Swensen's Hires Students With Special Needs. It Doesn't Expect Customers to Lower Service Expectations

There is nothing particularly different about the service staff at the Swensen's outlet at Clementi Mall, or any of Swensen's 25 outlets islandwide for that matter.

The restaurant chain does not put out signs about its hiring practices, nor does it make some of its staff wear nametags that differentiate them from the rest. There are hardly any mainstream or social media articles about how it hires people with special needs.

"Inclusive hiring was not a thing back then," Swensen's Singapore CEO Teo Tong Loong told CNA on Sep 19 of the restaurant's decision to start this policy in 2008. "The genesis of the whole thought process is that we never wanted to treat them any different. We thought we would be able to create some positive impact by allowing them a possible career."

Very noble there in Singapore. I'm getting back into the job market after cancer got my voice and finding that an obstacle despite regaining most of my abilities through hard rehab. It's amazing to learn what used to be natural now out of reach yet still must be met.

I have a Servox throat amplifier I despise as it has that buzzing monotone robot sound with no vocal inflection. As my neck is wrapped with a band holding a breathing tube I have to use the thing with a straw that looks ridiculous while I involuntarily drool using it. And even then many of my words aren't understood no matter how hard I practice.

So I primarily use an electronic writing device called a Boogie Board to communicate most of the time. I print almost as rapidly as type and almost no misunderstanding this way. I'm trying to get an arm-strapped keyboard with a Bluetooth speaker amplification thing, but the VA's dragging on me a bit (can't complain, they've saved my life so far).

I'd really like a whole larynx transplant but am told there's so many nerve connections involved between systems it's never attempted on geezers. I say with so many pop star vocalists killing themselves over one overpriveleged angst over another refrigerate the next one, install it and I'll finish out their last album contracts and then some. Let's rock!

It took a while for me to notice here in my little town. A Walmart, a Kroger and an Ingles. Over the past few months I began taking note of the number of handicapped employees at Ingles. Blind (with a walker cane), deformed, severely obese and unable to move serving as cashiers on checkouts, and other physical disabilities like missing or malformed limbs......

Ingles here doesn’t openly advertise it that I can see and their prices are the highest of the three, but I do make it a point to alternate them through the cycle of shopping at the three stores here in my town.

Swensen’s is a venerable, 75+ year-old ice cream shop in San Francisco in the Russian Hill neighborhood. At some point in the ‘70s, I think, Old Man Swensen franchised his concept nationally and internationally. I remember a number of other outlets in shopping malls and touristy towns around California. As far as I know, most of those franchised locations failed, but apparently a branch lives on in Singapore. To an extent, it’s like Woolworth’s which died off in its home country but lives on in a few places like Australia.

There’s a coffee shop in Bethlehem, PA that’s staffed heavily with Downs Syndrome employees.

The only time I was in there was during the mask mandates so I could not tell because they were so anonymous from the face diapers. I wondered why all the employees were so friendly and precise, and working just a hair slower.

When I realized it, I was excited to see these fine folks being so productive and enjoying their careers.

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