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?

Working in a supermarket, people are unbelievably rude and talk to you as though you are the dregs of society.

Benefit staff on helplines and at job centres face a lot of threats and actual violence. I work in a charity dealing with benefits and clients can be very rude when we do three way calls and that’s when we are on the line helping them understand what is happening so must be even worse direct.

Doing benefits work I’m generally treated relatively well, but we get people that think we have access to benefit claim. I would be backed up ending any abusive call so I know I’m more fortunate then many other jobs. the worst was a client that said they were going to find out where I was and come to the office. They were many miles away but still felt threatening.

Teaching. Fuck me. So many parents have absolutely no clue. I have such limited time to dedicate to learning because of PPP (piss poor parenting).

I worked in a job centre. Verbal abuse daily and threatened with physical violence regularly. Once had a bloke threaten me with a machete. It was a good job the police station was next door.

Social workers see some heartbreaking cases. I couldn’t listen to horrendous accounts of child abuse.

criminal barristers and judges must also hear some awful testimony.

I would echo the view expressed by many others that working in schools is soul-destroying. I was a teacher and my husband was a headteacher in primary schools. In addition to the verbal abuse from pupils, I was physically assaulted many times. As a HT, my husband was threatened by parents - on one occasion, a parent even hit him with a walking stick! One of my sons now works as an Assistant Manager in a big pub. He regularly regales us with the latest example of ridiculous or disgusting behaviour by customers.

Bar person at the races due to the vices all at play.

Prostitutes without a shadow of a doubt

Well I’ve worked in customer service, call centres, a laundrette and admin.

Teaching is by far the workplace I have experienced the most crap.

I have such passion for the role I’m in and supporting AS. but having sat through another meeting with parents rolling their eyes at me and snapping at me. I am done and am looking for a way out now.

Are you one? I am but I also have a day job and can honestly say I get treated better as a prostitute than in my day job. The day job is a public facing role

No but I used to work with them and the stories were horrific.

Yes job centre staff is worse than retail.

Yes agreed. Have a high rate of murder for a start.

Any job where a woman has to work alone with the general public.

A lot of the private security firms were run by crime gangs particularly door staff
Control the door,you controlled the drug supply..

For the sake of clarity and out of respect for MN being a UK site, you could have written: "I work in canabis retail in ....'

I feel there's a difference between eg a terrified patient, maybe with dementia, lashing out, and unfortunately is something that many emergency services staff expect, and someone just being rude because the job is seen as "lowly".
Like a few posters mention teaching, and I know some people who work with early years/SEND, if I'm phrasing that correctly? They say that there are things expected in that job that used to be abnormal in mainstream/with older children, eg nappy changing, physical or verbal assault, so it's as if what once would only have been accepted in a small number of schools happens everywhere.
And with customer service, I feel people seem ruder now, because we used to answer the phone/serve them very quickly, while now they are kept hanging on the line/told to use online services that don't resolve their problem, so they're spitting mad by the time they get through.

GP receptionist.

social work, nursing, prison staff, anyone working in homelessness, teaching

Call centres. Truly awful, abusive people grow in confidence when they don't have to show their face.

I've heard the most disgusting, vile abuse shouted, screamed or whispered at staff. And oddly, it's mainly either men in their 50's or women in their 30's that are the worst perpetrators...more men tbf but a decent enough proportion of women. Go figure. I've listened to hundreds of abusive calls in my role and I'd say 90% of them fit that age/sex bracket.

Airline steward, hands down.

I was talking about this to a colleague the other day. We work in healthcare and sadly, the aggression and violence from the public is escalating shockingly.

However, actually there is something about the dehumanisation that I sometimes experienced doing silver service waitressing when I was at college that felt much worse. Not sure whether the contempt or the low-level sexual harassment was worse.

I think you can tell the character of a person by how they interact with someone they perceived to be inferior to them. For a while, we shared an office with our secretaries. It was eye-opening to hear how the contrast in how unnecessarily aggressively some people behaved towards my (extremely competent, helpful and calm) secretary and how charmingly they then presented to me in clinic.

So is the night one 🤣

Teaching. And it's only getting worse. Walked away about 2 years ago after over 20 years in and it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Bloody Hell!