In a viral TikTok video, a worker in a wheelchair says customers consistently joke about her “sitting on the job.”
“Me: *is in a wheelchair*,” the text overlay reads. “Customer: ‘sitting on the job are we?’”
The video shows the Publix worker pretending to smile and rolling her eyes at the joke.
“I hear it like 10 times a day. Shit gets old,” Riley (@psychotic.caprisun) captioned the video.
Riley told the Daily Dot that she shared the video to spread awareness about the ableism that she and other disabled people experience every day.
“I’m tired of tolerating ableism in today’s world,” Riley told the Daily Dot. “We’ve come so far in terms of homophobia and racism but the discrimination and lack of understanding surrounding the disability community has gone pretty much unnoticed.”
“It’s important to me to raise awareness around these issues and my preferred way of doing this is through jokes and educational posts on TikTok,” she continued. “It’s presenting [an] important topic and sparking necessary conversations in a way that is more palatable to people and so far has been received quite well.”
With nearly 170,000 views, the video also sparked debate about the expectation of standing on the job.
One wheelchair user said customers said the same thing to them while working at Walmart.
“Man, I am in a wheelchair and people said this to me when I worked at Walmart,” they said.
Other workers said customers complained when they were sitting at work while pregnant.
“When I was pregnant I was given a chair to sit at the till ( starbucks) and boomers wete very upset about that,” one user said.
“I needed a chair while heavily pregnant at my last job and some woman called me lazy,” another said.
However, many wondered why workers are expected to stand constantly anyway.
“Why do ppl want minimum wage workers to stand up so bad? I literally have back problems from when I worked as a cashier at a grocery store & stood 8hr,” one user said.
“Why does standing even matter? I would have been SO much happier and more efficient at my old mall jobs if I could sit or lean a little more,” another siad.
“Why do retail workers have to stand all day anyway…..,” a third user said.
“Boomers get so mad when workers aren’t actively suffering,” a fourth claimed.
Others noted that it’s customary for workers to sit at work in some countries.
“In the Netherlands it’s actually normal to sit as a cashier … Standing for 8 hours a day will rly give you back issues!” one user said.
“In Sweden too. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a cashier in a grocery store stand behind the cash register. Why would they?” another asked.
Riley agreed with many of the sentiments in the comments.
“With so many jobs, sitting does absolutely nothing to interfere with the job getting done and I believe employers will actually see a positive benefit as employees sitting down will boost their morale and job satisfaction!” she told the Daily Dot.
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