Sign O’ The Times
Abuse will not be tolerated and it will be counter-signed.
It’s 6am and I’m getting a coffee from Gregg’s. I’ve put the family up in a central city apartment while my wife recovers from an illness (she’s getting better, thanks for your kind messages).
There’s no way to make a morning coffee, so I trot down to the only place that’s open at this hour.
It’s a Gregg’s. For those of you not in the UK, Gregg’s is a chain bakery that sells cheap comfort food like pastries with sweet in them, pastries with meat in them and traybakes of sugary nom nom 🤮
It’s lowest common denominator food. That makes it #1. It’s everywhere. Central cities, train stations, small towns. And it’s often full of people.
Anyway, I’m waiting for my coffee and I notice a sign.
Who’s going to abuse anyone in a Gregg’s?
They serve food people like. The price is right. I could see them getting fined or jailed for selling this stuff, but abused?
I realise I’ve been seeing these signs everywhere. Train station, hospital, bus, big box store, library, everywhere.
Abuse:
Won’t be tolerated
Might be prosecuted
We’re doing our best
I can’t imagine that these signs ever de-escalate a situation.
A: Fark you, ma’am
B: Tap tap tap my vulgar friend… read the sign
A: My sincere apologies.
Or forstall anything when someone’s about to launch a tirade.
But back to the sign in question.
I can kind of understand the risk of people losing their temper in medical/bureaucratic/rushing for a train situations.
But in Gregg’s?!
So I ask the woman making my coffee.
She has a rich, delicious Norfolk (NARfuk) accent that I will eventually learn to type.
She tell’s me she’s been working here 19 year. Since Covid it’s been terrible. They brought in the screens between us during Covid, and kept them because of the abuse. She’s been spat at, called the most nastiest things. Some people…. But not nice folks like me.
She hands me my coffees and we bid each other a happy day.
I step out into the dark.
They do stand out. And are here, too, in Canada.
We do so need some salve for the anger.
You're right though: how do these work?? Maybe those who are reading them, are paying attention, ask questions and realize the reason they are now up and in place, and maybe those people are the ones to calm the agitation in the few who are the reasons for the sign... I don't know.
The older I get, the less I like anger. It's not useful. It used to seem like a way to use energy, to get things done. No longer, though.
During COVID, health care staffers saw a lot of abuse and general bad behavior here in the US and there were signs warning against it in hospitals and doctors' offices. They startled me at first until nurses et al. quietly told me about the kind of mistreatment that was spreading.