Hi everyone
just been reading the visitors board...Am I the only one who get riled by the lack of basic manners...I WANT...any sign of please...Uh  NO CHANCE
Archer

I've given up hoping for manners from a lot of people, Archer! :( Politeness seems to have gone out of the window. (But you daren't respond in kind, or you're accused of all sorts of things.) :(

was about to reply to a post on the visitors board with a comment about getting more help if they said 'please' but thought I'd probably get called for it.
I just find it soooo annoying..manners cost nothing
Archer

I just checked a post I posted on the feeding board and I didn't say please. Sorry, but it's just not the visitors

Jean

I hate people who have NO MANNERS !!
I have always brought my chidren up to say please and thankyou and the amount of times they have held the door open for adults in shops etc and thay arent even acknowledged !!! :(
Drives me MAD!!!!!
Manners cost nothing!

Just go into your local supermarket and see how some people talk to the staff......... I've met goats with better social skills :(

Manners maketh Man and Woman in my book. Its very sad that being polite to customer facing staff gets such a huge, positive reaction as if theyve given up expecting it.

It works both ways too - how many times have we been in a shop where the assistant carries on her conversation with her friend and barely acknowledges you , never mind even saying thankyou when you hand over the money ? :(

Liberty, come into our local supermarket and see how some of the staff talk to the customers!!!

My mum always told me that if you didn't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!

All the staff in my local supermarket are lovely!! Perhaps I'm just lucky?

No - the staff in ours are really friendly too :)

Daisy

It's a pet hate of mine, people who treat the check out person as if they were part of the machinery. With guests posts it is not so much how they word their question as the content that gets my back up, but agree with Archer some are down right rude and others so cryptic that they are unintelligible.

I was a waitress for a few years and although I loved the job and the people I worked with I met some af the rudest most arrogant people EVER! I had people clicking their fingers at me and talking to me like I was stupid. The amount of times people asked for something without a Please or Thank You! or without even making eye contact sometimes! Grrrr

Grrrr....Supermarkets. I always say hello, but 9 times out of ten I get glared at and my shopping gets chucked down the conveyor belt (which really winds me up), then they barely ask for my money (I usually get a mumbled statement of the cost!)...no please's and thank you's....its no wonder people get into a rut of just ignoring them!

Must depend on the supermarket, as ours are always friendly - say hello, ask if you need help with your shopping etc and always have a chat :) Come and use ours - Friday night is party night (well not quite :) )

Daisy

Well I work at BQ and as "duty manager" I am in contact with the public daily. And do you know a majority of my job now is taken up comforting checkout girls aged 18 upwards who grown MEN have sworn at. WHY well the last one had left his credit cards at home and didn't have enough money to pay and threw the tin of varnish at the checkout operator who happened to be 6 months and obviously pregnant. The other because he wanted pre-painted plaster. He didn't believe her when she told him no such thing. He want ballistic and had to be restrained by other customers!!!!

Then there has been a woman who SPAT on the desk when asked if she had a receipt...she wanted to bring back something she had brought in 1998!!! for a refund. When I went down to see her she actually SPAT in my face, and decided as I didn't react to that, she thought it was okay to spack me around the face.

I mean the "violence level" has risen 10 fold in the last 2 years and 100 fold in the last 7 months or so.

I mean I have in 18 years in BQ I have been hit with handbags,umberella's, wallpaper, fists. Been hit with carrier bags with tins/keys and once a brick in it. Also threatened with a knife, and spat at once. Not including abuse and torrents of swearing etc, pluspuched poked and slapped.

I have had my tyres slashed and brake fluid poured over my car. These have all been customers.

Also hit by a shoplifter with the heavy end of a strimmer that one knocked me 4ft in the air and broke my nose and knocked me out, threatened with a shotgun (it didn't go off) and hit once with a broom handle.
In an armed robbery they were beating one of my Saturday lads up and when I went to get him away I was coshed....two fractured ribs and severe bruising and then stabbed well "sliced" would a better description I had to go by ambulance and have 14 stitches in my side. Thats what I can recall.

All in a days work...and honestly I do smile still.

Karen
      

Not as bad as yours - but my daughter gets really fed up - she works at a Beefeater and is really upset at the number of customers who let their children run riot around the restaurant. She has nearly dropped lots of things because of children running into her. The parents don't seem to care and think that because they are paying they can do as they like :(

Daisy

Oh Karen that is awful.  You deserve a bravery medal!  Keep up the good work and I promise I will be on my very best behaviour if ever I go into B&Q!

But it's not that unusual honestly most people I speak to in retail have had similar thing happen okay maybe not all been in an armed robbery/shoplifters but 98% of shop workers I would think will know/work with someone who has. Plus I would think 99% of the retail staff have been sworn at pushed/treated in an unduly aggresive manner. I sympathise with your daughter I would NEVER work in fast food retail. The abuse they get from kids/teenagers/adults etc is beyond the pail.

