Wheelchair Misinformation from Swedish Answer Company

posted on May 13 by Admin in the Advocacy, Disability Discrimination, Disability News, Opinion and Discussion, Wheelchair Accessibility Laws category

Swedish company 118 100 markets to customers that they will be able to ask anything and get an answer via the internet, phone, or text message. With increasing frequency, however, the customers receive more ignorance than information, as two fun-loving wheelchair users recently discovered.

This “super answering school” differentiates incoming questions into  factual questions, philosophical questions, opinion questions, entertainment questions, guessing questions, questions of a sexual character and directory inquiries. CEO Mikael Bencker states his employees are told to not answer any questions in an “unpleasant, derogatory or offensive” manner. Previously the company as been under fire for telling a 13-year-old to take a shotgun into the jungle and end it all when he asked what he should be when he grew up. Another 13-year-old inquired about record companies and was told she should give up, because she had a voice like a “creaking old tractor.”

Katarina Morgner and Nina Åberg’s search for a night out on the town was essentially shot down by the harsh words of the 118 100 employee. In a seemingly growing string of offensive comments by the staff, another inexplicable incident occurred when the two women used the Q & A hotline to inquire about the best local nightclubs to go to as wheelchair users, where things like stairs would not be an accessibility issue. Neither woman had used a wheelchair for very long and were looking to go enjoy the notorious Stockholm nightlife.

The answer they received was originally thought to be a joke, but quickly they realized it was anything but humorous. The women were told, “Dimmed lights make wheelchairs a hazard to fellow nightclub customers,” and “We don’t think a nightclub is an appropriate environment for wheelchairs.” Responses that are a far cry from the statement on the website claiming, “Our pleasant and capable information agents will give you that little extra something with a smile on their lips.”

“At first we laughed, it was so ridiculous we thought it was a joke, but then we felt insulted,” Morgner stated. “Neither one of us have been in a wheelchair for that long and after the depression that follows it is not especially nice to be told that you can’t go out and enjoy yourself.”

Bencker claims the employee phrased the answer incorrectly and should have suggested other premises they could have socialized at, but later added, “The best thing would have been to just answer their question.”

Both Morgner and Åberg plan to take the situation to Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman to be dealt with further. “What we want is that they look over who gets to work there. And that when on duty they really think about what they answer people,” said Morgner.

Source: http://www.thelocal.se/33548/20110503/