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?

Yep. And I work in an area which has seen an increase in assaults on Police, particularly by females.

And of course I'm very conscious of the appalling crimes committed by Met police officers against women and that women may be more wary of male Police officers, particularly if they're alone.

But that has to balanced with what is potentially seen as acceptable or 'understandable' and what is reasonable when dealing with the Police. Asking for collar numbers, wanting to 'phone the station to check they work there etc, asking for a female officer if possible, all fine and reasonable.

But I'm seeing increasing numbers of women being extremely violent and abusive including racially and homophobically abusive to officers and then claiming that it was a reasonable response to being approached by a Police officer when their actions have caused the Police to be called in the first place.

I think 3 things contribute to this.

Overcrowding which makes people terratorial
Answerbots and automated telephone services
Broken infrastructure.

I agree with you and I am not particularly religious.

’humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival’

There is something to be said about religion, of course organised religion can at times have it’s faults but it does draw society together and gives people a connection.
Our village has always been predominantly CofE and our primary school had close connections to the church, always has, even now. Many local people would attend the church services, parties and get together (Harvest Festivals and Christmas were a particularly enjoyable time) but since the 3 large estates have been build here very few of the new people have joined the community groups (although there are many non religious ones too). Maybe they are too busy, maybe they are just not interested in community, who knows but our village has become segregated.
It is sad.

That is hearting Queenofscones

I agree that on MN there are an increasing number of posters urging a poster to put her and her family first, and not to think of others. And frankly awful comments like telling OPs they should tell relatives, school mums, etc to go fuck themselves
I know people are unlikely to actually follow this advice. But the fact it is suggested so often shows the level of aggressiveness in some people.

I suspect pharmacists are having a harder time as well because people go there after failing to get a GP appointment. We are told to go there. But I find it harder to speak to a pharmacist than a GP.

Having a phone capable of flying an aircraft or £300 pair of headphones doesn’t make you a better person or a success at life - it just means you have more expensive kit.

Which is, 99% of the time, completely and utterly unnecessary. It’s a status symbol, a pissing contest. ‘Look what I could do with this if I wanted to’…except that most of the time, they don’t have a clue what they’re dealing with.

A lot of rudeness and abuse is about power and entitlement. Back in the day I used to read the back page of my DF’s Which? magazine (how sad is that - welcome to a 1970s weekend) - oh yeah and I watched That’s Life as well - and permeating all those (often very first-world) consumer problems was a ‘customer is always right’ entitlement that I recognise when dealing with the aforementioned rude pensioners. Thing is, they have a point when it comes to customer service, but there are limits to what can be provided. You can’t do Concorde service on a Ryanair budget.

Yes, it’s so depressing isn’t it. My sister spent 25 years working for the NHS. She devoted her life to it, and would often put in an hour extra without pay. She bought a small cottage in the countryside as a place to de-stress after a hectic week. It was her dream home, and she spent years saving. Two years ago, however, developers bought up the fields around her and built a vast new estate. It has ruined her life.

Like you, I rarely go into Colchester anymore. And when I do, I come home in a foul mood, with my nerves shredded - Ugghh, the awful traffic, the vile new estates everywhere, the nasty atmosphere. It isn’t just Colchester of course. In 1900, there were a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. By 2000 it was six billion. It’s now eight billion and heading for ten. This is insanity, yet no one ever talks about it. I know someone will point out that birth rates are dropping, but

1. They are dropping from a huge height.
2. Lifespan is increasing, and when new anti-ageing drugs hit the market it will increase even more. In other words, people aren’t dying and making room.
3. The birth rate isn’t dropping everywhere. It is low in Europe, but in Africa people still have five kids, on average, and the population of Africa is going to double by 2050.

I laugh when I hear Londoners say “when I retire I’m going to move to the countryside for a bit of peace and quiet.” Really? Good luck with that. By the time you retire, there won’t be any countryside.

Yes I think that is the case

It's not true about lack of countryside. Golf courses take up more land than houses.

That’s not quite accurate.

Golf courses in the UK probably have less than the same land take as the footprint of buildings in the UK, excluding gardens, driveways, pathways, estate roads etc.

https://www.ft.com/content/79772697-54e4-32c9-96d7-5c1110270eb2

That article is behind a pay wall.
I have read articles saying to is true.

It’s not true - the golf courses area was overestimated and the Shelter figures included building footprint only.

Archive version of article.

https://archive.ph/jXPD0

No job should carry the attitude that assaults are acceptable , whether that's police, nursing , MH nurses,gp reception. Assault and abuse is never ok. You sign up to do a JOB not get assaulted and none of the, pay danger money .

I've been physically assaulted, bitten once and nipped till I bled . I was paid £100 compensation.

I've now been diagnosed with a rare communicable disease. No jobs worth it .

