Offence

Last week, I had one of the more head-scratching encounters of my professional career. Not so much the encounter itself, more the aftermath.

Working in hospitality as I have for more years than I care to remember, I've accrued a lengthy back catalogue of weird complaints. Anyone in my line of work has, industry vets will trade them like playing cards: the gazpacho that was cold, the waitress that tossed her hair "sarcastically", the medium steak being medium rare, while his medium-rare was medium, the table that refused to believe that you couldn't fit a table of ten in on a fully booked New Year's Eve and turned up anyway.

So, when a worried-looking member of floor staff popped in and said that a table had complained about the sausages on the kids menu not being "child-friendly" I sighed, did a little eye-rolling and said don't worry, I'll pop out and talk to them.

And this I did, I had thought there might be some issue with the plating, maybe they wanted them cutting up, possibly they wanted the gravy separate. I'm a fairly conscientious sort of a bloke when it comes to my food, and I always want to make sure that people leave happy, so out I wandered, said I'd heard there was a probem, was there anything I could do to help?

To my surprise, the problem was the sausages themselves, that is to say, they're decent. They were, it transpired, expecting crap (I'm paraphrasing slightly) and the kids didn't like them. The woman in question repeated her line about them not being "child friendly". Now, I'm not a shouty chef by any stretch of the imagination, I'd knocked them off the bill, if you're not happy with something, fair enough, it's not like they'd eaten the lot and then complained (this does happen), but I couldn't really allow that to stand, I gently explained that I was sorry they weren't to their taste, but these were the sausages we always used, and we'd never had that complaint before (my own kids happily eat them as has every other child that's come through the door, I didn't say that part). Off they popped and that, I thought, was the end of the matter.

I thought wrong. The next day, a busy Sunday service, my front of house manager came in to say that the woman had returned, specifically to complain about me. Her complaint bore little resemblance to the conversation we'd had the day before. She said (and I quote) that I was "disrespectful", I "should never have come out" and that I'd "accused the children of being wrong", she was furious, she'd never eat with us again.

Oh well.

Believe me, I'd love the conversation to have been the one she imagined. I'd love to have said "Don't blame me for you raising fussy kids", I'd love to have said "Well let me know next time you're coming in and I'll buy some 100 for a quid shit from Iceland". But I didn't, I was professional, I was polite, I expressed regret. But the simple act of disagreeing with her was enough to cause this offence.

It got me thinking. Are people becoming more thin-skinned? I'm a fairly live and let live sort of a bloke (except when it comes to politics), and working in an industry where the law of averages dictates you're going to get the occasional dissatisfied customer has left me with a hide like a rhino. I can't remember whether or not I've blogged about the great Yorkshire Pudding Controversy of 2021, if I haven't, I must get round to it some day, long story short, I got to read quite a lot of extremely unpleasant comments about me from total strangers in the comments sections of national newspapers (even got a death threat! How 2020s is that?), and that didn't bother me. The point being, it takes quite a lot to upset me.

So I am nonplussed when I encounter people flying into a rage over something minor, and it seems to be becoming more prevalent. Or at least, I perceive it to be so. Not so long ago, I sacked a KP who'd pulled a sickie, only to be spotted strolling down the road. I let him go with the advice that he takes his next job more seriously. 

The sacking didn't upset him, but my parting words led to a lot of frothing and invective. I was wondering why, when one of my junior chefs said "you shouldn't have told him how to live his life". Now, I appreciate that I'm something of a dinosaur these days, and I'm acutely aware that any venture into "things were different in my day" is the territory of the golf club bore, but, to be honest, I thought it a pretty innocuous thing to say, in my head the kid had got off lightly by being dismissed without a ferocious bollocking.

It's an article of faith among the right wing press that "you can't say anything nowadays", but that's not really what I'm driving at, not least because I observe that that self-same right-wing press is the first to clutch its pearls in horror at anything it considers outre. No, what, I'm wondering is whether, in this hyper-polarised age, we're not only  losing the ability to disagree politely, but the ability to self reflect. So a minor disagreement becomes a personal attack.

You can see it in the various culture war debates (none of which topics I have any intention of going anywhere near here. Life's too short) where positions are so entrenched that any conversation with someone even tangentially related to the other side is beyond the pale. You can see it on angry local Facebook groups, where a simple road closure leads to accusations of  councillors living on that road. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it does rather seem as though we are an increasingly fractious, quick to take offence and, frankly, slightly hysterical society.

I should stress here that I am talking about trivialities alone. I don't mean that any marginalised community is being hysterical. I don't mean that anyone fighting for their rights, for equality or decency is the problem, I mean taking the knock over things that really don't matter, maybe there's a lot of it about? I could be wrong, certainly wouldn't be the first time, but one thing's for sure, I'm not going to be upset if somebody says I am.