Yesterday I got spoken too like absolute dirt

[Rowenaravenclawsdiadem]

And I really can’t shake it off.

I’m in the service industry but from time to
time I help a friend with her rental flat. An elderly couple arrived last night. It’s a small place so I took them up to the flat. They dumped their bags on me so I carried them in, Put them down and I basically got shouted at for 5 minutes. The room wasn’t what they expected, no lift, there was no food provided in the flat. No PC (what??!) Every time I tried to explain or show them how to use something I got talked over, they accused me of misrepresentation but when I’ve checked everything is as described. It’s not even my place I was just helping out! In the end the woman looked me up and down and said ‘just leave’.

I’m a 40 year old mother of 3 and I just wanted to cry. I’m no stranger to criticism or afraid of it. But I was absolutely taken back. Today I’m still really upset. To be fair some of it might be PMT.

Why are people so fucking rude!

"t wasn’t ageism for heaven’s sake, merely descriptive"

Ah yes. Descriptive. Like black, fat, disabled, Bulgarian......OK to use those to "set the scene"?

enidbutton* ‘oap’made me laugh !
BertrandRussell I found the age helpful in picturing this. For me it is more unexpected for someone i their 70s to behave that way. Not causative but correlative. If this had happened to me I would have been more surprised/shocked/wrong footed re how to deal with it than with people younger. For that reason it helped me understand op’s lingering discomfort about the whole thing better.

DH and I have been on the receiving end of some really spiteful nasty behaviour from an elderly neighbour. She's in her late 70s or early 80s I would guess (just by way of explanation, no ageism intended).

The things she said to me reduced me to tears. Having been brought up to "respect your elders" I let her get away with it the first time, stupidly believing she could do that. Really stupid. She realised she could do it again and again. I stood up to her the next time and told her she was rude and unpleasant. She overstepped the mark with two other neighbours and now no-one speaks to her. I've since discovered she has always been like it, to everyone, causing rows and upset.

Essentially a nasty person has always been so and always will be, if that's their mindset. But it does seem more shocking to be treated or spoken to badly by an older person because we have that inbuilt manners and respect for our elders thing that prevents us from answering back or calling them out on their behaviour. We often feel awkward and embarrassed about it. I've never been able to deal properly with my MIL's open hostility towards me but that's not for discussion.

Having gone through quite a bit of misbehaviour with/by my late dad elderly misbehaviour or unpleasantness is sometimes to do with mild dementia/ depression/loneliness etc. Not always obviously. I have a current older neighbour ‘situation’ maybe it’s a cop out but I find it easier for
My own mental health to put some things down to ag related ‘orneryness’

Agree with Rising.
Also, this angry, entitled, bitter, older American woman is the demographic who is likely to have voted for Trump... we think of Americans as friendly and polite but there is a darker side...

Anyone who has ever abused me for being disabled, parking in a disabled space with my blue badge or using a wheelchair has been clearly over the age of 60. That's not ageism, that's a fact.

“Anyone who has ever abused me for being disabled, parking in a disabled space with my blue badge or using a wheelchair has been clearly over the age of 60. That's not ageism, that's a fact”

It’s a factual personal anecdote. However, if it so happened that all the people who had abused you under those circumstances were black would you make the same generalization?

My aged mother (white and has actually seen the kkk burning a cross) frequently tells me that ‘the only people who ever offer her a seat in the tube are young Asian men’. She is close to convinced this is determinative !!

Funny how personal coincidences become ‘laws’. I am fairly convinced that all traffic wardens are fantastic and welcome but then I don’t currently own a car.

Well they have my phone number and are phoning me constantly about issues in the flat. I keep referring them back but they won’t get off the phone. I’m blocking their number.

My thread wasn’t about old people it was about hugely fucking rude people.

Well, that goes some way to explaining it. dp and I always check out the reviews before booking a hotel. We enjoy reading the one star reviews for otherwise well reviewed hotels. The most ridiculous, petty ones are virtually always from Americans.

I think Americans have pretty high expectations for hotels. When I’ve stayed in ‘cheap’ hotels over there they have always had huge beds, air con and really fawning staff. When my American family come over they often complain that rooms are pokey and that their king sized bed isn’t really king sized etc. Even when they stay in beautiful historic hotels in places like Venice they’ll bemoan the lack of an ice maker or other random things.

Sorry to hear about your experience OP. They sound a bit unhinged and I’m betting they’re after a free stay.

My thread wasn’t about old people it was about hugely fucking rude people

sounds bloody awful

I see why you put the detail in the OP, despite the weird pasting you are getting.

If you’d just said ‚‘some people‘ you’d have had a barrage of ‚‘how old‘ and ‚‘what nationality‘ because it would have suddenly been super important. Than when you’d corrected that, you would still have had dosy buggers who only reads the OP whining they needed to know how old they were 500 posts later.

My thread wasn’t about old people it was about hugely fucking rude people.

Most people know that, even if it was derailed by someone who pounced on a completely innocent detail.

I hope you are feeling better today. You will be laughing about it soon I promise .

Nasty comments on here...

Yup. Rude people don't deserve respect.

I've seen some shocking behaviour from older Americans in small hotels. The worst was at a perfectly nice B&B in St Andrews. They whined and moaned about everything. After listening to this at breakfast for the second day running, the whole room applauded when a very blunt Scottish woman told them that if they wanted 5 star facilities, they should just fuck off and stay at the Old Course!

I get expectations are different in America, so by that logic - did they tip you OP?

I hope it was an Airbnb where you can review customers. They sound awful and as someone said above, it's their issue carrying around such anger.

ManonBlackbeak "No PC?! What is it still 1998 or something?"

What on earth is wrong with having a PC? I have a brand new one. Shouldn't they be available in 2018?

How are they phoning if you if they didn't bring phones with them?

Oh they’ve got a phone now. They have bought one. One that they can now use in ‘this ridiculous country’

But they still don’t have internet.

They have just text me to ask how to work the tv.

And no, no tip when I was told to leave.

I used to run a B&B. It was very highly rated and very cheap. In all the years of trading, the only rude customers ever were, funnily enough, an older American couple. I'd like to think that, it being 10 years ago now, the couple in their 60's back then are the same couple who are now in their 70's giving shit to the OP. I would hate to think that there was more than one couple in the world this nasty and obnoxious pair.
In fact, I only posted about them the other day on here.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3418259-To-ask-have-you-ever-kicked-anyone-out-of-your-home

Their age really does make a difference because we are conditioned to be extra respectful and polite to the older generation. When they're nasty like that it's almost impossible to bring yourself to tell them, quite rightly, to fuck off.

Hideous bastards get old too. Age doesn’t soften.

The irony is that when I had the joy of discovering they had a phone today. I referred them into my friend and very politely said I’m busy today it’s Remembrance Sunday I’m tied up at the church.

Nope that hasn’t even stopped them.

I'd say their age is hugely relevant.

If I was being shouted at by a person in their 20's, I might fear for my safety. Whereas, I'm pretty sure that if an old lady went for me, she would come off worse than I would.