Why do people feel the need to be so rude?

[username678889]

Mainly to retail / customer facing .
My dd is at uni but has a weekend job at Macdonalds . She quite often comes home to say rude staff she usually works on the drive through.
It's usually no big deal comments and she laughs them off such as sarky comments about it's supposed to be fast food if they have had to wait 30 seconds for food .
Last week some woman scowled at her my dd said was perfectly pleasant and gave her change the woman said a bit of personality wouldn't go amiss and drove off .
This morning she came home from night shift in tears to say she wants to quit wouldn't say what happened just had enough of customers shouting for various reasons waiting / ran out of McFlurrys/ stop serving breakfast crap reasons like that .
What is wrong with people that they think they buy a bloody Big Mac meal and can shout at a young girl ffs .

Working with difficult people does make you get used to smiling and dealing with abuse without telling people to kindly fuck off.

I don’t believe it’s any good for one’s self esteem to be working in such negative, soul destroying jobs where customers treat you like a punching bag.

I also think that dickheads remain as complete and utter dickheads. They are used to being rude to customer service staff and get rewarded for that behaviour by being “empathised” with and a manager will often go against policy and give them something for free / discounted so that the dickhead goes away. No doubt feeling happy that they’ve “won” and are “better” in some way than the employee.

Although I’m sure that if I kicked off i would be asked to leave the establishment! It seems like some people get away with so much.

Cottonwoolsnowmen - Are you for real? You call the poster rude, but jump to the defence of a woman who insults strangers in front of her child.

I think it’s the only bit of ‘power’ they have in their sad little lives for some people. Someone beneath them as they see it, they think it’s safe to attack and bully because ‘the customer is always right’ and unfortunately a lot of employers agree with them and tell staff to suck it up.

I get it on the phones but mostly from salespeople, I’m in a senior management role but they don’t know that, they think anyone answering phones is bound to be pretty low on the corporate ladder but we all answer phones in this office. Yes I know you’re just trying to make a living selling whatever crap you’re selling but the owners pay us to field phone calls so as not to have to deal with salespeople themselves. And we have a purchasing department, buying shit and deciding who to buy it from is their job; I’ll happily put you through to them or their voicemail or give you their email but no, I’m not putting one of the owners on the phone right away because you demand it and then call me a bitch for not complying. In fact calling me or any of my coworkers a bitch or anything else abusive means you and the company you represent will NEVER get on our list of approved vendors.

I used to work in John Lewis, whilst I was at university. Some customers are just vile! The rudeness of some people when dealing with people in customer facing roles is quite shocking

When I was cabin crew, passengers seemed to be obsessed with food. We had crew food, left over food from business class and sometimes our own food we had purchased in departures.

One passenger tried to grab my Dairy Milk from my crew meal tray. I said “that’s mine” and he said “but I’m the customer” in a really whiny voice! A middle aged man in a suit for goodness sake! I had a delicious salmon and cream cheese bagel that I had purchased. A woman said “oh that looks nice, I’ll have that” as I was about to eat it. Um no. This is my food. Another time tucking into afternoon tea from business class I was told off by an economy customer saying that I shouldn’t be eating that because I would get fat. And that any food should be offered to paying passengers.

Just because you are the customer for a couple of hours does not mean that you own the crew.

Oh and another entitled nasty woman screeching that her (teenage) children would starve because we only had pretzels and drinks as the service. On a 60 minute Geneva flight. She wanted sandwiches. She then found us tucking into our crew sandwiches and lost her temper saying that we were liars and she knew Willie Walsh and we would all get sacked.

As it happens, we had a couple of sandwiches left over from the crew meals. If she hadn’t had been a bitch but a nice, normal person, I would have gladly given her the sandwiches. Instead they got thrown away at the end of the flight.

The woman who accosted me in the terminal and wanted to use my mobile phone. Just because I’m in uniform doesn’t mean I have to give you any of my personal possessions.

Everyday in that job I asked myself WTF is wrong with people. I’ve still not figured it out.

Yes go for it Basket

Encountered a.very rude woman in business class who was constantly complaining to the staff and had an argument with another customer. The other travellers were cringing

I worked in Waitrose while doing my MA and looking for a job afterwards. It genuinely damaged my faith in humanity. People are basically horrible.

