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

[CurdinHenry]

More aggression, more delusions to a fairly extreme degree?

Going against the grain, maybe some of this is that it's often so frustrating dealing with companies these days. Never mind the labyrinth of different options on the phone before you actually get through to a person, they're often not very helpful when you do speak to someone.

It recently took me three months and about ten emails to get a reply from my managing agents about an important and relatively urgent issue - and we actually pay them a not inconsiderable amount for this shit level of service!

I didn't threaten anyone, obviously, but I was jolly cross when I finally spoke to the person I'd been emailing for 14 weeks.

What is your job?

@LunaTheCat The receptionists at my surgery are fantastic.
If I heard anyone having a go at them I would intervene. I also wouldn't expect my GP's to read through a tome of symptoms or whatever but it IS disheartening when you don't go to the surgery often & have about five symptoms & are told to choose the top one or two.. you'd think all of them would give a balanced picture of what was going on?

Making a subject access request or going to the ombudsman, in itself, is not abusive. People are entitled to do those things. It's what they should be doing instead of being abusive to frontline staff. The problem is people being rude and venting. Otherwise it would be a simple case of signposting them to the complaints process and forwarding their SAR to the data controller.

I'm sorry you're dealing with arseholes. The abuse is not OK. I've worked in some very full-on, stressful roles dealing with the public and I do understand what it's like. I'm sorry to hear it's getting worse.

A lot of low-grade depression around

So many people are on the hamster wheel

I work in healthcare and it's always come with the territory sadly. However, I would say the past two years it is worse than I've ever known it. So much anger.

I was called a useless cunt today after doing an MRI scan and not producing a report there and then. I get it can be a stressful time waiting but bloody hell it is not my fault.

I also think a lot of people think they're the only person in the world. This man today couldn't understand why we can't just churn out an in-depth report on a very in-depth scan within seconds. It also didn't enter his head that the other 30 patients I scanned today would also need a report. Hence the 10 day wait.

NHS worker here
you’re right people are very very rude! I see some shocking stuff at work

I see this over and over now in public, and I think it’s disgusting. I have always made a point to be friendly with people I come across. Then it got ingrained in me decades ago when I realised how many people judge me for how I look (alternative). Start friendly, ignore any judgement, kill with kindness. Every single time it results in a positive way, and then it’s nice to build a rapport. I’ve always said thank you for helping me, I’m sorry you got the heavy delivery, have a nice day, sorry to be a pain, I’m good - how are you? Genuinely compliment people on things. I’ve brought DD up the same way. When I’ve been on hold to sort out difficult issues for long times I always make a point (and say so to DD) that it’s not the call handler who is at fault, they didn’t do anything wrong so there is never any excuse to be rude, you thank them for trying to help. All of this is common decency. Why that has gone out of the window I don’t know. But the people who are horrible like this should take a long hard look at themselves before being abusive to people who are just doing their job. It’s inexcusable.

Some people do. A good complaints procedure will include a vexatious complaints policy so there is clarity around what is reasonable. A lot of people submit what they believe are genuine complaints but they are mistaken about what has happened or what their entitlements are, or their complaint is not rational because their distress has clouded their judgment or they have a mental illness. And a lot of people get treated like shit by organisations but never complain because they don't want to cause a nuisance or get someone in trouble. There are probably still more of those people around than the abusive arseholes.

I do think this adds to it. Spending two hours on the phone waiting for it to be answered dies not put anyone in a good mood.

I’m quite close to quitting my volunteer role at CAB. People are far more aggressive than they were pre-lockdown as well as way more entitled.

I think in part it’s because there are few repercussions now.

When I first started with CAB it was made very clear that any rudeness toward volunteers wouldn’t be tolerated. Now it’s violence that won’t be tolerated, but also calling the police when someone kicks off isn’t a threat because they take an hour to come and then nothing comes of it anyway.

I work in a school and you would not believe the aggressive and unpleasant tone of the emails I get daily from parents, as well the in-person rudeness which is becoming commonplace.

Yes it's unbelievable how many people think the world owes them free expert advice. Just automatic parasite mode.

Its not entitlement to expect to get the service I have paid for. Sometimes its just bad and incompetent service. I have a business contract with * Royal Mail to pick up mail from me. Today the sealed bag of paid for *mail which was collected from me on Saturday was mistakenly returned to me by a man who spoke no English and who made no attempt to listen or understand the problem. He just dumped me with the mail and walked away. Tomorrow I have to ring Royal Mail business services and book an emergency collection. I have to explain to my overseas customers why their tracking numbers do not work. Its not the fault of the agent I will speak to but i have to do what's best for my business so that I don't look like an incompetent idiot.

Yeah I agree. Theres no excuse but service is fucking shit now. Dont know how it happened tbh.

Yes, I've had death threats from patients in the NHS because they weren't able to be seen when they demanded (non urgent). One did indeed threaten to cut my head off and told me he was on his way with a big knife. Security came and waited in our department for an hour or so then left.
Also patients handing me their benefit applications with a script of what they wanted me to write down and a threat that I wouldn't want to get this wrong.
Been sexually assaulted (twice) and followed home from work, when the police followed this up he said he just wanted to ask me on a date.
But the worst was the creepiest man (a child murderer) who said totally vile things that I still can't unhear.
If I had my life over, I'd be a cake maker or something.

But I have to say this....and sorry but......there's a hell of a lot of incompetence out there too. I once had to make phone calls to 5 different places just to get an address changed for a regular delivery of a product for an elderly disabled relative of mine. 5 bloody phone calls !!!! And 2 weeks ago I was having work done on my bathroom. I was awaiting 3 deliveries. The first packsge arrived with screws missing, some taps turned up far too late, and a door turned up with a huge dent in it. I could give numerous other examples. It's not surprising ppl get fed up and complain. Many workers and businesses are abaolute shit at what they do.

Poor service is also a really common thing.

Dealing with the death of a relative recently I ended up having to complain to four different companies (all big ones) because of how many time I had to explain that she couldn’t bloody ring and close the account/tell them about a name change herself.

People work so much from a script they don’t even listen to your whole sentence before starting to answer what they think you’re going to say.

If mental health is rife then we're ok.
It's poor mental health we need to be concerned about

@LancashireButterPie How absolutely awful (re your last sentence)

[Flowers]

Also noticed an increase in long, long, clearly AI written emails. Usually spouting some ridiculous nonsense.

which age groups? I see it more in older but may be due to my own age and who I have most contact with though.

There are so many companies with the scripts now (and to be fair it was 20years ago) however you give the AI bot all the info and pass the security checks etc and then get passed to an actual person and they ask what the problem is - and you’ve already explained so much but it’s ignored.

We are in the IT business and traditionally dealt only with companies that didn’t use the script - their engineers actually listened and would jump 20/50 steps as they actually knew what they were doing - admittedly they were probably paid twice the money but you need much less staff and you have happier customers as the waiting time is so much less but this is rare today. We run our business and supply equipment, websites, software, websites, mailboxes, VoIP, the fibre - everything you need for an office that involves a keyboard. We are not cheap but all calls are answered within 30seconds by proper trained experienced staff and we fix people’s problems. We have recently been turning down some new potential clients as I’m struggling to get extra staff that we need but I won’t compromise the service we supply to existing clients.