What Happened to People?

When I was young, if I had interrupted my father having a conversation with someone, he would have smacked me. When I was in grade school, we were taught to "wait your turn" at the water fountain and lunch line. And we learned to wait our turn with politeness.

What the hell happened to basic manners?

Yesterday I'm talking to a lady as I'm typing in a prescription for her mother who just left the hospital. I'm asking questions and listening to her answers intently. Some old dude (at least 70) comes up, interrupts us, and asks where we have the Miralax.

"I'll be happy to help you, AFTER I'm done helping THIS lady," I replied.

"Just tell me where the Miralax is?!" the old dude says, louder, and with anger.

"I'm helping this lady right now," I said. "I'll be with you in a moment."

I'm floored. What on earth happened to "wait your turn" and basic politeness. I was brought up NEVER to act that way. Certainly this old dude had the same manners taught to him as a child. Did he just forget all his manners? Or does he think he's entitled to forgo manners at his age? I'm really stumped. I have a lot of younger Medicaid patients with a really horrible sense of entitlement, but now it appears this "me first" attitude stretches into all generations? 

And now for the worst part of all... because of the company I work for, I'm actually MORE worried about getting a customer complaint and a warning from The Authorities when I clearly did nothing wrong. That's how bad it has become at Goofmart Pharmacy.