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.

I used to help marshall a town carnival for charity. I spent the day helping with parking, dealing with lost kids, giving directions, generally helping out.

Every year we got abuse from drivers who wanted to drive through the carnival, despite the road closures being posted for weeks, and it being the same weekend every year.

Threats, spitting, swearing, full blown screaming hysterics, being driven at, all over having to take a 2 mile diversion. Taxi drivers were the worst but generally people can be awful. Four years, was more than enough

Mintjulia, that's sad to read but not surprising really. People are so entitled.

I would rather cut my leg off with a teaspoon than work customer facing role again.

People are such dickheads! The abuse, the sneering and the fucking shoplifting just for shit and giggles and abusing you when you catch them. It's disgraceful. Every place should have The Cunt Board by the door with photos of these people.

I genuinely think we should bring in some form of national service, not in the military but in retail and hospitality. Maybe for 3 months after leaving school. I have never ever met someone that has worked in either of these areas who treats people like this.

I walked out midway through a date about 10 years ago with a guy I had been really keen on because he was rude to a waiter. Says everything you need to know about someone's character.

It's been this way for years. Worked for a call centre for a big UK shop over a decade ago, one where the customers call us to place orders, not cold calling. My very first call was a man who before I even managed to finish saying hello, how can I help you, started screaming at me about how it's my personal fault for his order going wrong. Er no dickhead, it isn't, it was something you did wrong.

And that shop was aimed at the 'middle class' of the UK. The people who think they are posh, but they aren't. I don't really have any faith in people like that anymore, most of the people I spoke to were just plain stupid.

I had to stop at a pub in Cornwall to use the loo once on holiday years ago ( I was desperate) it seemed a nice enough country pub and there was a long list of banned people on
The door with photos! Brilliant idea.

I wouldn't last 5 minutes in any kind of hospitality.

That's why I'm a cop, it's the only thing that stops me punching rude cunts in the face when I encounter them.

Comes with the occasional bonus that if they're a rude cunt and attack me I can punch them in the face 😂

You can definitely tell a lot about a person by the way they treat waiting staff, shop staff, etc.

I’ve done retail work before, Dd works in hospitality. I’d never be anything apart from nice to staff. Even if something has gone wrong it isn’t their fault most of the time. Even if it is their fault it’s likely it was a mistake. Even if they’re a total slacker who has fucked up the chances are you’ll get a better resolution by being nice rather than a screaming cunt.

I would rather cut my leg off with a teaspoon than work customer facing role again.

Pretty much sums up how I feel about it too. Post lockdown #1 was utterly soul destroying because of the new rules etc. I cried on a daily basis because of someone, had a cumulative effect.
I'm so glad I'm out, I feel so sorry for my friends who'll be facing it again post this lockdown, when people have the excuse of Christmas as well as covid for behaving like cunts.

Gobbycob, 😃
I bet you really do deal with the dregs of society!

DJ got abuse when manning the BBQ at a primary school fundraiser. People seemed to expect some sort of slick amazing service from the VOLUNTEER parents 🙄🙄

Msswift, People are just horrible arnt they?
There is no excuse.

Customer facing public sector for years, retired now. I've been spat at, threatened and sworn at. DD in NHS has had similar.

However, customer service is very poor in some large retail organisations. Recently i had my email compromised and the service provider was shocking. It had a knock on to my supermarket online orders, I'm in the vulnerable age group so I need them, I spent hours on the phone and there was no consistency of responses. Trying to.get someone to take ownership or get a manager involved was very frustrating. I'm still trying to sort out the loyalty card. The training for 'helpline' staff seems to have completely bypassed some of them! If it's not in the script, the computer says no!

You don't have to look far to see these attitudes on here. Shop staff are often called thick/useless/stupid/jobsworths/"need to get a real job"/etc on MN threads.

I have a friend who worked in a shop. Some young men came in and tried to steal some stuff. Friend is a huge tall bloke and told them to put the items back and they did and slunk cowardly away. Only to go into the car park and smash every window and beat every panel of friend’s car. And the best part: they totally got away with it. No CCTV on car park.

