. . . neat, right?" and also I was hoping that maybe Target corporate would look at the dozen or two likes and comments from these friends and communicate to the Target I shop at, "Good work, local store, your patrons appreciate your hiring diversity."

Right. So I posted this:

Jim W:  Target

9 hours ago ·
I have a six year old daughter on the autism spectrum. I was recently in a Target. I had my daughter in tow. We were checking out.

The man behind the register didn't make eye contact with me. He seemed a little. . . out of sorts. He rocked back and forth a little. He hummed to himself between activities. In other words. . . I believe he too was on the spectrum.

I thought to myself, "Good for you, Target! Good. For. You." The man was an excellent cashier. He was very courteous, said all the right things. . . rung me up efficiently, gave me proper change, bagged like a champ. . . in all ways a great cashier. And I think it's absolutely fantastic that he works for you. Because knowing what I know about kids/adults on the spectrum, there is no way he made it through the interview without showing the folks doing the hiring the same things that I saw. And he got the job.

It's here if you want to see what people are saying about it:  http://www.facebook.com/target/posts/10151145180098120?notif_t=feed_comment

There's nothing particularly heroic or epic or even (in my head) touching or heartwarming in what I wrote. That was on purpose. I wasn't trying to be emotional, I was just trying to give them credit where credit was due. . . from a father whose daughter is autistic, to a company who I've just seen has hired an autistic adult. That's it. THE END.

I don't know whether it struck a chord in the special needs community, or people just love Target so much and they're sick of the urban legend about Target hating gays and the military or whatever. . . but it exploded. I've never had anyone THAT interested in anything I've written, and, as one commenter pointed out. . . I didn't even write it correctly. "The past tense of ring is rang. . . " he said. Fantastic. And I want people to think of me as a writer.

Somewhere in the flurry of likes and comments, I lost the ability to "like" all the commenters, or even keep up with them, or their responses to each other let alone me.

So this post is a bit of a response and summary to some of the major comments received.

1) 99% of it was positive.
The rest was split as follows:
2) This is a fake post by Target PR to drum up business for Target
3) Target shouldn't be praised for not discriminating.
4) Target discriminates against gays and the military
5) You're praising the wrong party. You should be praising the man, not the company
6) You should contact the Target and let them know
7) Random asshattery

So. . . in order:

1) The positive was SO positive. People weeping and making their day, and it made me realize what a dearth of "good messages" people in the special needs community get. . . or at least how precious even a trivial positive story is, when you spend all day every day looking for food or a job, or at IEP meetings or doctor's offices, or fighting people who think they know better than you "what that kid really needs".

And this cashier is local, but I swear I got at LEAST 30 comments about how they know the cashier and always pick his line, or they went to school with him and he's awesome, or they work with him and he does it all and is great.
He's the rockstar of Target cashiering or something.

2) The fake post thing. . . I never knew if people were seeing my comments back indicating "no I'm not a fake, just something I saw," but why would they believe me anyway? Also, I really didn't understand what the big deal was. (Apart from the cashier, who was awesome) It's not like I said. . . While I was at Target an autistic cashier jumped in front of a car and saved my daughter's life. . . it was. . . he did a good job. I was called a transparent corporate shill.  I was called a brilliant liar.   I think mostly people thought it was fake because of the numbers it generated. . . inexplicable, ridiculous numbers.  And it's easier to believe the bad than it is to believe the good.

3) Target shouldn't have to be praised for not discriminating. The way the world should work is. . . people do the right thing. All the time. Everyone does. You don't get credit or kudos for doing the right thing. . . you just correct those who are doing the wrong thing. But that isn't the way the world works. When you find a good story. . . a little victory. . . you celebrate it. You give thanks. You give kudos. You hope for more, but you take in your little successes you praise positive behavior and you build on it and hope for bigger and bigger successes.

4) I don't know the whole "Target discriminates" story well enough. I've read a half dozen different accounts where Target is replaced by Walmart or by Starbucks or whatever and gays is replaced by military . . . and as far as I know they're all urban legends. I get this crap sent to me via email all the time. The first place I look is snopes.com. It's invariably bullshit. And LOTS of people buy it hook line and sinker.

5) Is Target the hero of this "story"? No. I am. HAH! No, I kid. The cashier is.  The cashier who probably has had to deal with bullying, and therapy, and doubt and struggle all his life. Target deserves credit for not overlooking him. But he is an inspiration to me and the hero of the story; someone I hope my daughter will someday match. And there were random asshats that were dismissive of his role with the company. . .  "great, so they gave him a minimum wage job. . . some victory." That sort of thing. But really, as I look at where Lily is now. . . that minimum wage job (I have no idea what he makes) is as far from her imagined extrapolated future as Rocket Science. It's an awesome magical target (no pun intended).

6) I thought I WAS contacting Target when I left that on their wall. The idea all along was to get friends to comment and like it so there were a couple dozen views and then Target's facebook admin would see it and go. . . awww, look, someone doesn't think we suck or should eat a dick. They LIKE us!! And pass it along. And in fact about 300 likes in, the Target admin DID post a message indicating that she was happy we had a good experience with a member of the team and would pass my post along to the store's management team. I don't think she called it a team though. . . it was something all touchyfeely and corporate newspeak sounding. . .

Screw it. . . I copied and pasted it here:

Target Hi Jim - It's great to hear when our Team Members provide you with an enjoyable shopping experience. We'll be glad to pass along your comments to the Store Leadership team. –Thelma

Meh, turned out she did call it 'team'. My memory is both better than I thought and also somehow worse. Regardless it was very canned and boilerplate, but I appreciated it nonetheless. At that point, like I said, I had (in my head) HUGE (300) likes and so I was satisfied. But I thought about the comments that I should pass the information along to Target store management directly, and I think that's probably what I should do; what I will do.

7) A vocal minority of asshats would interject random "who cares" and "what kind of dumbass posts this story on a corporate facebook site" and "what's your point" along with the couple of other people who felt bad about having "Eat a dick Target" get buried under a flood of positive and so would interject as needed. Occasionally people corrected grammar assaulted character or whatever. . . you'll have that.

At the time of this post there are more than 53,000 likes on Facebook, and almost 1,500 comments. 99% of it, like I said. . . is overwhelmingly positive.

I did not count on that sort of response on Facebook. For me a huge response is like. . . 60 likes. It wasn't meant to generate attention or traffic for me. . . or really for Target for that matter. It was just supposed to be a heads up to the special needs community that Target does good things and a kudos to Target for doing them.

But. . . I love that people loved the story. I loved that people knew the cashier (whose name I now know, and whose line I'll now seek out regardless of the balancing math of number in line versus amount in cart) and thought the world of him. I loved finding out that he is on the spectrum. I loved finding out that he does more than cashier, and that people think he's a good guy; a gentleman. Today was a good day.

I hope Target appreciates him and what he does for them. I appreciate that they hired him.

For an update on this, See "Epilogue".