Karen  

That is awful, Karen :( It does make you wonder what the world is coming to :(

Daisy

The 1 thing that really does get my back up, is when i am out with my elderly mum, and going through doors.
I open the door for her to come through and find loads of people coming through before my mum, im like a doorman, so many people walk thorugh without a gesture of thanks, or waiting untill my mum trots through, they can see that i am holding the door for her and that she has a walking stick yet they barge through.
this happens loads in supermarkets.
in the past when my daughter was a baby in her pram i was aproaching the supermarket door and 2 women were infront of me i thought they would hold open the doors, "wrong" as i was about to come through they let the doors go and they shut on the pram, i was livid to say the least.
Why are some people like this, there is no need for it.
its not just supermarkets though, shopping malls are worst

Any violence or threats from the public ( whether physical or verbal) are reportable under RIDDOR regs and your employer has a DUTY to report any such incident . He is breaking the law if he doesnt report them .He also has to have measures in place to prevent this sort of behaviour ( security guards etc)

( Just spouting my H&S revision again) :)

I was not aware that threats were reportable under RIDDOR?  http://www.asu.org.uk/hands/riddor.html

I hate it when you see really friendly and polite staff and  the customer they are helping are being rude and impolite,i always stick up for the shop assistant,a few times i have said something to the customer about their rudeness,no-one has ever said anything back to me,they usually scurry off with their tails betwwen their legs Alot of folk look down at retail workers as if they are a lower life or something I live in a rich area (except for me :( ) and our local supermarket takes the cake for the amount of condescending customers,99% of the time there is one infront or behind me,i always make a point of chatting with the check out chick,and i very loudly state "dont ya just hate these rich stuck up people who think they are better than everyone else"?? Geez if looks could kill i'd be dead by now :D
When i hold a door open for someone and they dont say thank-you or even acknowledge me,i still say "YOUR WELCOME" it usually makes them feel bad ;)
Then you get the old people,some of them  treat you like sh*t but still expect you to treat them with respect,i totally agree with the "respect your elders" but it works both ways,they should also treat others the way they would like to be treated.Some of the worst offenders i have seen have been elderly folk,but the worst would have to be the rich stay at home house wives who are soo bored they are bitter to everyone.

christine

Hi all,

I also have to add that IMHO, 'teenage' girls seem to universally be getting much ruder/more arrogant (with a few exceptions!).  We all know that they can be bitterly cruel sometimes, but something that happened the other day really made me see just how bad mannered a lot of these girls are becoming.  As you may or may not know, my eldest son has a genetic condition called Nf (Neurofibromatosis), which means that he has loads of birthmarks all over him and also a large lump (tumour) over his left eye. He has had it from birth and it doesn't bother him too much:).
A few weeks ago, my family was all shopping in town, my husband had taken our youngest boy to the loo, and me and Rhys were waiting for them.  A group of about 6 or 7 girls were standing quite near to us, aged about 13-15.  Imagine my horror, when they all started looking at Rhys and pointing. That was bad enough, but then the 'talk' started.  Now Rhys, as I said, has grown up with this and most comments seem to go right over his head, thankfully. But the things that they were saying were utterly cruel and disgusting- I won't repeat what they said, suffice to say that even I was shocked.  To say those things to an 8 year old-I was ashamed of them. Rhys, bless him, turned round to me and said 'Don't worry, mummy, they don't know any better'
Their sort of mentality is getting too 'normal' for my liking.  I know that teenagers go through their own 'Kevin' periods, but it does me me wonder just what these girls were being taught, at home and at school.
I was a teenage girl too (ok, a VERY longtime ago) and I understand the sort of 'peer' pressure that you can be put under by your 'mates', but some lines you just don't cross and some things you just don't say--ever-.
Sorry, rant over everyone:)

Ali :)

When Christopher was in his pushchair a man pushed past me into the lift at M&S.

Unfortunately for him, as he tried to push past me again on the way out, the pushchair happened to move slightly, so he went flying.

Shame that.

But seriously, manners are fairly appalling right across the age board. Its not just the younger ones, Older people often push or don't say thank you for held doors.  One ran into my ankles with a trolley twice in Tesco last week, instead of saying excuse me.

I always insist that Christopher says please and thank you & excuse me, but you can see his confusion when people don't even bother to acknowledge it.

Something that always used to drive me absolutely mad was people walking in front of me while l was choosing something in a shop. Often there was plenty of room behind me, too! Unbelievable!!!

However, it happens so often now, and just about everybody does it, that i have found myself doing it too. I guess i have just given up!! I do say "Scuse me" though, which some don't!

Lindsay

Discourtesy does infuriate me whoever is responsible. Politeness costs nothing and makes life so much pleasanter for everyone in our frenzied world. I wont lose self respect by being rude, even if other people are, but boy does it take self control. Mocking the disabled or those who just look different is so contemptible - maybe lack of manners and bullying are connected?

Lorelei,
I think that you could be spot on there. I bet that if I got one of those teenagers on their own with Rhys and he asked them why they were so cruel, I bet that they couldn't give him a good reason:(

Ali :)