Juiciest conversation/message exchange you've accidentally overheard/seen

[Echobelly]

For a bit of fun, have you ever heard a conversation or seen an exchange of messages that you're not supposed to but you can't help tuning into?

About a year ago I was next to an older guy on the tube who was typing out a furious email, presumably to an adult child, along the lines of 'Your grandfather would be ashamed, the businesses of [Family Name] has to be passed on....' and things along those lines. I just caught a glance of it and was transfixed. Serious family melodrama! The whole tone of it was like something from a vintage TV series, I honestly didn't think anyone actually talked (typed?) like that anymore.

I love earwigging conversations. Walking along promenades on beaches is a good place. Recently, a maturer lady who was chatting to her friend was cross because ‘he’ said she had to sell a property, but he had three himself.

Overheard at the bus stop the other night: "You'd better turn off your effing phone and stay ahhhht of it. She's in my effing house, right? She's in my effing house.... Nah, stay ahhhht of it.... She's in my effing house and she's...."

And my bus arrived. I was praying she would get on so I could find out what on earth 'she' was doing in this woman's house, but no, that pleasure went to the bus behind.

A man on the phone at Liverpool Street station (London) assuring his (gf?) there was no one else and he was working late. Finished the call and began snogging the lady with him.

Sat behind a colleague in the cinema once with a friend, colleague didn't know we were there. She then went on to tell her friend she was pregnant. My and my friend were like 👀👀👀

Some years ago, heading home from work on a local train that stopped every 5-7 mins. Young chap on the phone, swearing blind to whoever was at the other end that he wasn't on the train, he was on the bus (no idea why this was important). Telling them that the beeping they could hear for the train doors closing was a pedestrian crossing outside the bus. Eventually got angry, saying they should go outside and wait, and they would see him get off the bus. I think at least half the carriage were ready to follow him when he got off, to see the end result . (He was still on the train when I got off, and I didn't want to risk a fine for going past my ticketed stop).

Like @JiraffDeSaki i had emails redirected to me when a colleague didn’t get past her first few weeks’ probation. Her emails included an exchange with the producers of First Dates. She’d obviously applied and they’d followed up with questions before inviting her to a screen test. I never saw her on it, but I did search up on YouTube (a few times) in case I’d missed it!

A woman walked past me saying to her friend " I'm going to dislocate her face!"

Would've loved to have known the story behind that one.

I once applied for an internal transfer/promotion at work. I didn't get it.

The guy who did get the job had the same surname as me and a first name with the same initial as mine (think "Joe Smith" and "John Smith").

A little over a year later I get a letter from HR containing a final written warning concerning his performance (or lack of it) in that role, giving full details of what he had done/not done and warning of the future consequences if he didn't mend his ways.

Since it was simply addressed to "Mr J Smith" I had naturally opened it.

I sent it back to HR with a covering note: "I do not think this was intended for me."

I still like to think they made the same mistake when deciding who to give the job to.

I was in a restaurant in Paris years ago and couldn't help overhearing a middle aged American lady telling her friend about how she had left home very young to go to California and got a job as a nanny. She worked for someone British, famous in the 60's and 70's (I'm not naming but she did say who and it was someone real who is largely forgotten now). Said he was a lecherous drunk and she hated him, couldn't understand why his wife put up with him.

Then she went to film school and started working in the film industry. Then proceeded to name drop loads of famous directors/actors etc. Films she had written screenplays for etc.

Was gutted when we had to leave!

My DH and I had a night away in a Travelodge once and when walking to our room along the corridor there was one hotel room with it's door slightly ajar and as we passed we heard the immortal words :

"Do you remember that time in Bristol when you made me have a shit with the door open"

Twenty years later and it still makes us laugh whenever anyone mentions Bristol.

A young man got on my overground train, normal evening commute made a phone call said " yeah I'm out now I just spent the night in the cells, I tell you this bruv, Essex Police are racist. " we were in South East London, I think all of us in the carriage felt a bit relieved we didn't live in Essex.

