'Don't take it out on our staff!': How did Britain get so angry?

In November 2019, a customer complained to the insurance company Ageas. Repairs had been made to his car after it was damaged in an accident, but he felt necessary work had been missed. Ageas sent an engineer to inspect the vehicle, but it was decided that no further action was necessary. That's when the abuse started, says Rachel Undy, the company's chief operating officer. "It was mostly sexist abuse - very angry - shouting, disgusting language and quite personal insults." Over the next few months, the customer contacted Ageas 98 times, in increasingly threatening and often farcical ways.

"Eventually we refused to speak to him , but his emails continued in the same language," Undy explains. At one point, she recalls, he made viciously rude remarks to her, before eventually directing his anger at the male engineer as well - "threatening even to come into the office and talk to him face to face".

Undy has seen an increase in the number of aggressive clients over the past two years, and the staff at the centers is far from alone. You may have noticed the proliferation of "Don't take it out on our staff" signs on the pale walls of law firms, in train stations and family restaurants, or at times felt a palpable tension in the public spaces we all inhabit. ranging from surgical receptionists, staff in contact with the public say they have suffered an increase in abusive treatment since the start of the Covid pandemic. The number of shop workers dealing with abusive customers has risen by 25% since February this year according to the latest data from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), while the British Medical Association revealed in May that violence crime in medical offices had almost doubled in five years. .

In October 2021, a survey conducted for the ICS found that half of those in regular contact with the public had experienced abuse in the past six months - a 6% increase - and 27% had been physically assaulted. The result has been a flurry of new policies, including legislation allowing the introduction of tougher penalties for abusers in a bid to protect staff who serve the public. Last month, Lincolnshire Council announced a plan to restrict access to certain services to 'vexatious' customers, in response to a significant rise in 'verbally abusive and aggressive' behavior towards staff during the pandemic .

The change in some people's behavior means frontline workers have to deal with an extra layer of emotional labor just to get the job done. "It's really hard to hear someone say they hope my kids are going to die," Bradley, an ambulance call evaluator, said recently in support of the Work Without Fear initiative by ambulance workers in the city. NHS. At Ageas, Undy describes the months of abuse inflicted on her and other staff as "exhausting, frustrating and insulting". The abuse only ended when the client's insurance policy was canceled and the police asked him to sign a community resolution form, which he did voluntarily.

"By many, many parameters, violence has been on the decline for a very long time," says Michael Muthukrishna, associate professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics. it never has been in the long run of history." Yet in recent years, loneliness and mental health issues have eroded confidence and resilience and here we are emerging from a pandemic that is rocking the world , to deal with recession and climate change. We have all experienced the Armageddon vibe of empty supermarket shelves during the pandemic, along with medical shortages and dry gas pumps. Too many people have been plunged into the poverty by the cost of living crisis I could go on.

There is no excuse for abusive behavior, but, says Muthukrishna: "Anything that increases stress will increase your anger and frustration, and your likelihood of to pick on somebody. And maybe that's enough to explain what happened specifically during the pandemic."