Arseholes, why are there so many of them?

[MatildaIThink]

It seems to me that the number of arseholes is multiplying at a rapid pace and I am wondering why?

Just from the last week:
One of the parents screaming at the head of the nursery (that my son also goes to), at drop off because they would not accept their child as she had been sick twice, outside, during drop off, was bright green and had a very high temperature.

My husband was out for a run one morning last week, there was a delivery driver with a flat tyre that he was trying to change and my husband asked if he needed a hand which the driver greatly appreciated. My husband said that multiple times whilst they were changing the tire people beeped horns and shouted at them to "get out the fucking way", there was nowhere the driver could have gone, the tyre was completely off the wheel so he could not drive any further and he was pulled over so far the passenger side of his van was in the bushes on the pavement (the next parking area on that road is more than a mile away, but it is a wide road where you could realistically get four cars across so no real issue).

Over the weekend my brother took me and my mum for lunch on Sunday (my husband had our kids at home, normally we would all go, but Mum wanted a lunch with just the three of us as she wanted to talk about end of life care, power of attorney etc. she is not close yet, but wants to get it in place now) to a nice restaurant. It is not a restaurant where one would take young kids, but a family had any they were also letting their children make a lot of noise and run around, after being told to control their children multiple times the manager kicked them out when one of the kids knocked over a waitress carrying food. The family who were kicked out kept making threats to "trash you online with bad reviews" and other similar things as they were leaving.

One of my staff has come in incredibly upset this morning, someone reversed into her in traffic (the reversed at least four meters, possibly five), got out and started screaming at her, saying it was her fault, threatening her, before driving off through a red light. Luckily she has a dashcam and has reported it to the police as well as insurance.

I have noticed that since coming out of the first lockdown there seem to be far more arseholes around and they seemed to have increased their arseholery.

YABU - No, there is the same level of arseholes as before
YANBU - Yes, there are more arseholes and they are worse than ever.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats

I definitely agree with this. Up until covid I think I had this idea that everyone was ultimately a good person trying their best and if they were rude maybe they were just having a bad day.
I think I assumed that in a crisis, people would pull together and look after each other somehow.

Then I saw the shops picked completely bare by people with trolleys piled with loo roll and over those first few months my view of others completely flipped.
I no longer assume everybody is a good person. I now assume about 50% of the public are arseholes out for themselves and would push over an old woman to get the last can of beans.

I hope I’m wrong but after the last few years I don’t think I am.

Yanbu op I will agree there has been a massive increase in arseholes in shops in restaurants on the roads alot of people now just seem angry, entitled and self centered it's quite shocking how it's changed where I am even some of my friends have because twats about things and how they behave lately .

@KarenofSparta
Your right about the algorithms. Five people shouldn’t get five different versions of the headlines. It just feeds these thoughts and is scary as it’s where and how most people access their information now

[quote Honeymint]@AntiMaskersAreTwats

I definitely agree with this. Up until covid I think I had this idea that everyone was ultimately a good person trying their best and if they were rude maybe they were just having a bad day.
I think I assumed that in a crisis, people would pull together and look after each other somehow.

Then I saw the shops picked completely bare by people with trolleys piled with loo roll and over those first few months my view of others completely flipped.
I no longer assume everybody is a good person. I now assume about 50% of the public are arseholes out for themselves and would push over an old woman to get the last can of beans.

I hope I’m wrong but after the last few years I don’t think I am.[/quote]
You’re right about that. Seeing everyone ‘out for themselves’ during covid sure made my opinion of them go down.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats and @Honeymint
Please don’t join them. We need the good ones to out number the bad ones. Joining them won’t make the world better for our kids.

We need people to still say thank you when you let them go at a junction, or hold a door! And
Bloody well indicate!!

Any motorway within about 20 miles of it is the same and then people settle down and drive sensibly!

I’ve regularly driven motorways the length of the country and have done so for 30 years. They have always been the same.

But none of that is new! My daughter was amazed when we talked about how we had to check under the car with a mirror when we worked with the military in the 80s then cross our fingers when turning on the ignition, how we had the evacuation plans in the cupboard ready to go within half an hour, I recall going to school, I'd be about 15 in 1963, not knowing if we would be going home, it was during the Cuban missile crisis and nuclear obliteration was a very real threat.

Yep. For me it was the Cold War later in the 80s, and the risk of IRA bombings.

I work in retail and I can confirm that the general public behave far worse post lockdown than they did previously.

Except that people “who work in retail” have been complaining about how people behave all the way through lockdown too. They were far worse than before lockdown, who were worse than before that…..

Previous generations in our living memories lived through 2 world wars and all the chaos, poverty and destruction that brought - there wasn't the same level of arse-holery from them.

