CF Tourists - is it worse ??

[WeWillLookBack]

We have just got back from a few days in Cornwall - we live in Devon, so spend a lot of time in both counties and are very used to tourists and holiday makers. We stayed in a 'pub with rooms on the beach, which was lovely. However - I am utterly gobsmacked by the level of CF we have witnessed in the 3 days. It feels like peoples entitlement is off the scale. I don't know how those in hospitality are dealing with it.

Wednesday - Woman went mental at the poor young lad serving in the beer garden - insisted she had booked a table outside. Very politely told her that they do not take reservations for the garden, just the restaurant. Screaming ' Are you calling me a liar'. He went in, and didn't come back out.

Friday AM - they serve breakfast for guests 8am-9.30am, then open for breakfast at 9.30am (lots of signs saying open at 9.30am). At 8.30am a group were outside - rattling the door. Member of staff opens the door, and lets them know they open at 9.30am. Lots of moaning - insisting they can have breakfast now etc. She says no - very polite. So he tells her it is disgusting that they allow guests to sit in the window eating when others can't ! ( and to make up for their error, they should serve them breakfast too)

Friday evening - Family of 6 rocked up - no space in the beer garden. Started shouting - so the owner came out. Man very angry - they had driven for 6 hours - and the kids needed feeding. The owner was great - polite but firm. The man actually suggested the owner walk around the beer garden and checked when people were leaving so they could secure a table. He said no. A lot of swearing. Asked to leave.

Drive home Saturday morning. Along a winding road along the coast - car in front just stops. Man gets out and stands looking at the sea. Single lane - so I cant go around him. After a few moments I beep - he stomps over to my car and says 'Can I help you' ... I say you have blocked the road - could you move please. To which he responds 'I am looking at the view - maybe you could just be kind' FFS !!!

I don’t think it’s the younger generations either.

I, too. It's as though lockdown has acted as some form of pressure cooker, all that pent-up frustration having built up over months now needing a release. The same also seems to be true of harassment of women by male strangers, which IME does seem to be worse than pre-COVID. I work with a good number of young women in their early twenties, and many of them are reporting the same.

On the other side of the coin, Covid does seem to have become an excuse for substandard service in some places. One local place has restricted their menu to simply burgers, and you'll typically be waiting an hour. This is not to say the staff in any way deserve rudeness for this, but there are a couple of previously-loved venues where my response as a customer has simply been to vote with my feet.

Well, you might want to start by reconsidering your holiday destinations.

However, you're assuming that speaking up means confronting strangers. There are 250+ posts on this thread. Everyone has a story about entitled CFs and no-one is admitting to being one themselves. If this behaviour is as endemic as everyone says then it's our friends and family members who are perpetrating it, and there is a collective responsibility to speak up if someone in your party is being a dick.

Just seen some of this in action myself, a shirtless father watching as his kids took a run up to kick geese in the park. You can imagine how that ended, I suspect the dad is still now looking for the geese manager.

also some utter weirdo yesterday, we were getting our CVs tarted up (for free) by professionals. This poor woman tells a guy he needs more information on it so this cockney arse who thinks hes living in a guy Ritchie film gets in her face saying he would have to tell lies to fill it out more, repeating at the top of his voice 'I NEVER TELL LIES' over and over as if everybody in the place should be weeping out of respect for him.

I'm convinced everybody thinks they are in a film so does this over the top 'standing up for myself' thing because they think they'll look like Michael Caine in Get Carter. See also posting peaky blinders memes about them being silent but deadly.

I live in a tourist area too, and some of the behaviour I’ve witnessed over the last couple of years has been spectacular. There has always been CFs and arseholes, but since Covid it’s been off the scale.

Both my kids have jobs in hospitality places this summer

My younger DD works in a friend’s hotel doing breakfast waitressing, the older one works behind the bar in a local bar/restaurant and they both come home boggling at the behaviour of some of the customers.

My younger daughter has Tourette’s and has had all sorts of ableist shit thrown at her. Screaming tantrums from customers in the middle of the breakfast room at 9am, shouting at staff because they’ve had to wait 0.5 seconds for a cup of tea, etc, etc. My friend is excellent and won’t have any of his staff abused or spoken to badly. He’s chucked several customers out because their behaviour has been so appalling.

My older daughter fortunately doesn’t have much direct customer contact as it’s table service, but still has abusive customers, shouting at her as she hasn’t got 22 hands and can’t pour 10 pints of lager in 30 seconds flat. Sadly though her boss isn’t as good at dealing with shitty customers and is a complete twat herself so DD has just handed in her notice - along with the 3 others who have also quit this week!