I'm always polite to retail staff as I know how horrible it can be.

I find it rude when people are on their phones when at a till and barely acknowledge the service or say thanks- so arrogant

It's not a new thing.

I was in John Lewis, must be 10 years ago when my DD was about 14, and we were buying bras for her. She was a bit of a difficult size to fit and the woman serving us was in and out of the changing room with various bras trying to find something suitable.

We eventually ended up buying a couple and went to pay. As we were leaving the department the bra fitter came running towards us obviously wanting to catch us before we left.

She told me what a pleasure it had been to serve us as every time she brought in another bra my DD had thanked her and thanked her again when we left.

Clearly this, to me normal behaviour, from my DD was something she came across so rarely that she felt moved to comment on it.

Says an awful lot about how unpleasant an awful lot of people are in their day to day dealing with other people.

Sorry, that should be 20 years ago, she's 34 now.

Yanbu. Especially in retail. I am always really nice to staff in shops and restaurants because I had years of rude customers just being rude or nasty for no apparent reason and it did upset me on occasion.

I worked on McDonald’s drive through and the worst I had was a middle aged man shout at me and call me a racist bitch because I refused to take his money off coupon which had expired 2 years previously.

I also had a man shout at me,literally shouting calling me names when I worked in a bookshop because the book he wanted hadn’t been published yet.

It’s awful. Some people can be so mean.

One of my life rules is you can tell what people are like by the way they treat retail and waiting staff.
Some people are just pricks.

Surprised that nobody has posted “oh you are all so mean, all these customers have mental health problems wahhhhh” as that is what normally happens!

@Lllot5 definitely. I was brought up in pubs and restaurants and worked in them from age 13. I went on a date with a guy and he clicked his fingers at the waitress. He didn't get a second date

One of my bosses worked in McDonalds from the age of 16 until she graduated. She says it was more than character building. She says she will insist on her DC working in McDonalds so they learn how to deal with people and multitask. This is someone who values education very much and has pushed her DSs though entrance exams and paid independent school fees.

I'm sorry people are so rude...it happens in many customer facing jobs, not just retail. People just want things immediately and perfectly these days, and think they are anonymous so can say what the hell they like. They forget people are, well, people.

YANBU OP.
I remember when I was 16 I worked a summer job on the tolls at Safeway (RIP).
This woman came through with her stuff, and as she was handing me her money, out of absolutely nowhere she goes 'Don't you wish you'd studied now?', gave a simpering awful smile and walked off.
I was absolutely gobsmacked. I think my mouth actually dropped open.
The irony being I was studying Fine Art at university at the time. Every time I think about it I wish I'd just clapped back at her telling her that, I was just in so much shock

Apparently John Lewis customers take the

Also when my dd worked at a local chemist they had to install cctv as there were weekly incidents of abuse: shouting, bum slapping and threats to find where these teen Saturday staff lived!

(We live in naice area).

People are unbelievable. I've heard some people say that it should be mandatory for everyone to have to work in a customer facing service position at least once in their life for 6 months, so they can learn the abuse that those workers take. Your poor daughter! It will help her later in life though to have that experience. The best thing you can do is just let her vent and find something to laugh about. It will make for some great stories to laugh at later. A character building exercise.

I had shit as a barmaid years ago, when the law meant service stopped at 11pm.

I have always tried to be as pleasant as I can. If I'm not feeling great, I won't take it out on retail staff, I'll just be a bit subdued.

I personally think that most of the shitty behaviour is either from insecurity or entitlement, and sometimes a cross between the two.

@TestingTestingWonTooFree probably because it’s McDonalds not MacDonalds.

I worked weekends in retail when I was at school and uni. To be honest, I've got some great funny stories about it which I laugh about now with friends who did similar jobs.

It's character building.

Plus, you learn some great little payback tips for those exceptionally rude customers, which always leave you with a smile on your face.

And you learn that most people are arseholes. Which is a useful life lesson.

Oops, cross posted with Hailey

Basketofkittens I don't think your reply back to obnoxious passenger was rude at all. I think Cottonwoolsnowmen ,the term you are looking for to describe yourself is actually Cottonwoolsnowflake, if you believe Basket was rude!