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Daughter works evening job / holiday job in the supermarket for the better off, in a nice Surrey market town, and has to deal with appalling people regularly.<br /><br />
I don’t doubt it, although I’ve been lucky and seldom seen really bad behaviour by customers. I was waiting to be served in Wilco’s some time back and the young woman in front of me was very abrupt and rude to the member of staff serving her, no please, thank you, and she just stomped off out of the shop. I looked at the staff member and all I could say was “some people!”, she just shrugged and sighed deeply.
There were a few examples of snotty behaviour by drivers coming to either drop off or pick up cars, for a variety of reasons, often beyond our control, when I was working in the motor industry, which didn’t get them very far, and could, and sometimes did result in the driver being escorted off the site, reported and banned from ever coming back to our site. Which was easy for us to do, because everyone who came on site had to go through security and give their names; sadly not really an option in the average retail business.
Easier to do in a pub, though, and I’ve seen it happen - the two individuals tried to provoke me into reacting but I just rolled my eyes and went and sat down with my mate in the front of the pub, and a few minutes later there were raised voices, two bodies came hurtling over the divider between the bar and the seated area we were sat in, crashing on top of a table a couple were sat at, bottles and glasses going everywhere, women screaming in shock! The two responsible weren’t drunk, and they weren’t young oiks, they were two middle aged blokes, who clearly, and for no reason I could understand, wanted to provoke some random person into a fight.
I’m afraid I just don’t understand why people behave like that; everyone has off days, I know I do, but the one thing I will never do, and have never ever done, is get sniffy with someone serving me - it costs nothing to be nice, and even if my day is going to hell in a hand cart, why should I make someone else’s day as bad; I just can’t do it. 🤷🏼
two middle aged blokes, who clearly, and for no reason I could understand, wanted to provoke some random person into a fight.
I saw this once at the Download festival. One lad going round harassing everyone, spoiling for a random scrap. (All other things aside, what kind of mentalist do you have to be to pick a fight at Download?) Two big lads near me went, "right, we're not having this" and went to intercept. I thought, oh dear. They grabbed him, bundled him to the floor, and then sat on him till he calmed the hell down. 😁
It's one reason I prefer to drink in rock/biker pubs. They tend to be somewhat self-policing.
As much as I complain about the price of beer... one pub in my town just made it so expensive that it mostly keeps the 'riff-raff' out.
It might be an extra 2 quid a pint, but it's worth it for a quiet drink.
As an 18 year old, I had to stand on the door of the country's largest Sainburys, a few days before Christmas, and explain to people that they couldn't come in because the store was too full ("have one of these chocolates and go and join the queue over there"). The abuse I got was extraordinary. Obviously it's not a competition, but I think it's fair to say that anyone who works in retail recognizes the issue.
One thing that's clear is that the stress of the situation greatly increases the chances of somebody acting like a bellend.
In my Job I used to spend a lot of time in Hospitals, meeting staff and reviewing research data. Having lost a parent by that point, I was acutely aware that in hospitals there are an awful lot of stressed/upset/angry people around. I'd often remind myself when somebody clattered into me with a wheelchair, or coughed directly at me in a lift, that they may have just received the worst news of their life, or maybe had to wait for ages for a precious parking spot to take their mum in for their weekly chemo session.
With the state of the NHS (and all public services probably) the "temperature" of all these environments is going to increase. If you've been waiting 3 hours for an ambulance while your loved one is on the floor in agony - when they do get there, you might be a bit terse. Expand that to thousands of daily interactions, some of which are with people a lot less able to regulate their emotions than you - and the number of abuse incidents is inevitably going to rise.
It's easy to say that people shouldn't be ****s, and of course they shouldn't - but the way in which people are being squeezed at the moment, is inevitably going to result in a rise in this sort of thing. Not an excuse obviously - but it's certainly a big contributing factor that shouldn't be ignored.
I have a friend who is a paramedic and he’s been punched, bitten, stabbed with a needle and spat on. Genuinely don’t know how he does it. I’d be sacked and in prison!
I worked in retail for a couple of years and think everyone should. I go out of my way to be polite and accommodating when interacting with anyone public facing. Genuinely makes me sad and angry when I see those ‘abuse will not be tolerated’ signs. The fact they’re even needed is horrendous.
When I worked in retail I had a colleague who would simply smile at abusive people whilst having his arms folded behind his back. They’d either calm down, deflating like a balloon or get so vexed they’d walk away flapping their arms about. I’m blessed with an amazing dead eyed ten yard stare. So I’d put that to good use and watch angry and unreasonable people start to look concerned for their personal safety.
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I’ve seen the petrol station cashiers in a local Sainsbury’s with body worn video cameras as standard uniform now. I work for Forestry England and we’ve had to recently update and publish our position statement on how we expect people to behave towards our staff after lots of nasty behaviours directed at people who are just doing their jobs.
I fear the general population are just getting angrier...
As a GP, we're facing WAAAY more complaints from patients. I'd say 5% are them are foe genuine errors (missed prescriptions etc), the other 95% are simply "i'm not getting my way, in the timeframe I want, so will complain"..