Of course there was. It’s just that a whole load of the arseholery back in those days was directed at them forriners, so that was ok, yeah? Oh and the adults who happily physically assaulted kids for daring to kick a ball in their garden or being a bit too loud.

People just have really short memories. The only difference between then and now is that the arseholery that happens everywhere is shared on the internet for everyone to see, whereas before that if it didn’t happen on your street, you never saw it.

Poor customer service must also be a reason. Nothing is simple anymore. Queues everywhere are longer (staff shortages due to covid apparently!). When you do get to the front of the queue (real or online) you almost always end up with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, so makes mistakes, has to ask someone else, or just turns you away because they can't deal with what you want.

So much has been moved online, but without proper planning/introduction/training, etc., so often simply doesn't work (due to being rolled out too quickly).

And a lot of the "new" ways of doing things aren't logical. I.e. our local football club tell you to "buy" match tickets online, but then you have to go into the club shop to pick them up (You can't buy in the shop, so have to buy online, but the physical tickets are in the shop and you have to go to collect them!) - what nonsense is that?

It's actually an absolute pleasure to go into our village pie shop/bakery. It's basically not changed - same staff, same pies, same choice of paying by cash or card, same opening hours etc. The only things that have changed are a big plastic screen over the counter and signs asking you to wear a mask and wait outside. The staff are just as friendly and competent as before (no staff shortages "due to covid"), they never run out of anything (no pie or cake shortages "due to covid"), etc.

Sadly, I think covid is being used as a convenient excuse for poor/shoddy customer service in a lot of cases!

@EvilPea

Haha, don’t worry I have no intention of joining them! Because there are so many rude people around I think I tend to notice the nice ones more lately. I try to be one of those as much as I can!

Sadly quite a few "excluded" people have committed suicide.

Yep. What sticks in my mind is the words of an immunocompromised writer in one of the papers a while back. Their freedom to participate in society without unnecessary risks has been taken away. Simple measures like masks are so easy for most yet would do so much for lessening the exclusion of the excluded.

Then there's austerity. Rightly credited by many (including the UN) as the direct cause of many suicides (and other poverty/desperation related deaths). Various causes including the harsh benefit cuts, sanctions, and health 'assessments', the cuts to mental health care, the lack of funding for social services. Oh and a biggie - housing insecurity.

The public health housing and homelessness emergency has been going on long before the pandemic. It's the cause of many suicides and other premature deaths. The average life expectancy for a street homeless person is 40s.

The UK approach to Covid definitely encouraged the further exclusion of the already excluded. An example is furlough, and the temporary £20 UC uplift. Both schemes were open acknowledgement that the welfare system doesn't provide enough to live on - and the message was loud and clear. Those who lost their jobs or got ill due to Covid were more 'deserving' of help than those who lost their jobs or got ill before Covid.

Very little media or public outcry over the plight of the vulnerable and excluded both pre and during the pandemic.

@MatildaIThink

It seems to me that the number of arseholes is multiplying at a rapid pace and I am wondering why?

Just from the last week:
One of the parents screaming at the head of the nursery (that my son also goes to), at drop off because they would not accept their child as she had been sick twice, outside, during drop off, was bright green and had a very high temperature.

My husband was out for a run one morning last week, there was a delivery driver with a flat tyre that he was trying to change and my husband asked if he needed a hand which the driver greatly appreciated. My husband said that multiple times whilst they were changing the tire people beeped horns and shouted at them to "get out the fucking way", there was nowhere the driver could have gone, the tyre was completely off the wheel so he could not drive any further and he was pulled over so far the passenger side of his van was in the bushes on the pavement (the next parking area on that road is more than a mile away, but it is a wide road where you could realistically get four cars across so no real issue).

Over the weekend my brother took me and my mum for lunch on Sunday (my husband had our kids at home, normally we would all go, but Mum wanted a lunch with just the three of us as she wanted to talk about end of life care, power of attorney etc. she is not close yet, but wants to get it in place now) to a nice restaurant. It is not a restaurant where one would take young kids, but a family had any they were also letting their children make a lot of noise and run around, after being told to control their children multiple times the manager kicked them out when one of the kids knocked over a waitress carrying food. The family who were kicked out kept making threats to "trash you online with bad reviews" and other similar things as they were leaving.

One of my staff has come in incredibly upset this morning, someone reversed into her in traffic (the reversed at least four meters, possibly five), got out and started screaming at her, saying it was her fault, threatening her, before driving off through a red light. Luckily she has a dashcam and has reported it to the police as well as insurance.

I have noticed that since coming out of the first lockdown there seem to be far more arseholes around and they seemed to have increased their arseholery.

YABU - No, there is the same level of arseholes as before
YANBU - Yes, there are more arseholes and they are worse than ever.