Appalling stories which make me ashamed to be human! Smashing up cars? Spitting and swearing? Where did it all go wrong?
.. ☹️

Hold on a mo!
I've just realised that sometimes I'm one of the 'General Public' when I'm not just me.

However, customer service is very poor in some large retail organisations. Recently i had my email compromised and the service provider was shocking. It had a knock on to my supermarket online orders, I'm in the vulnerable age group so I need them, I spent hours on the phone and there was no consistency of responses. Trying to.get someone to take ownership or get a manager involved was very frustrating. I'm still trying to sort out the loyalty card. The training for 'helpline' staff seems to have completely bypassed some of them! If it's not in the script, the computer says no!

I'm not suggesting you do, but too many people use being frustrated as an excuse for being verbally abusive, threats and physical abuse.
The systems some places have in place are bonkers, and they don't work. They're as frustrating for the staff as they are the customer. But as already pointed out, the companies don't listen to the staff when they try and point this out, they have the attitude it's all part of the job, and that it has to be done this way, 9 times out of 10 to save or make money. Money that the people on the recieving end never see because most customer facing roles are nmw or close to with the minimum job benefits that can be got away with. Computerised systems are cheaper than real people, and the people who design and implement these systems aren't the ones dealing with the fall out, then there's the "It's all part of the job attitude" they fall back on when staff try and say the abuse they're getting as a result of that system. They're ignored, and apologised for, the head offices promising further training on the matter - which then indicates to the customer that the person they dealt with is at fault, not the systems they're told to follow.
So many places now have 'There's no excuse for abuse' or 'Please be kind to our colleagues' signs up, firstly why on earth do people need reminding to treat another human being with common decency?! And secondly, they clearly don't work. As I've said previously, employers have a duty to protect staff from harm, were it another employee abusing or threatening or bullying then there's established ways to deal with it, but when it's customers the £ is the only thing that matters and if the people holding the purse strings are not affected then it gets pushed aside.
If you substituted manager or colleague for customer in some of these cases, the reactions would be completely different, but because it's a customer being frustrated or having a bad day is generally accepted to be a perfectly acceptable excuse for behaving how you like.

I used to work in a v casual hipster type bar and the first thing my new boss said to me was if anyone is ever rude to you, tell them to leave. One woman pushed her way through the waiting customers and banged her hand on the bar four times while barking "four sambucas!" So I banged my hand on the bar four times and said "get out of my bar!"

I loved working where I worked as I had a real laugh and rapport with the customers, the vast majority were usuals and any new people felt at home because we were good at our jobs. And I'll never forget that boss who had our back. It made the atmosphere better for everyone.

Dd used to work in retail when she was at uni. When she worked in a shoe shop she sold a pair of shoes to a woman, and as she was putting them in a carrier bag, the following conversation ensued:

Woman: What's that on your hands?

Dd: psoriasis.

Woman: I don't want you touching my shoes with those hands.

DD's manager: Feel free to leave and never return.

She worked in M & S for a while too and had lots of "are you as stupid as you look?" type comments :(.

Unfortunately this isn't anything new...
I had a grated cheese salad baguette thrown at me about 15 years ago because I didn't replace it after the man demanded I did because HE had dropped it up the road. It had been wrapped nicely but the twit dropped it on the pavement up the road and came back to demand I replaced it. I was only young then and wasn't allowed to replace it as it wasn't our fault so he threw it at me and stormed out.

We also weren't allowed to reheat baby formula as it was too open for abuse/potentially being sued. I was sworn at by someone who came in to ask for a bowl of hot water to heat a bottle. The shop was very busy with customers buying their sandwiches which were made to order so no staff available to watch a bottle being heated and the counters were quite high so no way would we let the parent balance a boiling pot of water on it to heat a bottle! I was sworn at, they weren't even buying anything!

I worked in a coffee shop as a student. I had coffee thrown over me because the queue was too long... the guy waited until he had been served and paid for his drink to throw it at me .

Still, I got to watch the lovely shopping centre security guard throw him out which was fun

There is a thread somewhere about a poster asking if it's okay to go to the supermarket while waiting for test results.
That tells me just how the public feel about retail workers. That it's fine to go to the supermarket and make the workers sick because they don't matt8.
I expect they were the same people that went to pubs etc when we were allowed even if they had symptoms.