Why should staff have to take abuse for the bosses?

WHILE everyone must feel sympathy with the bank staff who are the victims of abuse and threats from members of the public (Irish Examiner, February 19), we should not lose sight of the fact that staff in shops, restaurants, cinemas and other service industries have had to deal with similar abuse on a daily basis for many years.

Unlike many bankers, most service industry staff are usually badly paid, badly resourced and often badly treated by their managers.

During the Celtic Tiger years, the public were encouraged to treat staff in service industries with little respect. Consumers mattered most of all and if their often unreasonable demands were not met, they were deemed to be fully justified in discharging a tirade of censure against the unfortunate staff member with whom they were dealing. An abundance of new money caused codes of basic decency and courtesy to disappear and it unleashed our potential to become a nasty nation of demanding, petulant, self-obsessed little people.