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

[CurdinHenry]

More aggression, more delusions to a fairly extreme degree?

You yourself say they were not rude or aggressive, just stupid.
You know all those kids with learning difficulties that parents rightly fight for their needs to be met? They go on to be adults living independently and still struggling to understand things like contracts. They don't deserve vitriol for that.

Its because they live in their own bubble - they are the Main Character and everyone else can go to hell.

I once met the guy who invented the phone menu system (press 1 for appointments, 2 for accounts, 3 for after market care, etc). He was a multi millionaire. As someone who used to work switchboard in the late 1980s, it was obvious where all this would end up.

We have created systems that are effectively barriers. And people are responding as if they're primed to fight at every turn.

Combined with this, there's now a scarcity of resources. No one was screaming about housing need in Birmingham in the 1980s because if you asked for a council flat as a single, childless person, then you'd get a council flat. If you went to hospital and needed treatment, then you'd be admitted on to a ward. In 1995, when my dad needed to go into a nursing home, his local government pension covered the whole cost. In other words, we're now putting people into impossible situations and then wondering why they're not saying please and thank you at every point.

I'm a teacher. The amount of anger directed towards me from parents is unreal. But it's not actually directed towards me. I'm just the person in front of them. They're angry because they're angry, often because they're poor and usually because they can't access services they need. I have to remind myself that anger is the other side of fear (remember it's fight or flight). It's a mess.

Honestly what do people expect? You could have predicted this by the way children are raised.
Kids are savages and require strict boundaries and direction as they grow and develop.
Parents are told you must validate their kids every action / feeling to never chastise them or undermine their confidence so the children grow up entitled. Kids hold all the power.
You cannot touch them and they know it.

Then you have social media egging them on in all sorts of bad behaviour and entitlement.

I wonder how many parents allow phones at night in bedrooms. You really don’t know what the children are up to.

And as adults we see how little our Government thinks of the populace by monitoring our every move, curtailing our free speech, allowing the invasion of our country and prioritising foreign born people over our own.
Is it surprising that many are resentful and reactionary.

Disagree. Loads of cashiers now tell you the price and take the money without a please or thank you.
I still say please and thank you in return, so dont blame me!

Yes and then they complain over social media that the NHS or CAHMS are useless.
It is partly the result of mental health awareness campaigns which give people the idea that they need professional help because they are a bit sad. Meanwhile people with diagnosable serious mental health problems get less and less support.

You are wrong about one thing. Birmingham had a large tent city in the eighties because of high homelessness.

But in the eighties security staff would physically tackle shoplifters and police would arrest them. And you would be barred from shops because of verbal abuse and even prosecuted

What the hell are you on about? Sounds like a few sound bites from Robinson and 'Tommo', both of whom have been convicted of violent crimes. Not sure how echoing men of violence is going to make things less scary for those with public facing roles.

Exactly
….and you get people saying you will only been seen if suicidal/severe so people say things thinking it helps then get referred on - effectively talking themselves out of the service they actually need!

OR the 20% DNA rate nationally of people who don’t turn up - then will present for help again saying they never heard from the service - every letter email and text is logged and can be seen of it was delivered and accessed

As a Brummie, could you tell me where this large tent city was?

And yeah, shoplifting has always been illegal. Your point?

No weirdly! Last year was peak assholeness- people arguing, foot tapping, the shouts of ‘is there not more staff’ really loudly to try to lead other customers into dissent, but now I’ve a lot more ‘I feel for ye all’ customers. I suppose I empathise with them fairly early and apologise for the wait. Really strange, said it about a month ago how people seem less angry and it continues!

I work in the NHS and the abuse is definitely getting worse. The demand and entitlement is getting beyond a joke and I’m not talking about normal decent patient care

I had this when my parents died. I explain how I need to close the account because my parents have died. Answer just log on and do X, y and z. I can't I don't know log in details. Do you know telephone password. No. Okay ring our bereavement service. I ring there on hold for ages and expect these staff to be nicer and they're really not. It's still can you give us X info from the last bill. I explain I don't have this. Well can you just look for it.

My parents died suddenly in a car crash. They had not tidied their affairs as they were expecting to live a lot longer. I have zero idea where anything is and am in absolute bits, oh and have two weeks to clear the council house they were living in. But nobody cared, or tried to make any process easier.

I work with Small businesses and I have done for many years. It is astounding the attitude of some
of these people who believe they are entitled to customers. That people should be grateful they are selling them their hobbies or making sun power coffee etc etc. it used to be you met a few in a year now I’d say 40% have a serious entitled attitude. The work ethic is seriously dwindling. I’m retiring soon thank god

Little happens about shoplifting now. You wouldn't see people just walking out with stuff back then. They were physically tackled.

Homeless hostels were used for families, One of the most notorious examples was a former military property on Palmer Street used by the council to house homeless families. It had been twice condemned as unfit for human habitation, suffering from exposed brick, severe damp, and leaking sewage pipes before a massive High Court battle by residents led to its eventual demolition in late 1983. They werent just given flats.

