To dislike the general public

[Munchickle38]

Customers - be that in a supermarket, in a restaurant, purchasers of goods/holidays/services are so rude these days. It's moved beyond acceptable behavior. Expectations are too high, everyone wants everything yesterday and service staff are subject to nothing short of abuse from some individuals who don't care a jot how they treat others.

An example; My local Sainsbury's staff have to wear little cameras now, as there have been so many assaults upon them by the general public (verbal abuse and physical abuse) that for their own wellbeing and in order to bring these individuals to book evidence is required. It's shameful, it really is. Have people lost the ability to behave decently or do they simply not care at all? It makes me angry and sad in equal measure I'm afraid to say.

I have a friend who has worked all his life in the hospitality industry. His father built up the restaurant business that he had hoped to pass over to his son (my friend.) But my friend has purposefully taken a step back from the family business, partly because he worked such long hours but also partly because he had enough of dealing with customers and their rude, entitled attitudes. He had customers swear at him, racially abuse him if orders were wrong or something went amiss, and the pressure of working under such heavy criticism and high expectation nearly drove him to have a nervous breakdown.

What is the matter with the general public nowadays? Manners cost you nothing. By all means complain if something is at fault but the way things are now it more often falls into the category of open abuse. And it's not ok to hide behind a diagnosis of anxiety. We're all anxious, each one of us in our own ways. I'm anxious - but I don't go to my local food-store and hit a member of staff with a walking cane or racially abuse someone who's trying their best to help me.

Every time I experience this behavior from people who quite frankly, should know better, I call it out and involve the police. They can then be convicted for their offences. There are repercussions for members of the general public treating staff like a piece of sh*t on the bottom of their shoe and quite rightly.

So to anyone reading this - if you're a considerate member of the general public good on you. Keep it up. If, on the other hand, you fancy abusing someone else because you're anxious/entitled/bored/selfish/impatient or just a complete cunt, know that you will be held to account.

There. All done.

It's not limited to retail etc, but any role where you have to deal with people. Even if you are in a supporting role and there to help you often get treat badly by some people.

Yanbu. DH worked in hospitality for 10 years and the treatment was appalling at times particularly racial abuse. He was made redundant but is retraining as a Police Office r. Good on you for calling this abuse out. Hope its DH responding :)

Don't know what it's like in call centres, hospitality or NHS but in retail what is worse is that the managers are either never around to support the staff or they take the customers side.
The public (some of them) are awful but I kind of expect it but it's much worse when it comes from management

@leiaskye

Yes that footage is unbelievable. There needs to be a cultural shift in the way companies/senior management take steps to not only protect their staff but hold people who abuse service staff to account.

I think once people realise there will be repercussions for bad/abusive behaviour they will stop. There’s just no excuse for it. If your child behaved the way some members of the general public do, they’d be consequences. It’s just not on. And yet we seem to have conditioned ourselves, as a society to accept this sub-standard behaviour to such a degree, it’s normalised & we’re pleasantly surprised when someone says “thank-you.”

i always make a point of saying please and thank you and 'you're doing a great job' esp. if the person has been helpful.

I have to admit that patience and sufferance of fools are not my most notable qualities.

But having worked in customer-facing service jobs myself, however pissed-off I am at having my time wasted in yet another endless queue, or being faced with yet another clueless employee who is incapable of resolving a simple issue, I am never rude to the employee themselves. Complaints and criticisms are directed at incompetent managers, not overstretched or poorly trained workers.

I used to find it sickening when I commented to support staff how nice certain clients were to be told they were vile and rude - to the secretaries and receptionists but nice as pie to me (solicitor)

It really works both ways tbh. If customer service was at least half decent in retail, the general public wouldn't get so frustrated and feel the need to take it out on the face of the business.

When your company makes it hard to complain to those that can fix the problem, people will take the easy route and blame those in front of them.

Customer service is shockingly poor across many areas, which is why I do most of my shopping online. At least the prices reflect the lack of service.

