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 .

Oh I've had the customer say loudly to her daughter " ...and this is why we must study at school, darling; so we don't end up working in a shop."

At that point I hadn't said a single word to the woman, who had been 'browsing,' but had time to compose the reply "It's just such a shame Manners can't be bought though, isn't it?"

She huffed off. And she wasn't the worst by a long shot, just one of the more memorable.

I've always thought that national service should be 2 years of being a waiter or waitress. People treat you like shit, it's a valuable life lesson in how to behave.

I started waitressing age 13. By 14 I had already learned that a mid calf length skirt and a shirt buttoned up to the neck was the best attire for serving on at sport men's dinners. I still would end up with bruises on my thighs and bum from leery old men pinching me as I squeezed down between the long tables they used to seat them at.

My FIL treats anyone in service roles with utter disdain. He has even yelled from the back of a restaurant to the service staff at the front when he didn't feel he was getting seen fast enough. I hate eating out with him, it is so mortifying. He's never done a thing for himself, has no domestic skills and is generally one of the least pleasant people I know. He also leers at teen girls, he's probably a pincher.

I try to treat service staff with the respect they deserve, they do a tough job.

The idea that if you don’t work hard at school you’ll end up working retail / in a low paid customer service job is so ridiculous isn’t it!

There is nothing wrong in working in a low paid job. One in five people in the UK earn under the living wage. It’s not ideal but it doesn’t define you as a person, after all, it is just a job.

Many people are students working retail so that’s even more nonsensical! Others are working parents who value the working hours as they fit around school. Many graduates end up working in retail jobs anyway as do people who are qualified for professional roles who lose their job for whatever reason.

When I was cabin crew, I earned more than my friend who was an NHS qualified nurse with far more stress at work. And I got to stay in some gorgeous hotels and explore around twenty countries.

"YABU for calling it MacDonalds".
See now thats a perfect example of unnecessary rudeness. Proving the point.

I treat every young person serving me like the doctor, solicitor or accountant they may well become

It’s not hard to be nice to those on their way up the ladder

I deliberately typed it as MacDonalds in my posts just because of the twatty post upthread.

I feel for your DD. Echoing a PP saying you need thick skin is completely true.

I work in the motor trade (main dealer) and I have had so many rude customers in my time. Just last week, a rather ‘pleasant’ man called me bullshit and I should ‘go and die’ because we couldn’t fix something under warranty as a) his child kicked and broke it and b) a back street garage tried to fix it but couldn’t which voids the warranty anyway.

I was pleasant with him until he said those things then I told him he should take it back to his back street garage to sort as I won’t tolerate his words. I walked away and he screeched off out the garage. He is know to us for a number of years and we have always bent over backwards for him.

My (new) manager then called him to tell him we won’t be having any more dealings with him which made me happy

I wish people would realise what it does to the employee - especially the younger generation starting new jobs / saving money. You have to be a special kind of something to be so fucking rude.

for your DD and you

Yeah it can be just horrible. I worked in the Argos call centre years ago in white goods. Basically people phoned when there was a problem. Some of them were just horrendous. I understood it was frustrating, but it's not personally me who has caused a problem with the delivery or the machine! And being vile gets you nowhere. It got to the point where it got to me so much I started making a hissing noise (like static/as if there was a problem with the phone) and putting the phone down when I couldn't handle it any more.

My last job I was called a C-, bitch, w*, all kinds of things. I also had a male customer say that he bet I'd like to be rped. I took that one further and he actually got banned. People can be vile and I feel like they take out their anger and frustration about something else on the person they're dealing with. People don't realise in the grand scheme of things, in life, it just isn't that important. So you got the wrong order, you didn't get your sauce, your machine is late one day, any of those things. You get it sorted and move on, and there's rarely any need to be completely unpleasant while doing it.

The worst is when you think clients are really nice (am solicitor) then your secretary tells you how they treated her . Sadly quite common - nice as pie to me rude and aggressive to support staff

Used to work in fast food.
Had one customer take food out of her mouth and throw it at me! I hadn’t served her or even made eye contact with her.

Another occasion I was working the early shift. Someone hadn’t properly assembled the coffee machine from the night before. When I made the first coffee of the morning the nozzle came off covering my stomach in boiling water. As I went round the back to get some cold water on it the customer yelled at me they still needed their coffee. (I was in the process of telling a manager what had happened and that the customer still needed their coffee)

@MorrisZapp I used to work in Safeway in Glasgow too wonder if it’s the same one

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.

This is, imo, the main reason. People that kick off usually get their own way because it's the only way to stop being verbally and sometimes physically abused. And then they get rewarded for that type of behaviour.
Retail and food service are bad enough, but when it comes to serving alcohol, it's a whole different ball game. The law controls it, and there's nothing I can do to get around those controls, but people are very precious and entitled when it comes to alcohol (you only have to read some of the threads on here about people refused service for whatever reason) and my personal view is that the root cause is people cannot stand being told no by someone they think of as below them. They are all experts in licencing, with at best the 'knowledge' being outdated or misinterpreted, and the concequences of breaking them are all for the person serving and the premises in practice, not the person doing the demanding. And tbh that's pretty standard across anything customer facing, there's not only no concequences to being a twat, but likely a reward in some way of an apology or something free, and someone else facing the concequences of your shitty behaviour.
Over the past week I've been called a useless cunt, pushed, sworn at more times than I can recall, told I have no business going to the toilet, threatened with the sack (I'll get you sacked!) And that's a pretty average week.
And all that for a wage I can't live on, and then get vilified by society because I'm a scrounger needing tax credits to live to a basic standard.