You are right they weren't tents cities as tents were expensive. They were cardboard cities around the bullring. I remember going to Birmingham and being shocked.

Yes!! I work in admin for NHS. For the past 2 weeks maybe more I’ve had to walk away from my desk to stop myself crying. I’ve never been more depressed and stressed in a job I once loved. Most patients are lovely and we have a really good relationship and we always stop and have a chat. But lately people can’t do anything for themselves, blame it on us eg, missing numerous calls when given a time frame but somehow this is my fault, not knowing when their hospital appt is because they forgot, again my fault even though we don’t work on the hospital system. Not being able to get in touch with the hospital department again my fault. (I don’t work in said hospital) Missed an appointment, shouted at me, tapping nails on the desk, demanding I get the doctor to call her back TODAY for the doctor to call her back and the patient apologise to the doctor for missing the appointment but somehow it’s my fault. I don’t know what’s going on but I really feel like giving up.

And the threats of being filmed or recorded in appointments or threats about reporting to the NMC or local MPs just because they are not being offered what they want (usually an immediate inpatient bed).People turn up thinking these beds are magically empty and they will be whisked off to the Priory because life is a bit overwhelming or they feel sad, as this is what celebrity reality tv shows them, they then tell me it is my fault if they self harm and will escalate the threats and behaviours until they get what they want.

Meanwhile my psychotic extremely depressed patient who has made multiple serious suicide attempts cant get the bed they need as those who have made the most threats are in them.

I have a few examples

The false claims.

. Those who claimed that they have waited to be served for 35 mins when they have only queued for 50 seconds. The CCTV doesn’t lie. Manager asked them to leave and on reviewing the CCTV, banned them.

. “I only bought this top last week” Looking at the date code on the label, it was bought 4 years ago and looks like it was dragged on the ground for four miles. If I tried to enter the number on the label (which is the barcode number) it would come up with nothing

. “I always buy (item we haven’t stocked for 5 years) every week” I know what we don’t sell as code checked the fresh every day

. “Christmas has been ruined” As unable to buy a turkey. Phrases like this piss me off. Christmas ruined is when your house gets burned down

Funny you should start this thread. I’m a volunteer in my local hospital and a 40 ish male was abusive to me last week and I was wondering if things are getting worse.
The vending machine had given him hot water instead of hot chocolate. Honestly you’d think it was the end of the world.
After much shouting in my face I told him I’d phone to get help. Cue him looking very smug.
I had in fact phoned security who promptly turned up, he wasn’t such a big man then, they escorted him out of the hospital with his poor wife walking quietly out behind him.
He obviously had zero respect for women. Made my blood boil.

The amount of complex cases we have is off the scale, its seems like every other person has dual diagnosis, mulitiple issues, and all of them are angry and agressive.

I agree, it's the same with autism too. There are people with mental health problems or autism who genuinely cannot manage their emotions but a lot of them are able to do so. Some use it as a justification for their entitled and aggressive behaviour. I am seeing more of it and it can be hard to remain professional because I'm not sure that's the right thing. They need a dose of reality and to be told how awful they are and face consequences.

Playing devil's advocate here, I don't think the systems people (the public) have to work within help. If you have a question/query/problem you need help with, you need to spend hours waiting in a phone queue (my local council experiences "exceptionally high" call volumes 24/7 ) or chatting with a chat bot before you get through to an actual human being who may be able to help. If you email, then half the time, you get an AI response that doesn't actually answer the question asked from a no-replies address. So it's not surprising that a lot of prople are in a frustrated rage by the time they get through.

So yes the public need a reset but do do businesses and institutions in how they handle their customer service.

AI is not helping. People are firing off 30 page complaints with very little effort. Invariably the AI nonsense quotes irrelevant laws or situations that don’t apply to the complaint at hand. It’s unclear what they are actually complaining about a lot of the time. The government are encouraging people to complain, ombudsman’s are encourage complaints and then issuing compensation at the drop of a hat. Both things causing significant costs to the public sector - the compensation and the staff time to provide the ombudsman with all the info rather than using that to fix the actual issue. People are incapable of sucking up a bit of inconvenience or understanding that staff are also people trying their best most of the time. And that’s before the actual abuse and/or the number of people who refuse to communicate by phone and want everything in formal letters.

It's the AI complaints emails citing made up legislation for me. They think they're coming in with such a gotcha! But they're just factually wrong....

Also the number of people who say "due to my disability you must..... reasonable adjustments yada yada....goes on to demand fully unreasonable/impossible adjustments" I'm sympathetic to a point, but asking a library to build you an office because you have bad WiFi at home and you have a disability so therefore we "have to" is absurd.

When I went to get my flu jab I was met with a big yellow sign, six foot tall will bold black letters screaming ‘zero tolerance’ and listing every unacceptable behaviour. I get they need to make it clear abuse of staff is unacceptable but it felt very aggressive and accusatory. Seeing it made you feel very defensive and wary (and if you stopped to read it all the way to the floor they hurried you on as you were in the way). If you start from the premise that someone contacting you will abuse you unless you tell them not to then you have already set the relationship on rocky foundations.