The types of people who are rude to service workers
It’s a well-known fact that if you’re going to be a service industry worker, you’re going to encounter some rude people. For some reason, people think it’s OK to snap at people who wait on them. Because you’re catering to them, it’s like they think they don’t have to be polite.
If you’ve ever been a server or retail worker, you can probably share a few horror stories. I have a few up my sleeve. I’ve spent some time working as a service worker. I worked for a bit in retail, and then I worked in restaurants as a host, busser, and server’s assistant. Oh boy, do I have stories about rude people.
There was the person who fussed at me for swiping her card twice because it didn’t work the first time. The person who tutted at me for crossing in front of her when I clearly had my hands full. The person who practically screamed at me for not remembering to ask for coupons. When I was a customer, I saw another customer get mad at the server because I had been served first. (The server had to patiently explain that I had been served first because I’d only ordered a sandwich.)
With all of this rudeness going on, it’s only natural to wonder why some people are this way. What makes people forget to treat service workers with basic decency? I’ve found there’s a certain type of person who’s more likely to be rude. I’ve seen a diverse array of people, from those at family restaurants to high-end, sophisticated rich-people restaurants. I’d like you to take a wild guess as to who’s the worst offender when it comes to rudeness. Is it rich people? Young people? Old people? Men? Women? Kids? Who are the bad guys?
*drumroll please*
It’s unhappy people. Unhappy people are rude.
What do I mean by “unhappy”? It’s kind of a catch-all term: It can mean sad, or angry, or frustrated, or lonely, or a lot of different things. In this case, it’s usually angry and/or frustrated people. People who are upset with their life were more likely to snap over something small, and vent their frustrations onto me, a server who’s supposed to cater to them and whom they could get away with snapping at.
If you’re wondering, there is a specific type of person who’s most likely to be unhappy. And those are middle-aged people. It’s actually kind of a well-known secret among servers to watch out for middle-aged folks. We badmouth you on the Internet all the time:
There’s been some research done to prove this. Studies show middle-aged people are more likely to be unhappy. Actually, middle age is the unhappiest time of a person’s life, according to this graph:
Happiness, it turns out, follows a U-shaped curve. People are happy when they’re young, unhappy when they’re middle-aged, and then happier when they’re old.
The correlation between age and happiness follows my own observations on unhappiness and rudeness. The people who were nicest to me were often the people who were the happiest. Very often, people who were older were nicer. If it looked like someone was in their 70s or older, I could almost always count on them to treat me the best.
It might be the case that unhappiness is an inevitable part of life. But from my observations, if you’re unhappy, you’re more likely to be rude — and not even realize it. Happiness is a virtue. And you’re obligated to protect your happiness as much as you possibly can, because when you are unhappy, you make the people around you unhappy too.