@MTSwift to the secretaries and receptionists but nice as pie to me (solicitor)

This happens where I work. Some patients are super nice to Doctors, yet awful and rude to Nurses and Healthcare Support Staff

I've just had a thought - given most of this year's Christmas advert offerings are pretty rubbish I would have respected a shop who just showed 60 seconds of CCTV footage of the worst behaviour towards their staff and just said "We're spending the ££££ we would have spent on an ad this year on rewarding the people who've had to put up with this shit all year."

Oh, and give them all two full days off as well, or at least double pay on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day for those who volunteer (with no expectation) to work it.

👍👍👍

Can I just put the flip side of this?
I’ve recently retired from retail work after 7 years. I worked for one of the big supermarkets but admittedly in a convenience store in a ‘naice’ rural village. The majority of customers were great. Yes, there was the odd nasty ignorant bastard, but overall the customers were friendly and kind and I often received extra thanks from them for working over Christmas/Bank Hols.
Maybe my customers were ‘better behaved’ because they were regulars.
I loved working there.

I must live a very sheltered life. I live in rural Scotland but I do go to ordinary supermarkets and restaurants in town from time to time and I have never seen anyone be rude or discourteous to the staff. People queue patiently, wear their masks and usually chat pleasantly to others in the queue and to the staff serving them. I have been struck by how very well-behaved and patient everyone has been since lockdown began. Where do you all live?

I'm not in retail but do have a customer facing role. My colleagues and I have found this year very hard. People being angry and complaining if they don't get immediate responses. Being called disgusting for having a full voicemail on my phone. I get that people are stressed but I really can't be at their beck and call 24 hours a day.

It's so draining and soul crushing.

Reminds me of a job I had years ago at a vet practice. Behind reception was a run of reeded glass.

My employer was on his hands and knees trying to mend a broken filing cabinet and this snooty cow came in and started on me good and proper. She was speaking to me as if I was crap on her shoe and he could hear every word. She kept telling me to go and speak to him about something or other.
He crawled on his hands and knees so she couldn't see him and when I did eventually go and speak to him he told me to tell her to fuck off! I said she won't have that so he said tell her to fuck off as we have plenty of clients that are nice and we don't need her money but to say thank you to her for her custom to highlight the difference in manners.
I was and am naturally polite so this came hard but I did as I was told and it was hilarious. She went purple with rage and demanded to see him. By this time he was having a brew and bellowed, " I can still hear you!". She left then in an absolute rage. It was brilliant!

I think this has been so influenced by the high proportion of 'processes' where the Internet/automation has now taken over, at least on the surface. In most cases, people think that by fitting into one of these processes, it's more efficient and technically is under their control without the need of a second party (think self-service tills, ticket machines, or buying from the big names online which can give you same, or next day delivery).

However, that brings new layers of frustration because these can go wrong and be time-wasting. When you can't resolve your problem, often with the addition of a few barriers in there to speaking to a person who should be able to do it (e.g. online chat services, or think 111 as the gatekeeper for medical or emergency care), but is probably overloaded, then this does make you more angry. I think both sides of this have smudged into all kinds of customer interactions.

I’ve noticed recently, that if you try to raise an issue online, you’re directed to ‘frequently asked questions’ none of which address the issue you have.

It’s clear that customer service staff are under pressure this year, but it is very frustrating that you can’t get across what your difficulty is. Especially if you’ve been on hold for ages. Those web chats are pretty useless too.

There’s no excuse for abuse to retail or any other staff and it’s very sad that we have come to a point where people feel obliged to record their interactions in case of abuse. Is it a consequence of wanting instant gratification, of expecting everything on a plate or are we, as a society, more contemptuous of others, less tolerant and less kind.

