I am 28 years old and work as a medical transcriptionist.  At work, I am 
constantly trying to educate people.  As a young person, I would get very 
angry when I received this kind of treatment from sighted people, but I have 
come to understand that most of the time, they are well-meaning, albeit 
pretty misinformed about blindness.  Most people are just trying to help.  I 
know that as a blind person, you do get pretty darned tired of doing the 
education, but unfortunately, that's the only way we're going to make any 
changes.  If you become indignant and leave the store furious, or even if you 
sue or boycot the store, you are still left with uneducated staff at that 
store.  One approach you might consider is to have your local NFB chapter 
work with the management to do a little education-type thing for the staff.  
I'm not talking about a three-day seminar or anything, but how about a little 
half hour thing where you might teach sighted-guide, the appropriate way to 
help blind folks, etc.  Our local chapter in Delaware has done that, and we 
can really see how this helps.  Also, NFB has some very good pamphlets you 
might want to send the management to share with their staff.  I have found 
that, unless the people you're talking about are just jerks, most folks 
really do appreciate being shown the proper way to help.  I think that we 
need to encourage the gentle, helpful side of people since helping others is 
a quality found in civilized societies, and one that I think is in short 
supply these days in general.  I agree with David that the management may not 
have had much control over what this guy said to you, and that it might help 
for you to think about what steps you'd like the management to take to remedy 
the situation.  Maybe sitting down and putting your thoughts in a letter 
might help you and help the situation.  I dream of a time in history when we 
as blind folks won't have to deal with these problems between the blind and 
sighted communities, but unfortunately that time has not yet arrived, and 
education is the most important vehicle we have for trying to combat these 
misunderstandings.
Lynn K. Schneider
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