If you work with the public - are you finding things are getting scarier?

[CurdinHenry]

More aggression, more delusions to a fairly extreme degree?

I work for a charity and the entitlement of people who are getting an amazing service free of charge is astounding
We will not tolerate abuse and have had to resort to barring one or two people completely - they then retaliate by making unfounded complaints, SARS requests etc - which we have to follow through on!

You might need to take a look at your own behaviour if this is what your experience is

It's fucking awful

All these people will also claim to have low self esteem

If only

It’s quite a mixed bag, I think, with shop staff.

My daughter works in retail and also says how very rude and entitled customers are. She hates it.

Hear this out. We have a recording that says if you abuse our staff we will not continue the call. A client said oh how sad you have to do this. Then started to work themselves up saying you shouldn't have to say this, then it turned into them thinking we were personally attacking and threatening them preemptively. Make it make sense?

It's definitely sometimes the case but as noted above it's because people are getting a barrage of abuse and eventually it breaks you

We're generally giving worse service, though. Not me personally, I hope, but I can understand people getting annoyed when they're let down over and over, and there's no longer a number they can get through to easily, just terrible queues/voice mails/bots. It's not ok to be rude, but when their lives are literally at risk/they're in agony because their appointments have been cancelled, or they are worried about losing their homes/being left with little money/being threatened with their kids being taken away, I can understand it.
Even if the situation isn't that serious, you're not on the breadline, have no trauma/mental health problems/have no disabilities or language problems which make it hard...when you've been politely requesting a refund for faulty goods and get messed around over and over, it irks you.

I don't think there's ever an excuse to threaten to come to someone's home and kill them etc etc etc

Try being a nurse for a week the abuse is insane.. insulting your appearance your ability to do your job absolutely anything..threatening behaviour.. physically getting attacked … people don’t shock me anymore

What an idiotic thing to say. I’m polite and friendly when dealing with shop staff.

Everything is a battle that’s why. Not an excuse but today I tried to buy my 16 year old a 4 week bus pass.

Well…. FUCK!!! Is all I can say. It required 3 apps. One to buy the pass from, the second to authenticate the pass and the third app to “upload the ticket onto the physical swift card”. So there I am, with the physical card, trying to upload the ticket from the other app. It doesn’t work. Just repeated error codes.

I can honestly say, I’ve not been that angry or pissed off in a long time. Like a ball of wound up fury. I had to go for a walk.

The walk didn’t work. I JUST WANT TO BUY MY KID A FUCKING BUS PASS.

I actually wanted to cry thinking about the old times when this sort of shit was so simple. Tomorrow I will be on hold to a call centre as it’s taken my money. Son will need to pay additional bus fare tomorrow, money I haven’t got.

As a teacher, I find parents are getting more aggressive and confrontational. However, I think it’s due to them being able to email us and using AI to do so. They’re usually very different on the phone.

I don't think things like using the complaints procedure, going to the ombudsman or making a SAR belong with the abuse that's being described here.

Those are the legitimate channels for the public to use when they have a grievance. If they are deluded about their rights then they'll find that out after ploughing through these slow, tedious, bureaucratic procedures.

I often deal with those who have gone through our complaints process and then gone to the ombudsman who have upheld our decision, the customer continues to harass us with angry emails and phone calls demanding we change our decision. There’s no end to it, they think they are owed something and even the ombudsman must be wrong.

Given my boss is effectively the CEO and I'm the deputy CEO it's a bit of a closed complaint loop. They get very disappointed when they threaten to report us to the ombudsman, only to email a few weeks or months later still in a huff when they realise the ombudsman doesn't investigate these sorts of disputes. That can get them really mad. I pay your wages is always a favourite. So do I mate. So do I.

I work as an online shopper in a busy store and the amount of abuse and huffing and puffing and comments of “these bloody people always getting in the way”, I think they forget we’re just normal human beings out there trying to earn a living and pay the bills as opposed to specifically being designed just to get in their way. It says a lot these days when it’s the nicer customers who stand out because they are so rare

What shocks me tbh is the people who keep doing the jobs we're all bloody lucky they keep doing (and the management that backs the scum who harass them)

Our service is free too. Which weirdly seems to make people think we and our time are worthless. At least they certainly talk to us like we are.

Why has everything got so very shit though? Is it inevitable? Does it have to be? Everything IS harder since Covid, and yes, people's attitudes have hardened. Do you think we can do anything to reverse it?

What particularly irks me re: threats to kill is the amount of paperwork I have to deal with when reporting it. I sure as hell report every single one but do get weary at spending my Saturday afternoon doing a video call with the police to make a statement. Very convenient and I can't fault them but if people would just not threaten to kill us that would free up my time to help more people.

Yup.
Definitely a 'Nanny State' mentality.
I used to volunteer in a Charity Shop and people used to haggle about the prices and even nick stuff 😮

I'd say the extremes have increased. I have some incredibly rude, demanding, angry and entirely inappropriate people. I also have some people that are over the top enthusiastic and grateful to be speaking to a real live helpful human being for a change instead of a chatbot.

In many organisations things are so hugely complicated and technical that more complaints seems inevitable. I say this as someone currently very frustrated at having to create numerous pointless accounts to book tickets for museums and attractions etc for an upcoming holiday when the last time I went you could just turn up everywhere on the day. I don't want a hundred accounts for every service and organisation I've ever come across. I genuinely can't imagine how I'll cope with this when I'm older.

I think people have no shame any more. People used to be embarrassed to behave poorly but now we’re told it’s ok to be who you are and tell it like it is etc etc. so standards get much lower.

PP said about SARS requests and the Ombudsman not being the same level of abuse but when you’re on the receiving end of it, it’s abusive. I’ve had 3 people in the last week and a half be rude, just because they want to vent and they feel like they’re entitled to something they’re not. I’ve had our CEO copied into emails, and the Ombudsman (who won’t investigate unless it’s gone through our internal procedures first), the SAR request. Fortunately my employer is supportive (and luckily for me I just had a great appraisal, so I know I’m more than competent at the job!) - these things happen to everyone - but it’s not great for my self esteem at work and leaves me feeling like it’s just not worth helping these utter arseholes.

I don’t work in this area so can’t comment on that. However from the other side, I find the lack of decency or humanity from phone operators really depressing.

@sunshine244 I'm getting older, & it's a nightmare.. as you say, I'm always thrilled to be talking to a real human & am very grateful if they can help me. No way am I going to bite their head off because I've had to wait for them to speak to me, it's not their fault.
@BeautifulLittlePumpkin I SO feel your pain..
@XmasCrackPies Yours too..
I think most of the frustration is because we HAVE to do these things (re contacting doctors surgeries etc) - it's not as though we can go elsewhere, sigh.