“The customer is always right.” But what if the customer is rude, angry, or even hostile? How does that affect those who witness or experience it? Whether you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, flying on an airplane, or getting blood drawn at a health clinic, it seems like rudeness is running rampant. And, unfortunately, frontline workers are bearing the brunt of this uptick in incivility. It’s as if they’ve gone from “essential workers” to punching bags, as weary, annoyed, stressed-out people, customers, and patients unleash their anxieties and frustrations.

I’ve studied this topic for two decades, inspired by my own toxic workplace experiences. I’ve written about the costs of rudeness and how it stops people from working together, how to reduce incivility in health care, how you can make civility the norm on your team, and much more.

In an upcoming Big Idea, we’ll explore new trends and data on incivility; share examples of how employees, managers, health care providers, and organizations are responding to bad behavior from customers and patients; and provide research-backed recommendations for managing the negative effects of incivility — and discouraging it in the first place.

We’re trying to dig deeper, and we need your input. Whether you work in an office, at home, in a hospital, or any other workplace, we’d love to hear about your uncivil experiences, as well as incidents you may have witnessed as an employee and a customer. Your data will allow us to trace trends and glean more insight into what’s driving incivility in the workplace and on the frontlines today. Based on this, we can target recommendations to create more respectful communities. This survey — which takes approximately five to seven minutes to complete — asks a series of questions about bad behavior by employees, customers, or patients. All responses are anonymous.

Take the survey.