Life as an OKU or disabled person is never easy. Unfortunately, there are not that many disabled-friendly facilities or services provided in public spaces and establishments; this sometimes prevents the OKUs from cleaning up after themselves.
As if living with a disability isn’t already hard enough, OKUs also have to face discrimination and abuse almost on a daily basis. Some of the discrimination may just be misunderstandings and even then, things can easily get out of hand.
On Wednesday (17th January), Twitter user @jllmisai posted a photo of a notice that was placed in a Family Mart outlet in Nu Sentral. The notice was meant to serve as a reminder to customers to dispose of their trash after eating but unfortunately, it came out a little more insensitive than intended. The notice reads, “Please throw away your trash after eating. Only OKUs don’t throw away their trash”.
The Twitter user criticised the convenience store, saying that they could’ve written a firm reminder without discriminating against disabled people. The tweet obviously triggered a lot of angry netizens after it went viral, reaching over 450.7k views, 1.4k retweets, and 3.3k likes. Netizens were quick to respond to the tweet and condemned FamilyMart for its disrespectful notice.
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Many were understandably upset and expressed their frustration over the notice. Some argued that the FamilyMart outlet probably meant that only disabled people do not need to throw away their trash as staff will provide the service for them. Others felt like the notice could’ve been written as a short and simple reminder without the mention of OKUs.
One netizen claimed that the staff who works at the outlet miswrote the notice and that it was all a misunderstanding. After the tweet went viral, FamilyMart Malaysia responded to @jllmisai saying that the notice was unacceptable and an investigation will be carried out. “The team at the store was also given stern action to ensure this does not happen [again]. We once again apologise for this,” the statement reads.
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