In mid December, two women spent two hours drinking two Cosmos in our Club Room and then walked out. Unremarkable women, embracing the anonymity of middle age and using it to steal from us. I do not want to take payment from customers when they order, since most of our guests are, while sometimes messy, demanding, soppy, needy - always kinda normal and nice.

I posted the women from our front door CCTV. I chose an image that kept their full faces obscure (my intention was more general than specific), and I didn’t post the audio of them congratulating each other, either. Because, who cares, really, these days, when everything soft and social is up for grabs? Certainly there would be no police action: just the sound of our staff picking themselves up from an, as yet, one-off.

A couple of weeks later, towards the end of the December jollities, a group of around twelve people walked into our bar on spec. We were busy and told them we couldn’t serve them that evening. They were cocky, already feisty with booze, and after a pleasurable round of conversation we showed them the door. On the way out, the last man swept the contents of the reception table up and threw them at our staff member’s face. This included not just The Good Hotel Guide, but signage in glass and metal frames, a vase, and a Victorian candlestick. He missed. She slow hand-clapped as he and his work colleagues left the building. I screen-grabbed his exit and - once again posted to socials.

Why did I post about these incidents?

A normal, fun-filled, sunlight post on our socials garners around 20–60 likes. The dumpy women reached 62,000 views. We are all fascinated with transgression. The opportunities are up for grabs in small businesses (arguably even more so in larger ones). Yet this is how we choose to run our bar and how our guests like to drink: informally, trusting, respectful.

But media views were not on my mind when I posted. Would you have ‘named and shamed’? Interestingly, I felt guilty doing so and hesitated, finger hovering. Part of me felt that the fact we had not avoided a theft, swerved a man-baby tantrum, kept everything on a level and calm… meant we had failed. We were, in some way, responsible for these people’s bad behaviour. We’re supposed to be all things to all humans in hospitality: always look on the bright side, never complain, and turn all negative stories into hilarious jokes.

Anger is unprofessional, boundaries are barriers rather than self-preservation, and we are all expected to ‘get over it’.

More practically, was I simply highlighting our weak spots and making us vulnerable? Look: this is how easily we are exploited. Typically, I was overthinking, but my apprehension and guilt in the reveal, were real. Then the sense of violation of my staff in what should be a safe working space, my space too, and my anger kicked in. This. Is. Not. OK. It’s not normal behaviour and it has nothing to do with our offering, policies, or procedures. It’s them, not us.

I know that retail: supermarkets, high street and high end, is being hammered in the same ways. And that our experience is thankfully slight compared to many with more public access and simply more people passing through… and yet. If I am going to unpick my anger and sense of personal violation in these episodes, its root is the thought that somehow, in the general mind, hospitality and those who work in it are infrastructure, not people. If I confronted our frumpy females, they would have said, “Well, no-one’s hurt; you can take the hit; just look at the place - you can afford it.” Our man-baby might have said, “It’s not my fault you have hard objects around the place, in easy reach - I just chucked it all at the floor anyway; I’d never hit anyone (least of all a woman).” That’s a genuine quote, by the way, from a different place, similar long-ago circumstances.

Where does this leave us all, starting another new year? Are some people just horrible? I think, yes. They obviously are. There are currents swirling around, too, that have become stronger because they are encouraged, reflected, and magnified. The attitude that any crime is ‘victimless’, that any damage suffered is the fault of someone else, the lack of connection to people as being the same as you, these were strong tropes in 2025.

I’m glad I posted those images, but I don’t want to have any reason to do that again. We all have our boundaries, and I will not absorb the impact these incidents had on us like a sponge. This is not normal behaviour, and I reject it and call it out for what it is.