Are people more rude and inpatient since covid?

[Felixss]

I went to a spa break at a lovely 5 star hotel. I'm not the type to complain unless something is very bad. One thing I've noticed is how rude some people are. Yesterday a group of women waiting were tutting and rolling their eyes as my friend requested a glass of water after a spa treatment. Another time an elderly woman was moaning , tutting behind us in the queue while we were waiting to check-in, she then berated the hotel receptionist. In the sauna a man was loudly complaining about the speed of the service for food (it was fine).

This morning upon checkout a woman was complaining angrily about a smell on the carpet in her room. She was demanding a partial refund/ meal contribution or she would leave a bad review, she was being very rude to the staff.

This was a really nice hotel not a dump, usually you would get maybe one person being an arse but this many? Are people more rude/entitled since covid ? I can't imagine working in customer service it must be awful.

For a start, I've never been rude or shouty to anyone, I've enough self control to remain polite and friendly but I'll be assertive if necessary, without aggression or insulting behaviour, etc. Being assertive is not the same as being rude, aggressive or insulting! I can insist on my consumer rights being honoured with a smile, a please and a thank you. Shouting and insults gets you nowhere. In fact, I'm sure some receptionists, shop workers, etc hate it when I remain polite, calm and smiley as they can't pull the "we won't tolerate abuse to staff" card to fob you off and force you to leave!

But, by God, it's hard to stay polite and respectful, when you're on your 19th phone call totalling several hours in total (as per telephone itemised billing) to the car insurance company after an accident caused by someone else, and you've had a succession of calls answered by people who are completely disinterested, playing with their children or their dog, watching TV or breaking the call to answer their front door, and as a result of that, not actually doing their job! That's not down to staff shortages, it's down to staff not actually doing what they're paid for. Yes, it's the company's fault for not properly managing their WFH staff, but also the employee for not actually "working" their working hours!

Back to the purpose of this post, I'm not sure it's Covid itself that's been the problem, but it's the side effects of covid, i.e. the epidemic of people working from home, staff/product shortages, automated processes to reduce human contact that haven't reverted back to pre-covid, "because covid" becoming the easy and lazy answer to poor service, etc.

I don't know, but companies have cut back on service over the past 3 years while increasing their prices. People are entitled to criticise poor service and uncaring staff and I suppose some reach the end of their tether with it at some point.

What? Well this is dumb. The government made them shut, the government enforced 6 people tables.

All people otherwise had to do was book ahead and get table service. I loved the Covid restaurant rules they were great.

Why on earth would it be the fault of the businesses?