General public and the rise in aggressive behaviour towards people just doing a job - DH job as an example

[Picklemeyellow]

My dh has been working in the same job for over 30 years.

He is a road engineer and although he very much enjoys the job and has a great relationship with his colleagues he is finding the general public to be a complete pain in the arse.

He says the aggression towards them is becoming an almost daily occurrence. This never happened years ago and he says he has seen this steadily rising over the last 5+ years or so.

It is becoming such a problem that the company he works for is offering the employees who work on the road, the use of body cameras. They also attend regular safety training and learn how to diffuse confrontational situations.

Road closures appear to cause the biggest rise in aggression. These closures are planned in advanced and in most cases the local residents will have been notified via letter etc. It goes without saying these closures are done so to protect the public from harm, there could be exposed electrical cables and large holes left in the road etc.

However, there are always the few who will truly believe they are above the rules and regulations and feel they should be ‘let through just this once’ and when these people realise the rules can not be bent just for them they often go ballistic - shouting and swearing is the most common (they are often being called Fucking Cunts and Arseholes).

One guy went crazy, ran back to his car, produced his lunch box and proceeded to hurl his sandwich, sausage rolls and chocolate bar at them (what a knob!).

Another work colleague once had a bottle of urine thrown at him!

The best one was a woman who announced that she was going to drive through the road closure regardless of the fact DH had told her there was a massive hole in the road further down and she would absolutely not be able to get through. She totally ignored him, drove past him whilst swearing and muttering. She arrived at said hole and realising DH was in fact correct and she would not be able to get through she proceeded to drive up the adjacent grass embankment, failing to see the ditch on the other side, she drove straight down into the ditch ending up with her car on its side - what an absolute idiot.

They are the lighthearted stories though, what happens when it turns violent?

I just don’t understand why people are like this now. We hear constant stories of supermarket workers being verbally abused to the point they are also being offered body cameras.

People are just doing a job, trying to earn a living, they do not deserve to be abused whilst doing so.

I am 50 years old and worked many years in customer service but never have I recalled supermarket staff being abused at the rate they are now and I dare say the same goes for many areas of the public facing workforce.

What is happening to society, I personally find it concerning?

Absolutely @Spudlet. That's the galling thing. The politicians who have recklessly eviscerated the welfare state, public services and the social contract get to opt out completely by using (for example) private healthcare and private schools, to name just two examples. I'm so sorry to hear of your struggles on behalf of your child.

So no wonder people are angry. Of course that doesn't make it right to abuse people on the frontline in their jobs, but I do think it's understandable that everyone is feeling pretty fed up.

Try being a nurse... Its horrendous and to top it off the nurse gets blamed

That's really awful and must be so draining. It's strange that as the "be kind" rhetoric has risen, so people seem to have become less kind.

Or a prison officer!!

I think I agree with the theory that we are more atomised. I'm not especially aggressive and haven't behaved in the way being described here but I think I'm guilty of feeling very indifferent towards others. We don't live in the same way and while we are still dependent on others for our needs it's more abstract.

Nail on the head. Life, generally, is just too hard these days, so many obstacles put in your way, having be very assertive to get basic rights. It's so bad that it's become a surprise when you're treated well by anyone, say in a shop, or on the phone to a call centre, etc. It's become so that you expect to be treated badly that you are anxious even before you pick up the phone or walk into, say, a shop or GP surgery, etc.

Few months ago I left a job as Resident Liaison Officer after just 2 days, as abuse was unreal.

Hard agree. Many people I know are frazzled, stressed, struggling financially. There's not a lot to be positive about with 7.7 million on NHS lists, cost of living, climate. Does not excuse the abuse at all, but I think it makes it harder to be patient. I've never sworn (mostly to myself!) as much.

I used to work as an aide for a legislator in California.

A young couple came in to my office looking for assistance and I spent close to two hours making appointments with every social agency I possibly could for them to get them help.

The next day, the guy came back and threatened to murder me because I didn’t get them any “free money.”

It was 1985. The crazy people have been around for a long time here in the U.S. Our former president has, I think, just made it fashionable.

I realised 10 years ago the abuse my public facing roll attracted just wasn't worth it.
My mental health suffered and nobody and nothing would make me go through that again.

Also agree about the being more frazzled. If you can't catch a breath meeting yours and your family's needs you are hardly going to waste energy on caring about other people.

I agree with this. It’s not right to behave like that, obviously, but I definitely do sort of understand it.

