Sometimes, such behavior goes beyond verbal abuse.
A worker in a restaurant was slapped and cursed by a customer after she told him no table would be available for two hours. A man in the United States recently won damages for injuries suffered when he made a complaint about a woman for using bad language in her loud conversation. After being told to "get lost", he was beaten with an umbrella by the woman and punched by her companion. Utility crews in big cities report increasing violence from people who have complaints against the power company. "Our repair crews have a rough time in some apartment houses where a lot of people live with relatively little space," says a utility company executive. That makes short tempers, and angry, rude behavior shows up.