I think it's because in part, the way the companies treat their staff, some companies show they don't regard their staff as worthy of being treated with common decency so that gives the green light to everyone else.
I agree with the PP who said about the customer is always right too, it has in my experience led to an awful lot of people making what they know are impossible or ridiculous demands and then falling back on that.
The law is just as bad, licensing laws punish the seller, not the buyer in a lot of cases.
Both put ridiculous and unworkable practices in place, knowing that the public will take it out on the frontline staff, and don't care. How many times have you seen an ID thread on here with people trying to explain laws or the company policies, which stand to punish the seller, and are shouted down and ignored in favour of blathering on about common sense and customer service? I've seen a lot. I also saw a post a few years ago from a lady who was being punished at work for a proxy sale - what was the concencous? She shouldn't have done it!!!! It was her own fault, she should have known better, she was an idiot........ By some of the people I reckon who complain when they can't get a bottle of merlot with dinner because of the power hungry sales assistant 🙄
Most people haven't got a clue what licensing laws actually are, and they are wrong in what they are saying, and unfortunately 'The customer is always right' is not an accepted defence in court or for a work disciplinary. But when you're not the one who stands to lose from your shitty and entitled behaviour it's easy to just carry on.
To boot, a lot of companies will offer an apology and/or some sort of freebies, they've effectively encouraged people who have a tendency to behave like this to do so because they get rewarded for it. A lot of people do it because there's no comeback, a waitress or shop assistant isn't allowed to retaliate on threat of losing their job, knowing you have that bit of power goes to some people's heads. Bullies, plain and simple.
And a lot of people are stuck in the job because they need the money, no matter how getting shouted at, threatened and abused on a daily basis affects them. Therefore they're worth less to everyone.

I can see both sides.

On one hand, yes, people have got a lot worse. There's always been rude people around but I think the increase in online shopping has made people more demanding and wanting everything instantly. It's also easier to be rude and abusive online when you can hide behind a screen and you're relatively anonymous. It's easier to find what you want online with a quick search. And now, I feel like a lot of this internet behaviour has spilled out into real life where it's given people the confidence to take the piss more, and fire off an instant complaint in person while forgetting the person in front of you is a real person.

On the other hand, customer service is a lot worse these days, and I don't mean getting retail staff to bow to every customer's demand. I'm talking about things like how to get problems sorted out, how to contact someone to solve a problem, replace a broken item etc. Even online chat help things are often bots, which can't answer your questions properly. A huge amount of these problems are caused by head office decisions made by people looking to be cost-effective, but not actually having any idea of what things are being experienced by customers and shop floor staff. Very often, customer-facing staff have a much better idea of what customers want, yet their comments are ignored by the head office. This could so easily be sorted out if head office people just listened to shop floor staff and let them submit comments once a week. If every CEO, lingerie buyer, head office bigwig etc were to spend one day per month working on the shop floor or in customer services, then the service would get a lot better. But as it stands, most head offices just aren't interested.

I think that's just the UK. Move somewhere nicer.

Our chemistry teacher showed us a video illustration of chemical reactions, showing how the active catalyst of a reaction had to bump into as many chemicals as possible to convert them.

The more active ingredient of the catalyst, the quicker the reaction took place.

I think the same basically applies to good and bad behaviour. But bad behaviour creates another person who acts like an arse. Moody behaviour has a high R rate.

I think it's why people are nicer in low population density areas - you're less likely to meet an arse hole and therefore become one yourself.

I honestly don’t know what wrong with people. I despair on a daily basis.

I watched the Brian Cox series on the planets again the other day, and it’s so miraculous that we even exist in this vast expanse of space. I just can’t get my head around how we managed to get ourselves into this awful societal position.

An example; My local Sainsbury's staff have to wear little cameras now, as there have been so many assaults upon them by the general public (verbal abuse and physical abuse) that for their own wellbeing and in order to bring these individuals to book evidence is required.

I find this interesting too, Sainsbury's seem to be pretty good at fairness and treating people with respect (just from my experience as a regular customer and their policies etc) and I think it does show a commitment by them to protect their staff. My local one employed a security guard after some awful behaviour in the local town itself.
I think one or two cases of people prosecuted and it making the news, might start to tip the scales the other way, at least for Sainsbury's staff anyway!

I do agree with the reasoning that the companies themselves need to listen to their staff about what works and what doesn't, and act accordingly. But while they refuse to, they are causing the problem, they are compounding the lack of respect and while not protecting staff from the abuse that results, saying basically it's ok. Employers gave a duty to protect their staff from harm, this should firmly come under that.

Having self checkouts that barely function is so frustrating. I have been guilty of losing the plot with these. I would never be abusive to a staff member though.

I am shocked about the Sainsbos camera thing. What are we becoming?