Crustytoenail - yep, they hate being told no by people they think are beneath them! At least when I was cabin crew passengers had follow by “lawful commands” under the Air Navigation Order. Yes you do need to sir down now, no you can’t keep your bag on your lap etc. But lots of people didn’t like the trolley dolly telling them what to do.

I once did a maternity cover contract as an office manager at a professional body, think something along the lines of architecture but not architecture. There are thousands of members of this organisation.

A few of the members could be SO rude to the support employees who were lower down the pecking order but charming to employees who were director level.

I was once at an awards dinner, in long evening gown and heels. Some of the guests (members) were quite dismissive and rude when they thought I was a hospitality manager or something employed by the hotel. Yet once they knew I was employee of the membership body they were as nice as pie. At one point in the evening I was manning a stall selling branded stuff to members. Pens, coffee mugs etc. A student member had volunteered to help me and a couple of people were very snooty to both of us like we were sales assistants in a shop. Like mate, I’m giving up my evening to be here. I don’t give a flip if you buy a branded umbrella or not.

NameChange84-

Sorry that happened to you- please report the girl who served you in the coffee shop- ring up the manager or email a complaint.

I've worked public facing, it sucks and you do need a skin like a rhino to last any degree of time. I try to just stick to my guns, and if they start shouting stare at them impassively, they get bored eventually.

I was a police officer for 6 years and have recently worked in retail for 10 as an employer.
My experience in retail was the worst for dealing with the public. In the police you expect to deal with difficult or horrible people any your trained and skilled in dealing with it. In retail your not trained enough, the customer is apparently always right and you can't actually do anything but take the abuse.

People can be awful. We are retiring soon and I'm glad, anyone who says they are a people person needs to experience retail over as period of time to realise that the term a people person doesn't exist!😁

The b*t*ds will grind you down in the end!

I treat every young person serving me like the doctor, solicitor or accountant they may well become

Oh wow, so if you know that they're not likely to become those things, or something equally 'worthy', and will remain in retail for their whole working lives, does it mean you see them as not 'on their way up the ladder' and therefor not worthy of your respect?

How about we just treat everyone serving us with respect and politeness, full stop?

Why on earth do the doctors, solicitors and accountants of this world deserve more respect than the person serving you in your local supermarket.

They may have more qualification, earn a great deal more money and are very likely better educated, these thing don't make them intrinsically better people however.

I was a police officer for 6 years and have recently worked in retail for 10 as an employer.
My experience in retail was the worst for dealing with the public. In the police you expect to deal with difficult or horrible people any your trained and skilled in dealing with it. In retail your not trained enough, the customer is apparently always right and you can't actually do anything but take the abuse.

Totally agree about the training, and there's a culture of "It's all part of the job" which makes it expected. These days the nice customers stand out more than the rude ones because it's so commonplace.
It's basically bullying, because the people doing it know they're not going to get anything back because the person they're abusing is powerless to even respond in any other way than being deferential if they want to keep their job. And owners/managers of such businesses are usually far more bothered about how full the till is than protection for staff from even physical abuse, and victim blaming is the norm.

It’s not a modern thing, I worked in a photograph shop in the 90’s and encountered some real mannerless morons back then.

And on one occasion I was in Superdrug on my lunch hour when a woman stopped me to ask where something was. I said I didn’t know, sorry and was about to move away when she said

‘Can’t you go look for it?’
Me; ‘oh right sorry, no I don’t actually work here’
Her: ‘but your badge says sales assistant’
Me: ‘err yes, but it also says for a different shop’
Her: ‘well thanks for nothing!’

I think she really did expect me to assist her in a shop I didn’t even work in, just because she’d identified that I was a sales assistant somewhere

The worst thing I ever knew about though, was a Saturday girl (16) who had her jaw broken by a man flinging a full plastic crate from the counter at her face. Because his photos weren’t ready until noon

"I treat every young person serving me like the doctor, solicitor or accountant they may well become"
I think you are trying to show you are a nice person saying that... But it's certainly coming out the wrong way. Would you treat them any differently if you knew they weren't studying for anything else? What an odd thing to say! You treat people with politeness and respect - doesn't matter what 'rung of the ladder' they are on now or in their future.

It's not just retail though it seems prevalent throughout society these days. I'm always polite wherever I go it's how I was raised. I also don't like confrontation but I am able to complain without being rude!

Im NHS staff and the way people can speak to ward staff is shocking sometimes. It's entitled. We do the best we can the system isn't great we get that, but wow to how they think that they have the right to shout, swear etc at you that they pay your wages blah blah.

Funnily enough I do care and absolutely want the best outcomes for patients and families because that's why I work in healthcare. Not to be treated like shit on their shoes,

I love the “I pay your wages” line! I could see that most of the patients I dealt with didn’t work and have never worked yet they paid me apparently! Who knew.

My DD1 used to do some shifts in our local library at weekends and during school and university holidays.

One day back in 2016 an elderly man who she had never seen before and didn't know at all just walked in from the street and wanted her to be his proxy to vote in the Brexshit Referendum. She said no as politely (but firmly) as possible, saying that ideally he should ask close friends or family, not a random stranger. He blew up into a rant at her about how we needed to leave the EU and that it was down to people like her that this country had gone to the dogs etc. She hadn't even mentioned whether she herself planned to vote leave or remain (she's a remainer, as am I).

He was an arse. She ignored him and he flounced out of the library still raging.

I think there is a lot of know your rights but this also comes with responsibilities.