We are also living in a time where everyone is encouraged to complain, I'm not saying people should accept absolute shit service but there is no allowing for anything other than 100% perfection. They will scream loudly and get it.

So then everyone starts screaming loudly to get what they want.

The Sky broadband outage last night was a good example, instead of just thinking ok it's happened, nothing I can do, people were all over X stomping their feet and carrying on.

(I did tell ds that I had no sympathy that it meant he couldn't do his homework being that it was 11pm)

Gosh, this is very depressing.

How on earth do we prevent society from slipping into some kind of permanent state of anger and frustration?

If this is a modern day phenomenon and the tip of the iceberg surely things will continue to progress to the point where people could be attacking each other for the slightest of grievances?

From this thread alone you can see where it’s potentially starting from, if parents are fighting during school pick up and verbally abusing teachers and staff, what hope is there for their dc and their future?

@Picklemeyellow you can't fight the whole of society, you persuade your kids to get out of the UK whilst young and make plans so you can retire elsewhere.

Getting to speak to someone can be hard. Even in shops I have walked around for a while at times before being able to find someone not on the till with a long gueue. It doesn't help people's patience levels.

I do agree this 24 hour, instant gratification world is creating a whole new generation of people who seem to have zero patience and need it NOW and if not, sooner. Amazon has a lot to blame on that front!

When I was a child, if you wanted something you went to a shop and ordered it and waited for it to arrive or you filled out an order form, sent it off in the post and waited. It would arrive when it arrived. No one became angry or frustrated.

And People had no choice but to wait and if you received poor customer service you maybe had a little grumble to your spouse or friend and left it at that. Now everyone is permanently pissed off and they will instantly take to SM (as I am now doing lol) to rant and rave and then everyone else joins in and it snowballs into a major anger-fest (aka AIBU!).

Are we all calling out this behaviour?

Attempting to correct it?

I do! Every single time. Mumsnet has had one use in my life and I try the old 'did you mean to be so rude!'

frozendaisy my kids are teens and I ask them regularly to consider moving abroad when they are older. They laugh but I genuinely mean it right now.

I do very much worry for my dc’s futures.

MatthewsMumFromTikTok

I have always wanted to use the line Del Boy used in Only Fools And Horse,

Did you sue em?
Who?
The charm school!

Never been brave enough to say it though.

I work part-time in retail and there are many usual items that are now out of stock on a semi- long term basis.

What is it with people blaming me and my colleagues for this obviously wide-scale problem that is not in any way the fault of the staff in the shop?

We politely explain the situation, often apologising and sympathising, but it’s totally out of our control.

And no, telling us how important it is that you have said item immediately won’t change the fact we don’t have it and can’t get it.

When we suggest alternative solutions to obtaining the item, they just get exasperated and tell us that it’s far too inconvenient, not seeming to grasp that it is entirely their problem and their responsibility.

Cue rudeness, threats and intimidation.

And then of course both the customer and staff member go home feeling aggrieved and done to, and the whole thing repeats.

I've never been convinced by the idea that we should always call things out. The success rate is going to be really low and I think some caller outers do it for the wrong reasons. I bet at least some of the people behaving like this think that they are helping to call things out.

I always remind myself that the person you're dealing with is probably not the one who caused whatever the problem is.

However I do get really, really wound up after waiting 40 minutes to speak to someone. The repeated recorded message of 'we do not tolerate abuse of staff' does make me think that possibly people wouldn't be so angry if they didn't have to wait so bloody long.

I think it's just a symptom of the way things are. For years people have been raising their kids with the idea that rules and boundaries don't exist for them, they're free spirits and can do what they want.

I don't know why but something is very wrong with this increased lack of self control. Yes simple jobs like sorting out utilities, tax, insurance, finding a bank branch that's still open are far harder than they used to be but it's not just that.

I got assaulted by a random man on a quiet single track country lane one Saturday afternoon recently. He was driving very fast, shot past 3 places he could have pulled into, the last one on our side was a long way back. He stopped no more than a car length past the last one got out and asked us to reverse back. I got hit numerous times on my head (I pulled his tie so he couldn't draw back and punch me in the face) a haematoma at the base of my spine and bruising on both arms where he tried to wrangle me and push me into the ditch and stinging nettles. TotallyOTT reaction from him. Very shocking. If we'd had dashcam the police could have used it as evidence. It's worth having.

These people walk amongst us and it's terrifying because the tiniest thing can set them off.