AIBU to hate mumsnetters calling professional useless?

[ByUmberViewer]

I see it on here more and more often.

My solicitor/social worker/GP/police officer/pharmacist/Housing Association/kids teacher/personal trainer are useless.

No they are not useless, they just weren't able to give you what you wanted, or what you wanted wasn't appropriate. That doesn't make them useless!

It's the general public too

"I want an appointment for tomorrow"
Sorry we don't have one
"You're useless/customer service is shit/I'll be writing to your head office...."

It's really doing my head in! The entitlement is astonishing.

I appreciate it's not nice and my profession often gets called useless. In fact I myself was once described as 'some bird' and 'utterly useless' in a Google review.

However on the other side, as a customer, I do note that customer services, professional services and public services have become markedly worse since the lockdown. Plus the ongoing computerisation/AI-fication/everything defers to a call centre culture, does make service users and customers feel frustrated and ignored. So that's where the 'useless' epithet comes in.

I understand that customer service has declined recently but I was referring more to professionals like GPs and social workers, ie, not people in a customer service role. I can kind of understand people calling customer service useless.

I believe my friend had an incompetent dentist who messed up her treatment and caused her a lot of problems. He later moved to my practice and treated me briefly. I wasn’t very impressed with him and was horrified when I told my friend his name and she said, “that’s him”. He soon moved on again (or was moved on).

Well, see now, I'm slightly offended by that because in customer service roles we absolutely do our best but are dealing with such huge backlogs often, made worse by job cuts in many sectors, increasingly hidebound and strict rules about options we offer customers, and also I have to say, customers are notiv=ceably ruder and more aggressive than they used to be.

I think the vast majority of people in public facing roles and services are doing their best! You can't arbitrarily decide that one gorup is unfairly called useless and the other group is fairly called useless based on your own random categorisation!

Most useless recent experience I had was going to A&E with a couple of broken bones, coming over faint and collapsing in A&E (legs began shaking and gave way) and lay on floor in reception whilst two nurses behind the triage desk stared boredly at me! The lovely porter came to save me with a wheelchair.

I may have said this (to my husband) about the pharmacists in our Tesco at the weekend. Four of them (appreciate all four are not going to be qualified pharmacists) engaged in various slow jobs behind a row of shelves while a queue formed. I know they have loads of stuff to do, but four of them, chatting away while they work? No one even attempting to step forward and see if one or two customers might have a really quick, simple request like an OTC medication?

Sometimes professionals are kind of useless!

I work in a call centre
Perfectly capable of good customer service so I'm not sure what call centre culture is

Most people seem to think it's a job that means I don't have any GCSEs and am thick

Same same and yes people think it means I'm thick and have no qualifications, I think that's why customers can be so rude.

What I mean is that not everyone can handle having to call and wait in a queue especially older people or people with disabilities. I work in a sector which used to be done by face to face meetings and is now online and by our call centre and I know a lot of older people find that difficult

Well some people are useless. In every profession there are people who are bad at it.

But I agree it can be misused when someone just hasn't done what the person wanted.

@CantDealwithChristmas we have a queue holder call back which gives priority but people don't use it and would rather queue

Regardless of profession, some really are just useless.

I know. I was referring more to people who didn't give someone what they wanted and were called useless for that reason alone.

Some definitely are useless. I've got legal aid for a solicitor over my son's education and she is utterly useless. Is missed all deadlines does not understand my sons case and last minute let's me down with multiple meeting with the LA so I have to attend alone against their solicitor when I'm not legally trained. I've ended up doing most of the work myself.

The meeting I had with my barrister today however was very different. This woman is very far from useless. If we don't win the case it won't be due to her

I don’t know op, it’s a horrible word so I disagree with that, but when you have a child whose got an issue and you see a doctor that does have their finger on the pulse relating to what they have, as opposed to one who fobs you off it is true that not all professionals are created equal!!

The saying what do you call a medical student who graduated with an A - doctor and what do you call a medical student who graduated with a C - doctor is very apt there

I think that once upon a time there was a greater gap between the masses and the "educated professionals" but that has become gradually smaller.
This means that years ago the average parent say, would look up to the likes of a teacher for example. They would trust their judgement in that they would consider them intelligent enough to qualify for the position, as opposed to the majority of the population.
Seeing as many people are educated to a higher level nowadays , it's more likely that you find yourself having to deal with people who appear incompetent. Not that they are necessarily, but it may give the impression of uselessness, because the reverence they were held to in the past is gone.

Some people are truly useless at their jobs- in every role and in every profession.

Yeah, i'm not talking about the useless ones though. I'm talking about the non useless ones that have merely said the word "no" to someone.

Some people in some professions are useless. Even doctors, police, teachers etc. No profession is infallible.

I see people I work with in my own profession who are useless and if I were a service user I'd complain about them.

My disabled sons social worker was useless. Fact.

Gave me wrong information. Wasted a lot of my time and tried to lie about it.

Some of them are fucking useless, though. They're people, and people are sometimes inadequate/unpleasant/in the wrong job. If you encounter one, it's not wrong to say so. Fucking useless people in positions of trust and authority are dangerous. Gradually, we are moving past the culture of blind deference, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Some professionals are rubbish some are great. I hate the blanket ignorance on here. One social worker didn't do their job so ALL social workers must be bad. People like this just don't get out much are are ignorant.

So if someone is a "professional" and can't give someone what they ask for, or say no, they aren't useless

But if someone works in a call centre and they can't give someone what they ask for, or say no, then they are useless

Nice to have the system to clearly designated by snobbery

The other issue with call centres is that you can't phone your local bank or whatever so the service is much less personalised. Also, you can't usually call the same person twice or build any kind of working relationship with them like you could do when you had direct access to the company.