No I think there has always been a lot of arseholes. The first one, your being really judgey you have no idea whats going on for that parent. Your Dh sounds nice.

Sadly, I think covid is being used as a convenient excuse for poor/shoddy customer service in a lot of cases!

Definitely this. One place I need to contact is now uncontactable by phone. There's no phone number on the website. The option is an online form or email. Because of Covid apparently. Not quite sure how that stops people being able to take a call. Particularly as so many are WFH.

Yep. People are increasingly happy to foul. Got told to fuck off on Saturday by someone who decided to block the exit of a macdonalds drive through because she wanted to eat hers. I couldn’t get past, asked to move and those two words were the response. Did a bit of muttering to myself and then thought fuck it and leaned on my horn. Fully acknowledge that this was joining in the shit behaviour; felt so pissed off with myself and the world, but she did move.

We're seeing the results of a generation brought up never having been told "no".

It's only going to get worse I'm afraid.

Unfortunately years of “the customer is always right” has taught people that they can get what they want if they’re just stubborn, loud and obnoxious enough.

@PicassoInAtoolbox

A fish rots from the head, and society is no different. Look at our politicians, entitled bunch, fiddling expenses and taking bungs, same goes for local councils. Political parties stirring up hate - calling the other party scum in public. MSM stirring up rage and panic for a few more clicks. I'd quite like to go and live on an island!

YY definitely this.

Lazy political and media stirring of divisions. Class, race, age, region.

Divide and rule. One of the oldest (but sadly often successful) tactics.

The first one, your being really judgey you have no idea whats going on for that parent.

I disagree. There's absolutely no excuse for screaming at nursery staff and expecting them to accept your child if they've literally just vomited.

@TotallySuper

I think we all had a year off arseholes due to living in our lockdown bubbles and now we just notice them more. There have always been the same amount of arseholes IMO.

Some of us were locked down with the arseholes though. Its been grim doing that and then emerging into the world which definitely has more arseholes in it now...

Yes there are more arseholes I think mainly down to most companies policies and attitudes. If you use any business and are perfectly nice and pleasant no matter what the service you get nothing but pleasant back hopefully. However if you go and scream and shout and are generally horrible the company will bend over backwards to make this horrible customer happy for fear they will get a bad review or lose the customer business. So what happens is other people copy the horrible behaviour because they want the same service, money off or free goods.

Then I saw the shops picked completely bare by people with trolleys piled with loo roll and over those first few months my view of others completely flipped.

You were clearly never around in the 80s when supermarkets closed for a week at Christmas. Shopping in the days before that was horrific and shelves were stripped bare of all essentials. This from 1974 shows it’s been a decades long issue

I no longer assume everybody is a good person. I now assume about 50% of the public are arseholes out for themselves and would push over an old woman to get the last can of beans.

This is all self fulfilling prophecy. I saw individuals, groups, organisations, companies, all coming up with ways to help people through the crisis. Neighbours looking after neighbours, people doing what they could to provide supplies and entertainment for people who couldn’t go out. Teachers calling students to see if they were ok, charities branching out to provide services they didn’t usually.

You will only see the shit if you only look for the shit.

Of course there was. It’s just that a whole load of the arseholery back in those days was directed at them forriners, so that was ok, yeah? Oh and the adults who happily physically assaulted kids for daring to kick a ball in their garden or being a bit too loud

Point to where I said that was OK, yeah?

Partly.because there are generally no consequences for shitty behaviour.

I agree with posters above in that a) we are generally much closer to the limit of our mental tolerance which means, for a lot of people, it doesn’t take much to push them past that limit and b) for some, our brains are stuck in “fear” mode which means we overreact to perceived threats.

Anger often has a root in fear, and we are and/or have been a lot more frightened than we used to be. It’s not dissimilar to PTSD, much as any mention of trauma brings out the “Well during the war everyone just got on with it/you can’t have PTSD because you haven’t been in a war zone” brigade.

I think there have always been hideous people, but they've felt they need to conceal it in recent decades. It started to change with Brexit, which made the racists feel that they could openly express their vile views.

That then snowballed to other types of discrimination increasing: misogyny, ableism. And people feeling it's ok to be generally vile because if there's no consequence (even social ostracism) for racism, sexism, ableism etc then obviously they feel totally comfortable with just being generally rude.

I hope there will be some pushback and the cultural pendulum will swing back the other way, but in some ways I think "the cat is out of the bag" and now people have got used to showing their true selves in public, I can't see them going back to following the social etiquette or norms that decent people find acceptable.

So its fine to just excuse away shitty behaviour? Their actions could have been the last straw for some poor perosommgookg through god knows what in their personal lives, if you want to spin it that way.

^forgot to actually attach the comment I was replying to...

The first one, your being really judgey you have no idea whats going on for that parent.