Over the last few weeks, I’ve had three different frontline customer service people from completely different businesses randomly but explicitly thank me for being polite, and for being understanding and patient.

This has stuck in my mind because, in all honesty, I wasn’t doing anything special. All I did was explain a problem, or ask for help, while saying please and thank you.

I think it says a lot about the pressures facing frontline workers, be they at the local café, shop, petrol station, or even the hospital, that these people felt the need to thank me for, effectively, not being rude to them.

We’re now firmly into the Christmas and New Year countdown, and things will be getting pretty busy for many people. There’s a lot of stress created by the manic preparations for the festive season, as we all rush around meeting last-minute work deadlines, finishing that Christmas shopping, and catching up with friends.

Unfortunately, that sometimes translates into some pretty poor behaviour as we deal with frontline workers in retail and hospitality businesses, banks, and even healthcare workers. Some of it is plain old-fashioned rudeness, but sometimes it is far more personal abuse, anger, threats and even (in extreme cases), physical intimidation. In fact, there are some frightening statistics from the Australian Retailers Association suggesting that 92 per cent of retail workers have experienced abuse on the job. The situation seems to have got a lot worse after the COVID-19 lockdowns a couple of years ago, as many people have just been a bit more on edge.

I don’t believe that anyone is setting out specifically to be awful to frontline workers, but if you’re not on the receiving end, it’s easy to underestimate the cumulative impact of ongoing rudeness on the health and wellbeing of those working on the front line.

So, as we head into the last weeks of the year, my plea to all Canberrans dealing with frontline businesses is to take it easy, be calm, stay patient and please be polite. That barista’s doing her best to get your coffee as quickly as she can; the retail employee is trying his best to help; and the plumber’s doing everything he can to get your job done properly. Sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes customer service leaves something to be desired; but it’s not usually the fault of the frontline teams.