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?

I think there is a culture that if anything goes wrong in your life, its someone else's fault, lets's look for someone to blame. It's either the fault of the government, the last generation, those who are wealthy , those in authority, Brexit, Covid, whatever.

At the same time people feel disenfranchised, angry, powerless, without hope . Manners and self restraint aren't seen as worthwhile attributes any longer, aggression, 'calling people out' etc, are. It's survival of the fittest and strongest, and loudest. We are going back to the time where the lawless and most selfish terrorise ordinary people .
Cancel culture and intolerance dominate. Rational debate and logic seem to have gone out of the window.

Woahtherehoney DH did try working nights on the M25 but said it was madness, he regularly got ‘clipped’ by cars as he placed out the traffic comes. Drivers had zero consideration for the workers. Bloody scary.
greengreengrass25 I totally agree. The village in which I have lived for most of my 50 years was a wonderful place to grow up and then raise my own dc but it has had 3 large estates built on it over the last 4 years and is now crazily busy. I live on the main road through the village which used to be fine but is now akin to living next to the bloody M25. I’m not sure what the rest of the U.K. is like but living in Essex is not enjoyable anymore, it is so busy everywhere. I long to retire to somewhere peaceful and isolated, if such a place actually exists in the U.K. these day?

frozendaisy I shall continue to encourage mine to jump ship.

I work in a and e and am sporting a shiner in the right eye. I forgive him as he had delirium.

Three bears I don't think it is about looking for someone to blame. I agree it is about people feeling powerless.

You see human nature at its worse where l work as an online picker in a supermarket. We were the ones out in force picking throughout whole of covid, whilst most of rest of country hid away. We are treated like absolute shit from customers and other staff as we get in their way. We are timed and have an unrealistic pick rate. We are constantly interrupted by customers moaning how much items has gone up, and items being moved, none of these things are anything to do with us. We are not responsible for either. We also have a huge staff turn over and you can see why.

Dishonesty and corruption

Things like making a false insurance claim or crash for cash

Have noticed this in my line of work too and had many a discussion on it. I think post-lockdown a lot of people seem to have quite a "you can't tell me what I can and can't do" anti-authority chip on their shoulder. And what would previously have been restricted to online commenting seems to suddenly be acceptable (aggression, rudeness, physical intimidation) in person - it's like people forget they're dealing with a real human being.

There's gyms all over every city packed full of young people hitting the weights, so it's about work ethic or priorities. A lot of young people seem to think they can get rich quick online now. They want to be influencers, youtubers and only fans model, not work in retail or hard labor.

Yes I am always watching those place or the country programs

The area where I grew up is so much busier

I mean watching place in the country and longing to get away

Pebblesflintstoneandbambamrubble That’s just horrendous. I’m so sorry you have to face that every day.

ShadyPaws You did a lovely thing there, I would have got out and helped you. What kind of arsehole would beep you? I hope the poor cat is ok?

ACertainKindOfLight I really feel for you. I popped in to my local Tesco last week. I was at the self serve section and I overheard two workers talking about a customer who had been abusive for no reason, one was saying how much she hated the job now and it was purely because of this type of customer and how frequently it happens. I really felt for her, she was just doing her job.

I really think the modern world has primed people to want instant satisfaction.

Instagram. Twitter Facebook.
Streaming. Downloads.

If we wanted to go on the Internet. We used to have to dial.up. wait a while. And weren't allowed to use the phone.

Music used to take 15 minutes to download one mp3. Movies would take hours. Or you had to make your way to a shop. Now you can just pick what ypu want and stream it straight away.

Nowadays everything is at our fingertips. Amazon delivery can get us stuff delivered the same day at a few clicks.

Then when something isn't working as it should, pretty much everything else - people can't handle it anymore. They fly off at the handle at the most basic of things.

I e nearly always had an apology by asking if they realised they were rude

I usually bring it up at our next interaction

People get dreadfully impatient in queues now i've noticed.

I have noticed an increase in rudeness and aggression as well. Personally, I put it down to overcrowding. There are just too many flippin people. I’m in rural Essex, and my hometown is now unrecognisable. When I was a child, in the 1980s, Colchester was still a quiet market town. It’s still a market town, of course, but with the population of a small city. I can’t remember the statistics, but I think the population has nearly doubled. You can’t move. The traffic is awful, and vile new estates are being jammed onto every available bit of land. I live in a village just outside Colchester and at times I could cry. A great chunk of my local woods have been hacked down to make way for a huge new estate. And two massive estates are being built at the other end of the village as I type. But it’s never enough. No matter how many of these overpriced rabbit hutches they shove up, there is always a demand for more. I even heard a Labour politician say “the green belt has got to go,” so there you are.

Any zookeeper will tell you that when you cram too many animals together they start attacking one another. We didn’t evolve to live this way. It’s as simple as that. We weren’t meant to sit in traffic jams, or live on huge new build estates, or be woken by the screeching and exploding of boy racer cars.

I really think young people are always looking for someone to blame. I hear it from my own adult children and their contemporaries. They are frustrated they can’t afford a decent life as they see it . At the same time they buy take away coffees, go on holiday, buy furniture on credit. Eat takeaways and drink alcohol at home. They don’t understand how to go without and save. They imagine ‘my generation’ had it easy. Because that’s what they read online.

You are right

It's so overcrowded in the SE and being told to be green yet it feels like every green space is being built on

You and I are live in the same area.
I’ve lived here my whole life and just despise it now. I don’t bother going into town (well, city!) anymore, it’s so busy and you get caught up in traffic at every road.
Our village has doubled in size in recent years, the lovely fields all built over, same with most of the surrounding villages and they plan on building around 9,000 new homes near us. We will just become a suburb of Colchester city. I (and most of the people who have lived here a long time) chose to live here because it was rural and we love village life, it’s just not the case now, it’s busy, noisy, dirty and full of arrogant, ignorant and rude people. Sad but painfully true.

JaneyGee and wasn’t Colchester just a lovely place in the 80’s? I’d love to go back.

I do notice all the signs everywhere saying please don't abuse our staff...Gp surgeries, train announcements, supermarkets. Its disturbing.

Also hoping the cat that pp picked up is ok!

Very thought provoking thread. I’d add ‘review’ culture to the debate. Everyone is reviewing everything all the time - every item you purchase, everywhere you stay, even interactions with salespeople and you’re asked for a review. So it becomes a threat - “if you don’t do x, I’ll leave a bad review” so businesses have to fall over themselves to appease these idiots, who then end up with an over inflated sense of entitlement and their own importance.

By the way op, not everyone is horrid to road engineers. When the High Street in our village was resurfaced recently everyone thought it was the best thing to happen in ages. The road was closed for a week; no cars thundering through, no road ragers driving on the pavements, no rat-running. It was bliss. Kids played out in the street above and below the section being surfaced, everyone was fascinated by the massive machines that turned up to do the work and the chaps operating them were lovely, taking the time to explain to fascinated kids what they were doing.

I took out a tray of cups of tea and biscuits one evening when the guys were having to work late into the night, and we had a nice chat. They told us stories like you have, op, about how awful people have become, and how they’d appreciated doing our road because everyone was friendly and polite, and it was sadly so unusual.

Entitlement and some people using mental health problems or a physical disability as a get out of jail free card.

Most vulnerable customers I deal with are fine, but 5 - 10% every week make my life hell.

I cried today and strongly considered quiting with no job lined up.

Taking into account inflation, taxes aren't even that low anymore.