It's getting annoying now.<br /><br />DrP
Pretty much that and sometimes they get away with it as their solicitor wins them “I was drunk I can’t recall it and I’m sorry.”<br /><br />
drac - you are probably perpetuating a myth there! That is a 100% not a defence. It might be offered in “mitigation” but it will generally not be seen a mitigating. Defence lawyers have a duty to put their clients version of events before the court even if they know it won’t help the client. They also play a useful role in the whole process by making sure the CPS do their shit properly and that when a client “was too pissed to remember” that they help them understand the prospects of winning. Defence solicitors have to talk to these people too - they know who are troubled souls and who are just trouble.<br /><br />
there may be occasions when a prosecutor is telling you that they’ve accepted a Not Guilty for this for that sort of reason. It’s bullshit - what they mean is “we didn’t have the evidence in order / we forgot to cite a witness / the cctv wouldn’t play / they offered to plead guilty to another charge if we dropped this / we had too many cases planned for court and I needed to get home to pick up the kids”.
They may also accept an out of court “restitution” which in some cases might be a letter of apology although I’d be surprised if it was for offences against emergency workers that merited prosecution in the first place. There’s not enough space to debate the pro’s and con’s of that here - but bear in mind that the court system is so broken (because it’s politically good to increase nhs budgets, but politically good to slash legal aid and court budgets!) that if it goes to trial it might be 2 years after the incident, your ambulance crew will spend all day sitting in a court room waiting to give evidence, possibly for the case to be rescheduled and have to come back and do it again a few months later.
One ‘plus’ out of this though is that those of us that occasionally ride our bikes and fall off (especially at BPW and end up in Prince Charles Hospital) tend to get preferential treatment as we almost always are apologetic, do exactly as we’re told and very grateful for the help.
Unfortunately that has not been my experience at Abergavenny A&E. A friend of mine had significant major injuries after coming off his bike at the Black Mountains Cycle centre. Rather than wait for an ambulance I put him in the car and took him to A&E directly.
The service that we got at the hospital was piss poor and dismissive, despite (or even because of) me saying that I was a doctor and explaining exactly why I was concerned about him. I was polite and respectful at all times, as I've been on the receiving end of bad patient behaviour. I was, however insistent, and they did not like this.
They wouldn't put him on a trolley, despite me asking them to do so. When the triage nurse came out to call him in to assess him, she was insistent that he walk across the waiting room, and dismissed me when I said he couldn't walk. It was only when the other people waiting had told her that he'd gone grey and slumped in the chair that she deigned to get him a trolley. She then triaged him incorrectly, and he spent far too long waiting for the investigations that should have happened within an hour.
He ended up spending 12 days in hospital. Fortunately he didn't have an enduring brain injury, and to be fair the function wasn't that great before the injury, but the experience of knowing that something was significantly wrong with him and yet being ignored because reasons gave me a lot of empathy for those who do kick off.
[Avoids penning analogy) Looks like the paramedic placed their weight against an unsecured door which then opened and she fell out.
Unfortunately that has not been my experience at Abergavenny A&E.
When was this as Neville Hall hasn't had a fully functioning A&E for a number of years. It was winding down since 2019, was running on skeleton staff from 2020 and closed in 2021 to now be just a Minor Injuries unit and even that is in danger of closing now. The whole hospital was only ever meant to be a small regional hospital (one up from a Cottage hospital) so never has had the full facilities that the classification suggested. Locals with complex or ongoing needs were always transferred to the Royal Gwent, Prince Charles or Hereford and now go to The Grange, Hereford or The Heath in Cardiff.
It was in 2019.
Genuinely makes me sad and angry when I see those ‘abuse will not be tolerated’ signs. The fact they’re even needed is horrendous.
we’ve had to recently update and publish our position statement on how we expect people to behave towards our staff
Do they make any difference?
Like, do people think "right, I'm going to kick off" and then see the signs and change their mind? Do shoplifters only target shops which don't have "shoplifters will be prosecuted" signs on display?
Do they make any difference?
Sometimes. Some people, when you make them aware that it’s become abuse, do wind their necks in.
It was in 2019.
Most likely after they had been told of the changes and a lot of the staff had left. They were told right at the end of 2018 and a lot of the decent staff moved rapidly. Not excusing it at all but it's a possible reason behind your experience.
Do they make any difference?
Like, do people think “right, I’m going to kick off” and then see the signs and change their mind? Do shoplifters only target shops which don’t have “shoplifters will be prosecuted” signs on display?
They work on the regular annoyed customers, ones who are having a bad day etc, but the properly angry and unpredictable ones don't take any notice.
@reluctantjumper I’m quite glad to hear it closed, because by that stage it was barely fit for purpose.
My mate who had a history of a high energy head trauma, significant (4 hours plus) retrograde amnesia and ongoing anterograde amnesia waited 8 hours for a CT scan. In minors on a trolley after he’d had a precipitous fall in blood pressure in the waiting room.
And I’d had to kick off to get him on a trolley.
****ing amateurs.