Outside of the emergency services, which jobs do you think show up the worst in people?

[MapleCutie]

I've said outside the emergency services (police/ambulance) because it's generally expected to see high numbers of awful behaviour through crime/pain/emergency situations etc.

Which jobs do you think see the worst in people? I work in catering and was thinking this today as we regularly have rude, entitled people who can generally look down their nose at you which i had a lot of today. Obviously jobs have good and bad customers/guests/clients but what are the worst in your opinion?

I agree with this, truly admire those who do it.

One of my DDs had a short-term job in a job centre a few years back and was assaulted more times than her care home worker sister or police officer cousin.

Teaching! Increasing numbers of parents are just becoming so difficult. Behaviour is an issue too. It is also a profession in the UK which is disrespected by many. My friend is a teacher in Finland, and teachers are highly valued there.

That said, when I was in A&E once and told the nurse (who had asked about my job) that I was a teacher, he said, “Do you know, none of is would be working in this hospital without education. Thank you.” That was so lovely (and very unusual in the UK where I am very used to teacher bashing!).

I would say prison-related jobs (I did a work placement in one and it was eye-opening)... but then you expect people in prison to have done dark things and to have most likely also been through dark and traumatic things.

I would say teaching but again you expect kids to be emotionally dysregulated a lot of the time and to struggle in an environment that often does not suit their skills and needs. I also get why parents can be overly defensive arseholes when their kids are concerned. I'm not saying the terrible treatment of teachers is remotely fair or excusable but you can see the systemic causes.

The things other people have mentioned here, like retail, hospitality and flight attendant jobs, are probably better answers because they show you a snapshot of how people are every day and how they casually treat those around them in environments where they are expecting to be 'served'. They show how people can act when they're not particularly in situations of heightened distress and danger (at least not most of the time - I get that flying etc can be stressful). These will mostly be people who will never be found guilty of a crime. Many will be people who are probably seen as respectable by colleagues and / or family members and / or neighbours. Yet they feel entitled to treat others like dirt; see people as inhuman just because they are involved with delivering a service or product that they are paying for; instinctively see their time and comfort as the most important issue in the world regardless of what else might be going on.

I've been a teacher and an adult mental health worker and have worked with seriously distressed and at times very angry and desperate and even threatening people, but the contempt with which I was treated as a canteen worker and shop assistant as a teenager remains unrivalled.

I think probably anything that's low paid, as people think they can be as rude as they want and get away with it, so service/hospitality/retail.

However you can get absolute arseholes in every sector. I worked in heritage which everyone thinks would be lovely and calm and intellectual and respectful, but on my first day got told I could shove my archives 'up my arse!' When I worked in a library it was an almost daily occurrence to have men watching porn on the computers (this was about 15 years ago so before good quality video on smartphones).

Politicians

Shows up the worst in people - not shows the worst in people! 😂

Personally I think everyone who has dealing in their job with people! Whether a teacher, a politician, a care worker or retail staff we are at the mercy of the public and the way that some people have lost all respect for how they treat all people is frankly scary. I blame social media and especially X where anything can be said without consequence - and when there is consequence the person is made a hero for speaking up! Examples many of the home schooling parents slagging off all schools (not talking about those that do an amazing job), recently Andy Burnham for promoting a cancer charity, often care workers for being 'immigrants' (the first wave of info about the poor man who entered the tiger enclosure was a racist rant about his 'illegal' carers being on their phones), people of counters in shops, doctors, banks etc. who face a barrage of abuse for stuff way above their pay grade.
Society needs to change.

To paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre, "Hell is other people."

"L'enfer, c'est les autres"

Call centre jobs. I think people forget a human is on the other end..I also think ringing call centres is tedious so people are pissed off before they even get through and take it out on the poor bugger who answers.

Most jobs that are customer facing can be awful, anything dealing with the general public. Not just retail staff, but also transport, hospitality etc. I’ve always said everyone should be forced to do a National Service style 6 months stint in retail and learn how to behave.

I wonder why people are badly behaved in public now. Did covid make everyone aggressive?

I agree that teaching should be absolutely respected but I also think people become irrational when it comes to their kids so alot of the behaviour is somehow rationalised through that worry, especially in today's world where there is so much pressure on pupils to perform well.

People using services such as hospitality, retail, air lines etc are purely for pleasure activities so the entitlement and rudeness is purely irrational as these things are luxuries.

I’ve spent nearly two decades working in various settings in the Criminal Justice system, including Courts and Prisons.

I’ve seen some things for sure

Both true with politicians.

Very true!

My first job was in the restaurant at a motorway service station, quite hard to beat, i think.

DS1 is in the army. When he was new out of training he volunteered to go to help out in some really bad floods over Christmas. They had so much abuse hurled at them in the streets. I was gobsmacked by it tbh.

DS2 is an advanced nurse practitioner in A&E. He doesn’t get too much abuse now, but he did when he first graduated as a staff nurse. It wasn’t just because people were scared or in pain, it was because people were downright rude and have a huge sense of entitlement nowadays. I saw a woman in an outpatients department, once, be so rude to a nurse that she almost brought her to tears. Manners have gone in a lot of places now.

Definitely not the Top Trump, but volunteering can do it, particularly for things like youth groups with subs involved so there's the double whammy that they "pay" you, but you're subserviant too. Yes, because your £3 per night is really paying me a salary on top of rent and resources
It's not everyone, it's a small minority, but when one of those pops up, they really put a dampner on it.

The tricky bit with education is continuing a one-sided positive, professional relationship long term with constant contact which few of the other occupations have (although not an exclusive trait)

No it was before covid. There was a massive decline in Standards. People happily going out in public in pyjamas was the first decline that was obvious.

Children's social work. 90% of adults are nice to your face, but reading through things that they have done to children is horrific. And then meetinf the children too, so the victim has a face and a name that you'll likely never forget.

Then there's the 10% who as well as abusing children abuse the social worker too.

Social work, you’re working with people under high levels of stress at some of the most difficult times in their lives and carrying very high levels of risk - which often shows up in the behaviour of the people you work with. And you can’t just decide to not engage with people, because of the risk involved in withdrawing.

I also worked dealing with insurance claims and some of the customers were absolutely awful to deal with.

In my job working in the railway I've seen the best and the worst of humanity,I've been spat at, threatened,kicked, punched,seen fights breaking out but this is mainly due to alcohol on a Friday or Saturday night mostly men, women tend to be funny drunks although they can overstep boundaries as well.

Id say bus drivers as well seem to kop a lot from angry members of the public.

I'm glad I've left the UK and having to deal with disaffection, it destroyed me.

I now have to work with rich, entitled customers. They destroy you equally 😖

Jobcentre staff