That's true, but at some point with dementia sufferers (and memory/brain injury problems generally) I'm willing to go all the way to "excuse". (eta ...sorry, I should have pared this down too probably...)
Dementia patients who don't have the insight to know that their memory is bad do, in fact, live in a world where it seems like people are constantly lying to them, jerking them around, and being rude for no reason. Getting grumpy when a store tells you to come in at a certain time, you come in, and they don't have what you need and claim they never told you to come, and this happens all the time, is excusable to me! If he is having memory problems, when he goes into the store and gets upset that there's no chicken waiting for him, it's possibly because he's operating at a level where to the best of his knowledge, he went at the correct time to pick up the chicken, and they're just lying to him about it repeatedly; and he may be confusing the worker with a good friend or family member and be deeply upset that they aren't treating him the way the person he thinks they are always treated him before.
Some people respond to that level of ongoing confusion by becoming quiet and compliant but some don't, and you can't always predict which it will be based on how they were before. They can't learn better past the point where they can only do limited kinds of learning at all.
I say all this as a customer service professional who does have to deal with these kinds of issues with customers fairly often. And was given training for it, because knowing how to recognize and respond when customers aren't operating under the same rules of reality as you is an accessibility need, and one that's really hard to meet. It's not wrong to get angry if a disabled customer treats you that way and if someone's being disruptive and abusive to the whole space every time they come, then you may not be able to provide reasonable accommodations that allow you to serve them, but it's still useful to have a framework to remind yourself it's nobody's fault.
And carers vary wildly in how well they understand this, too. If FIL *is* having serious memory problems it's very possible that SIL is far more aware than LW of issues LW is still in denial about, and LW is writing off anger about service workers yelling at a confused old man until he panics as SIL being an asshole about staff. Even if SIL has repeatedly tried to explain about the memory problems. We've gotten that a few times too, where people we've never met before try to apologize at length for relatives who we know well and apparently know their needs better than this person visiting from out of state.
The original advice seems to be based on an assumption that something like this may be happening, and if that's the case than butting out probably is the best thing for LW to do. I'm not convinced that contacting the company would do anything useful, since the attempt at firing doesn't seem to have gone anywhere and it doesn't sound like LW has interacted with the store before.
HOWEVER all that said if FIL and SIL have a long history of that kind of assholery - and it really sounds like they do - then it's extremely likely none of the above apply, they'd be acting like that whether he was sick or not, the original advice is going in completely the wrong direction, and he should try living on cold baloney sandwiches for awhile.
Also, like, nobody is obliged to sit around and list to racist rants, dementia patient or not. If he's doing that to random customer service workers, and it's something he knew better than do to before, he's past the point where he needs to be interacting only with well-paid professional carers. If it's something he's been doing his whole life, LW needs to just excuse herself from the care team at this point frankly, beyond offering to help pay professionals maybe.
no subject
Dementia patients who don't have the insight to know that their memory is bad do, in fact, live in a world where it seems like people are constantly lying to them, jerking them around, and being rude for no reason. Getting grumpy when a store tells you to come in at a certain time, you come in, and they don't have what you need and claim they never told you to come, and this happens all the time, is excusable to me! If he is having memory problems, when he goes into the store and gets upset that there's no chicken waiting for him, it's possibly because he's operating at a level where to the best of his knowledge, he went at the correct time to pick up the chicken, and they're just lying to him about it repeatedly; and he may be confusing the worker with a good friend or family member and be deeply upset that they aren't treating him the way the person he thinks they are always treated him before.
Some people respond to that level of ongoing confusion by becoming quiet and compliant but some don't, and you can't always predict which it will be based on how they were before. They can't learn better past the point where they can only do limited kinds of learning at all.
I say all this as a customer service professional who does have to deal with these kinds of issues with customers fairly often. And was given training for it, because knowing how to recognize and respond when customers aren't operating under the same rules of reality as you is an accessibility need, and one that's really hard to meet. It's not wrong to get angry if a disabled customer treats you that way and if someone's being disruptive and abusive to the whole space every time they come, then you may not be able to provide reasonable accommodations that allow you to serve them, but it's still useful to have a framework to remind yourself it's nobody's fault.
And carers vary wildly in how well they understand this, too. If FIL *is* having serious memory problems it's very possible that SIL is far more aware than LW of issues LW is still in denial about, and LW is writing off anger about service workers yelling at a confused old man until he panics as SIL being an asshole about staff. Even if SIL has repeatedly tried to explain about the memory problems. We've gotten that a few times too, where people we've never met before try to apologize at length for relatives who we know well and apparently know their needs better than this person visiting from out of state.
The original advice seems to be based on an assumption that something like this may be happening, and if that's the case than butting out probably is the best thing for LW to do. I'm not convinced that contacting the company would do anything useful, since the attempt at firing doesn't seem to have gone anywhere and it doesn't sound like LW has interacted with the store before.
HOWEVER all that said if FIL and SIL have a long history of that kind of assholery - and it really sounds like they do - then it's extremely likely none of the above apply, they'd be acting like that whether he was sick or not, the original advice is going in completely the wrong direction, and he should try living on cold baloney sandwiches for awhile.
Also, like, nobody is obliged to sit around and list to racist rants, dementia patient or not. If he's doing that to random customer service workers, and it's something he knew better than do to before, he's past the point where he needs to be interacting only with well-paid professional carers. If it's something he's been doing his whole life, LW needs to just excuse herself from the care team at this point frankly, beyond offering to help pay professionals maybe.