Kate Hawkesby: Staffing issues might in fact be caused by ourselves as the customers

So I note the Police commissioner was saying the other day re the surge in youth offending, that it’s up to us to do more about it, and look after our communities better.

And then hospitality came out and said staffing issues in the sector may be on us as well.

What they’re saying is that customers are getting ruder these days, that abuse and poor treatment of hospitality staff is getting more commonplace, and that they’re sick of it - and we need to do better. It’s apparently turning many off the industry now.

An industry that used to be fun, is now not so fun. So it’s on us, the customers, to lift our game.

Now this has of course been a globally contentious issue recently, thanks to late night TV host James Corden and his - now infamous – verbal altercation with staff at a New York restaurant.

Furious they got his wife’s meal order wrong three times; he told staff he’d be better off going into the kitchen and cooking it himself. Cue the restaurant owner labelling Corden the rudest man he’d ever met.

There is no room for rudeness to people doing their best. I witnessed a supermarket checkout operator getting a dressing down the other day.

They of course are the other sector complaining that people are getting ruder, and this customer sadly embodied that. He laid all his groceries on the counter and as she was scanning them through, he announced he didn’t have his wallet.

He said it was in his car and he’d have to go back to the carpark and get it. The supermarket was chocka, heaving with people, and the queues at each checkout were long and full.

The checkout operator politely nodded and as he walked off to head back to the carpark, she finished putting his groceries through, packed them for him, then put his trolley of groceries to one side.

She paused the sale and said to us, as we were next in line, that she would put our groceries through as she didn’t know how long he would be and she didn’t want to hold everyone up. Fair enough.

As she was finishing scanning our groceries he returned, visibly agitated that she hadn’t waited for him, and pushed past me to the EFTPOS machine where I was waiting to pay and said to the checkout operator, “I hope I’m not paying for these as well, where are my groceries I’m ready to pay.”

She politely explained they were all packed for him and the sale had been suspended until he returned and he could pay right after this transaction. I tried to get back to the EFTPOS machine at this point to pay, but he wouldn’t budge.

Without making any eye contact with me, he leaned in further towards her, she was about 15 years old, and started giving her an ear bashing about not waiting for him.

I interjected at this point and told him given the supermarket was chocka what on earth was he expecting, and I apologized to the young checkout girl for his rudeness.

 I went ahead and paid, he stood there still fuming. The checkout girl just smiled and said to me, “Thanks, don’t worry, I’m resigning anyway, this happens all the time.”

So another checkout operator sick of being treated badly, leaves the job. Add that to all the others, and the hospo staff who’re sick of it, and you can see that the industry leaders saying a lot of this is our fault, may not all be wrong.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.