I'm still sticking with my overcrowding theory. If people don't feel it has an effect on basic civility, then it will do sooner or later. As another poster pointed out, no one wants to talk about it. What was net migration last year, 600,000? And that's the 'official' numbers. Utterly unsustainable.

We joke about parish councils and their army of busybody volunteers. But in 20 years time they'll be dying off. There'll be no quaint objections to planning applications. Covenants? What's that? Green belt? Forget it. Grade 2 listing? Ha ha ha.

Build build build. If I look where @Picklemeyellow is from in Essex it's going on now. Chelmsford is nearly joined with Hatfield Peverel, Hatfield Peverel is nearly joined to Witham, Witham is nearly joined to...etc etc. All the while the A12 is the same width it was in 1960s.

I live on a fairly busy road. The increase in traffic is relentless. Turning right off my driveway will be a no no soon. I can always hear cars sounding their horn. This NEVER used to be the case. It's very easy to get uptight now and forget your Ps and Qs because everything just feels like bloody hard work, and every time you turn around there's people everywhere.

You can't escape. It will only get worse.

Tbh I feel like I'm in a minority in the place where I grew up.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this

I'm still sticking with my overcrowding theory. If people don't feel it has an effect on basic civility, then it will do sooner or later. As another poster pointed out, no one wants to talk about it. What was net migration last year, 600,000? And that's the 'official' numbers. Utterly unsustainable.

Yes, you're right @TheThingIsYeah and the population of the UK has risen by around 8 million since 1997 and anyone who doesn't think that has an impact on the delivery of public services is seriously deluded.

In 2010 I moved to a small city in the home counties and the traffic has got worse and worse with every passing year. The govt has given my district council the task of building 15,000 new homes in the next few years, so it's about to get much worse. Because it's not just new homes that need to built, it's new roads, new schools, new doctor's surgeries, new hospitals (my area has needed a new hospital since before I moved here - but 13 years later there still isn't any agreement about where to build the damn thing). The character of villages, towns and cities up and down our country is changing due to huge population increase and the necessity to build vast numbers of new homes for all the extra people.

On top of huge population increase, I also think things like austerity and cuts in policing have had massive, negative impacts. We need MORE public services and MORE police, not fewer.

Whenever I complain about overcrowding, somebody (usually left-wing and in favour of open borders) will shout me down. They’ll come out with a load of statistics about unused farmland, or whatever. But you can’t treat humans like statistics. Statistically, you could squeeze everyone on Earth onto a Mediterranean island like Malta or Crete, if they stood shoulder to shoulder. But would you want to live there?

If the issue of migration or overcrowding is raised, left-wing politicians just bang on about the need for better public services- more schools, more roads, more GP surgeries, more social housing, etc. But that totally ignores quality of life. People need more than new schools and roads. They also need space and silence and natural beauty. They need room to breathe and move and de-stress after a week at work.

There is lots of land in Britain. But what we have is a skewed economy where most people live on a relatively small region of it where the jobs are.
I am not in the South and we have an enormous ex office complex in a good location that has been empty for years. Houses could be built there. Instead they are built on green land at villages.

@JaneyGee people need houses near jobs first.

No point wondering around a field if you have to eat mushrooms and sleeping a tent.

The world is heating up, deserts are spreading, soil is eroding. People are on the move. If you lived near an increasing desert you would at least try and move your family so you didn't stave to death, which means right now people are on the move.

This is not unheard of in human history.

We are entering a period of having to share less if the planet with more people. Just a phase it will pass, perhaps not in our lifetimes but it will.

We can choose to be cross we don't have our field to de-stress in or we can try and make the most of what will happen whether we want it or not.

It's about a bigger picture.

All of our houses were fields or woodlands at one point but you still live in one. But want to stop others coming up now doing so? No one had a decision they were born, or where they were born.

Everyone on here would move if the UK became a desert overnight you wouldn't stay here and let your family starve.

So yes personal fields are going to be few and far between.

If everyone lived the lifestyle of us in the UK we would need 5 earth's to sustain us, but we only have 1. We punch well above our weight in resources. I think many of us forget that and don't want to share anything. But we are going to have to share more whether we want to or not.

Can't they go to the USA instead where there is a lot more space

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!). *
*
Sorry but that did make me chuckle a bit. I've definitely noticed more arseholes and rude people lately . It's getting worse

I think some of it comes from more and more people having such poor vocabulary these days. Maybe people watch dumbed down tv instead of reading, or education isn't what it was, but I think many people struggle to articulate. They lack the skills to communicate frustration or indignation calmly and logically, so they resort to shouting insults and swearing. They're frustrated, so whatever words deliver the biggest impact are the ones they shout.

I get this in my job - banking. Martin Lewis is generally positive but he's unintentionally misled a lot of people into believing they are always right and banks are out to cheat them.

I speak to so many customers who claim expert level knowledge on things they only have a very superficial and usually incorrect view on.

Then they threaten to go to the Daily Mail or Martin Lewis if it doesn't go their way.