SEEING RED: Where have our good manners gone?

Manners, remember them?
OpinionOpinion
Opinion

Because I’ll be brutally honest, I’m pretty sure they have become a thing of the past.

I very rarely hear the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ nowadays - and if I worked in retail I would simply despair at some of the people they have to deal with.

The customer is always right, they say.

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I’m sorry, but the evidence I’ve seen and heard in recent weeks suggests the contrary.

I won’t disclose the identity of the store I was in recently, but I came across a shop worker visibly upset at how they had been treated by customers.

That’s shocking and unacceptable.

If some shoppers aren’t being rude to staff, then they’re stood at counters being served while on their phones.

How ignorant is that?

When did it become acceptable to treat staff like this?

It’s not just in the retail sector where workers are on the receiving end.

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People who work in our hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and other health services are often verbally abused - or even worse on occasions.

There are even signs in these establishments urging patients not to be abusive to staff - that’s how bad it has become.

But how did it get to be like this?

Granted, it would be unfair to tar everyone with the same brush, but it does seem there’s a significant number in society who have no idea how to communicate with others in a civilised manner without being rude or aggressive.

Sort it out, please. Thank you!

n Staying with retail, I’m one of the few men on this planet who actually likes shopping, even food shopping.

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But I pick my times carefully as to when I pop along to my local supermarket. Go at the wrong time and the aisles are thronged with shoppers who simply have no idea how to push a trolley - I guess these are the same people who are blighting our roads with their sheer idiocy.

People coming at me from all angles - nudges in the back, no apology or anything.

Perhaps it’s just me . . .

n I’m an England football fan - which automatically makes me a hooligan.

That’s the attitude of some in this country towards football supporters - a view which was no doubt reaffirmed after the ugly scenes involving some England fans in Marseilles at the weekend.

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In fact, Florence And The Machine guitarist Rob Ackroyd sparked outrage on Twitter when he tweeted “I hope the English fans are getting a right good kicking” on Saturday.

He later back-tracked and implied he was talking about hooligans, but his original tweet is a view shared by many.

Granted, there’s a small hardcore of England ‘fans’ who go overseas looking for a bit of bother and are quite frankly embarrassing with their boorish chants about winning the war, but the vast majority are there for the game and to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the culture of the country they are visiting.

The same vast majority who were seen running for their lives as marauding Russian thugs indiscriminately attacked fans - which included families with children - at the end of England’s clash with Russia at the Stade Vélodrome.

So please don’t tar those of us who are genuine football fans as hooligans, because we aren’t.

n Seeing Red is a column which appears in the Mansfield and Ashfield Chad newspapers every Wednesday.

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