Go Ahead, Make My Day: The Appalling Attitude of Customers

How have we become a nation who thinks it's just and right to abuse, humiliate and denigrate the people who are here to help us? Take this man who thought it was completely appropriate to spit in the face of a teenager at a McDonald's drive through.

Guess what? HE IS WRONG. It is time to stop being rude and obnoxious to customer service staff.

And it is never appropriate to use sexist, misogynist language to women who are responsible for solving your problem. Never. And if I complain about your behaviour?

Don't try to turn it around and say that I am clearly some kind of 'ultra-feminist' who just needs a good (I will leave this to your imagination). Because if YOU are being a [insert your choice of descriptive word for a rude, obnoxious, person] and I call you on it, the person at fault is not ME. I am not offended because I have two X chromosomes; I am offended because you are horrible. You are behaving terribly, and you have treated me with disrespect. If I have called you to try to resolve an issue that you are having, I am very happy to hear your version of events.

I need to understand what your specific issues are. So tell me those in detail. Bring it on. But don't think you can use me as your verbal punching bag because you are frustrated; I am not interested. I know you all get angry when some poor sap is tasked to call you in the middle of dinner to ask you if you have funeral insurance. And I have, myself, spent over two hours on hold with a telecommunications company trying to get the internet to work, so I understand frustration believe me. But these people are just trying to do their job. They have not personally tasked themselves with ruining your meal.

They have not deliberately sought you out to interrupt your favourite television show. They are just trying to do their job. And I wonder how you would feel if you had someone spit in your face while you were just trying to do your job? I wonder how hard it would be to get up and go to work the next day if you knew that you would spend eight hours of having people call you names and swear at you over the phone every hour, every day.

I wonder how you would feel if someone was behaving this way to your child. Australia, it is time to STOP being a pack of rude bastards.

It's time to stop thinking you are better than the child behind the register who is trying to serve you. It's time to stop making fun of call centre operators who have an accent, and it's time to stop thinking that because I have two X chromosomes that I am in some way mentally inferior. Clean up your act, Australia. Treat people the way YOU would like to be treated in the workforce. Enough said.