The public has always been shits. Obviously not everyone, but there have always been some people like this.
As someone who has worked in hospitality though I think customer service is less good. Not the basics, staff are still nice and polite and do the job the best they can. But dealing with customers well is a skilled job, although most people who have not done the job do not realise that.
It is the skills in heading off or preventing difficult situations from arising that I see less off. I assume because there is a lot of new staff in hospitality and a lot of more experienced people have moved on. So how do you deal with people queuing or turning people away from the busy restaurant, etc, it is not that staff are doing anything wrong, but they are less likely to have the experience to do it well.
Even things like people complaining staff were chatting when they went up to get served. Every place has quiet times and during those times you do want to chat. If someone comes in, whether you are standing doing nothing or chatting to a colleague, it takes the same amount of time to notice a member of the public and serve them. But if you are chatting to a colleague that always gets people's backs up. As I got more experienced I realised that is why when I started the manager always wanted us to pretend to look busy even if we were really doing nothing. So if you are chatting you pretend to be sorting out paperwork, or sorting out shelves. It is crazy though.

Of course it is more pleasant to sit at a larger table but to deny an appropriately-sized party a seat when tables are available elsewhere wouldn’t sit right with me.

But you don't know what tables were available when the smaller party arrived. If there was only a large table, and they've already ordered their food to that table, it's reasonable not to move - otherwise they might end up with someone else's food/bill.

Huh was just googling the NC500. I thought things like this - and the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland - were just joining up/branding exercises dreamt up by tourist boards, I didn't realise anyone expected them to make money. But whilst NC500 was initially a tourist board initiative seems it is now "owned" by a private owner who does expect it to make a profit. These routes don't provide any new amenities or anything do they? I thought they just told people what's there basically - NC500 seems to have had some tourism benefit for the North Highlands but I've seen/ heard lots of people say tourists doing the route don't stay as long or behave as well. My granny in Donegal hated the Wild Atlantic Way with a passion lol.

I used to passionately advocate for everyone to holiday in the UK for environmental reasons. Now I can't wait till they all go away again.

This is bollocks, CF is present in all ages. The gen z I know are achingly polite.

I don't have wellies there's a local petting farm that has wellie hire. Most do hire wellies especially with children growing so quickly.

This was a reply to the pp who said it was recent generations

As a regular all inclusive holiday maker pre covid I'd like to say we're not all foul mouthed commoners with no manners, quite the opposite.

Twat behaviour has no correlation to your holiday choice

I can't see how the NC 500 is privately owned. It's a road route on standard roads open to all. Perhaps someone has trademarked the name or the right to produce merchandise based on it or something, but the actual route can't be bought.

I know this area really well and a lot of it is very wild and remote, which is obviously part of the appeal. But a lot of people do go expecting "facilties" like loads of public loos and shops and litter bins and takeaways - which there obviously aren't.

One local place has restricted their menu to simply burgers

A bit off topic, but I'm sick of seeing menus dominated by burgers - they're always those huge stacked up burgers, too, that are really messy and unpleasant to eat. I will be glad when the fashion changes. They're worse than the 2000s craze for 'curly fries'!

It's generally middle aged men.

I recently discovered instant karma compilations on YouTube. They are amazing if you love seeing rude arseholes like this get what they deserve.

DH broke his coillarbone and ankle very badly a few years back when a tourist walked backwards while taking a photo and pushing him into the road. (he fell off the kerb and landed awkwardly). No apologies. No attempt to help him, they just walked off. It took a bus driver to stop and call the ambulance.

That was years ago though, and I am just sharing for no good reason. :)

Just got back from a week in Dorset. We are ALWAYS polite and courteous and I think it’s really appreciated.

Behave like a dick and people will view you as a dick because you are a dick!

God yes. Agree agree agree.

Perhaps someone has trademarked the [NC500] name or the right to produce merchandise based on it or something, but the actual route can't be bought.

This will be it. You can bet your life that the person/company making the profit has no responsibility at all to pay for the infrastructure improvements needed, the litter cleanups etc...

Capitalism and commodification at its worst.

Walking backwards when taking a photo is not entitlement though. A lot of people are clumsy every day and bump into people when not on holiday.

I also agree that the food, choices and prices are at a lot of places are worse than pre-pandemic. There are still good places to eat, but a lot more bad places.

I know. As I said i am just sharing for no good reason. Im waiting for a medical apointment and wanted to shoehorn an anecdote in.

I have been thinking about this recently, it's really grim and there's a sense of total loss of manners.

I suspect two big factors are drug use and being immersed in the internet.

last year I thought maybe it was lockdown related. I completely lost the plot in lockdown and drank a LOT. I understand that I have definitely lost some personal qualities. But it wouldn't cross my mind to be rude to someone and I am really feeling a horrible atmosphere in terms of how people treat others.

I've done hospitality and customer service but it was a lot different back then.

I wasn't particularly anti drugs but what I'm seeing now is making me question that.

I'm not calling you a troll but the car example is totally unbelievable.

Probably somewhere like this

killhope.org.uk/