Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how much anger there is around lately?

People are angry, fuming, devastated.

Circumstances and events are totally unacceptable, beggar belief or should not have happened.

There is no such thing as an accident any more, someone is always responsible and must be made to pay. Inspectors must be called in, the guilty brought to book and publicly pilloried.

I realise that in providing any service, it is inevitable that you will come up against a cross section of society, that the vast, vast majority of people are rational, reasonable and self controlled. I also acknowledge that mistakes happen – we all make them and I am the first to admit when I or my staff have done something wrong; to apologise; to empathise with the injured party and try to ensure that any such slip-up is not repeated.

But there seem to be an increasing minority of individuals who are sure of their rights, their entitlement and their right to compensation in the event that things don’t work out as they expected. They justify their outpouring of indignation, sometimes evidenced through swearing, aggression, threats and intimidation. Lately, ‘I have not heard the last of’ many seemingly innocuous events. My staff have suffered verbal assault, sometimes being shouted and sworn at in front of young children.

Who would have a thought a day nursery would require a parental acceptable behaviour policy which contains the ultimate sanction of banning miscreants from the setting?

Personally, I find it difficult not to empathise with anyone who is in the position of handling a complaint. It is not usually their fault personally. Shouting at them is not going to win them over to my cause or right any wrong or injustice. Calm, dispassionate and objective discussion can often resolve issues and actually help build relationship rather than destroy it.   

Many of us have experienced road-rage to a greater or lesser extent, that explosion of aggression from within the safety of another vehicle which expresses blind anger that somebody may have cut you up deliberately or not. It is not acceptable to make a mistake on the roads any more.

Should we now sadly consider the phrase ‘nursery-rage’; ‘childminder-rage’ or ‘preschool-rage’?

Once, people would have a bad day at work, go home and kick the dog, now they shout at the child carer at the end of the day.