That's quite sad. He sounds like he had mental health issues.

I was waiting for a train today, and a couple of (beery, edgy) middle-aged men were on the platform. One rang his mate, and explained he couldn’t meet at x station as he had a charge sheet for shoplifting at the station’s Spar and was barred.

Back in the days when I was young & not everyone had a mobile, I had to use the spare department Nokia for something work related.

I found loads of text messages between 2 colleagues - one married, one engaged - about how much they loved each other & would be together soon. Showed my boss and she swept up the phone, swore me to secrecy & nothing more was said.

Colleague went on to marry the poor fiancee - although was caught kissing colleague at his work stag do & apparently was holding hands with other colleague under the table at his reception 🤢 unsurprisingly it didn't last long at all - the affair was later revealed. They are still together many years later.

I was on the bus from Cardiff to Pontypridd, about 30 years ago, when two women in the seat behind me started chatting. Somehow they got onto the subject of home security. One of the said she had 4 bolts and 3 locks on the front door, the other woman was surprised and asked if there was reason to be so nervous. “Oh yes, came the answer, five years ago my husband answered the door at night and he was shot dead with a shotgun”. You could feel everyone on bus jaws drop!

Certainly a variety of stories here.

The shorter ones reminded me the time by Victoria Station heard a hipster type bellowing into his phone 'I need my money NOW!'

I don't think he was ever getting his money.

I don't know if this counts or if it's even allowed, if not Mumsnet can removed it, but today I was with my family in Edinburgh and we saw a man kick who we assumed was his wife in the arse full force as she was bent over looking for something in the boot! He seemed very angry and was shouting all sorts, that poor woman.

I don't know what they were arguing about but she didn't deserve than in public, she must have been very mortified and upset.

On a train, a young woman with the poshest voice I’ve ever heard in real life saying that someone she’d met had probably thought she was a “Sloaney twat”

Many year ago, while living in a very small flat, I used to be highly amiss at my next door neighbours. Every Saturday morning, they would indulge in Performance Sex. It invoked yelling the rooftops off and telling each other in very loud voices how amazing they were.

In a previous job I had a role specific email address. My predecessor used her work emails for personal business, had worked there for well over a decade, and never deleted anything. She did give some emails ambiguous subjects which popped up sometimes when I searched in the files.

I discovered that she and her husband had a turbulent relationship and had been on the verge of splitting up a few times over the years. When they were reconciling they wrote poetry to each other. On at least one occasion their adult children were copied into the fairly detailed love poetry. Not at all what I would have expected when I met her!

I have been in the particularly horrible position of receiving a phone call with medical results on a very crowded bus. The subsequent conversation was about the immediate removal of my ovaries, and did I or did I not want to keep my cervix.

There was nothing I could do about it - I had to take the call

A car came screeching down our street in the middle of the day and a lady chucked a carrier bag of clothes into my next door neighbour's garden shouting "if you want him, you have him and take his stuff too" and drove off swearing out the window. My next door neighbours came out looking confused. I never had the nerve to ask if they knew the screaming lady or not!

On crowded commuter trains into London have read several steamy sexts over people’s shoulders, who has the energy for that going through the Penge tunnel at 7.30?!

best line I’ve overheard on a bus, spoken about the mother of the bride “she was aiming to lose a pound in the month running up to the wedding, that’s basically the size of a big shit and she couldn’t even do that”

I had a random text asking me did I want to meet at the caravan tonight 😉 I replied i think you have the wrong number,then kept getting texts asking me who I was 🤣 so I blocked the number
I have no idea who this was or where said caravan was!

I was in a cafe once when two men sat at the next table.

One guy went into great detail about how he was going to leave his wife but absolutely take her to the cleaners.

He said that he had made her think it was her fault but that he was shagging his PA.

The other guy was egging him on with ways they could make her life a misery.

I felt so sorry for the poor woman but at least she would be rid of him.

I manifested all sorts of bad karma for the two men. What utter bastards.