Are workplaces more belligerent and rude than they were ten years ago or more? (employee, non-profit)

[Serious Conversation]

I've only been in the professional workforce for six years and maybe it's my industry (IT), but it seems like almost every workplace I'm in has had employees be rude and downright belligerent with one another on a nearly daily basis.

Our team was mandated to roll out a software upgrade this week by executives with virtually no testing done, which has generated a lot of complaints among the end users. One user today said our entire team deserves negative reviews, making fun of someone's last name, saying she could Google an answer quicker than we could fix the problem, etc. It was borderline taunting and belligerent to the core. It was all I could do to not ask her that I didn't care for the tone and would appreciate it if she could response professionally. Of course - we can't state that we had no time to test to make sure things would correctly.

My previous employer had staff at HQ frequently yell, scream, and call each other MF on a frequent basis. Little actual work got done because everyone was blaming everyone else. I would never address a stranger the way colleagues dealt with each other there.

I don't even want to get into what I've seen from customers in the call centers.

Are working places becoming increasingly belligerent and fractured these days?

[DorianRo]

It is. But I blame the employers being cheap as the cause of this. They will do anything to save a dime and as a result, we have a bunch of goofballs unqualified, unprofessional, USELESS, inhabiting the workplace because the employers decided just to save a few extra pennies and hire low skilled, useless people or they ditched their experienced more mature workforce and replaced them with cheap kids just out of school

[Suburban_Guy]

Not really, at least the places I have worked for in the past 20 years or so. There have been a few questionable supervisors/managers/co-workers, but overall, not that I've seen.

If you're talking about society in general, I'd say yes.

Everyday I have to deal with people with chips on their shoulders the minute I walk out the door. Every single time I get in my car, I have to deal with tail gaters and road rage candidates. Just people in general are rude, demanding, arrogant, entitled, and most of all, IMPATIENT. Can't even wait in line at a grocery store for a few minutes without someone behind me huffing and puffing.

[Poor Chemist]

Well I am only in my second professional job and my first job out college was a contract position so it was quite natural that the full time/permanent employees treated the temps like crap.

My old job I had employees treat me like I was stupid like I couldn't do the most simple tasks. I would constantly get one guy at my old job walk by and so no, no, no that is the wrong way of doing that. At my old company they did not allow me to do the calculations on new formulation blends because they thought I wasn't smart enough to do it. Basically the whole time at my old job I was given pointless grunt work such as data entry and many days I would have absolutely nothing to do and would be bored out of my mind.

Every employee would give me snark comments like you are a temp you aren't allowed to have access to the standard operating procedures. It's normal to be treated like a second class citizen in a temp job though. That was the main reason I found another job also I knew that job was never going perm.

My current company I am a full time employee so I am finally doing work that reflects my ability. The employees at my new company are generally friendly as long as you don't get in their way. The only thing we fight over is finding an open instrument to run our assigned analyses.

I agree that most places of employment has become a hostile environment either because of poor/incompetent management or working for coworkers that will stab you in the back when a higher level position opens up in the department. The only thing you can do is stick around until you find a better paying job or a higher level position because going to management or HR only makes things worse.

[sandsthetime]

Yes, I think its due to a lack of loyalty on both ends.

[ccm123]

Personally, I think workplaces have become more impersonal in the last 10 years. But, from my limited experiences, they seem to be more professional and courteous. I've seen less "workplace drama" and conflicts in the last 10 years.

[DixieLand09]

Good post! It has and believe by "going cheap" it has bought in some twisted people. Miserable. Millennials. ahhh did I write Millennials? I did..I am working with one now and what a Bono-fide mess.

[katie45]

We had an HR manager who would call an employee on the carpet if they got out of line . . .'unless' that individual was a friend, or a brownie....those types could get away with anything.

[Shoshanarose]

I have noticed a decline in workplace quality of life in the 25 years I've been in the workforce.

The jobs I had for the first 10 years were more civilized/better workplace morale/environment, than the jobs I've had for the last 15 years.

I sometimes question if it's the industry/city I'm in now (non-profit in NYC), which is simply more unpleasant than what I was doing the first 10 years (in another big city).

Or is it the effect that the economy is worse?

However, the economy was bad in the 1990's when I first started working, and I didn't experience what I have seen/experienced in more recent years.

From 1990-2000 in the jobs I worked, it seemed like there was little turnover/hiring and firing, harsh disciplinary action, etc.

In the last 15 years, I notice that there is constant financial pressure in the jobs to "produce" more, more employees leaving or being fired, almost suddenly/without cause it seems.

The workplace seemed more civil in the 1990's, but I don't know if that was just my experience.

[TheRockSays]

I think people are just way more sensitive than they once were.

Millenials: snarky, but easily offended.


Truthfully, I've seen some terrible employers treat their staff like dogs. I've seen employees that take advantage of overly nice employers. It's gone both ways.