Should i tell the next customer who questions me about my scar to piss off !

[catpark]

Basically I was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer just over a year ago. I've had 2 operations, radioiodine ablation (You have to swallow the radiation tablet and stay in hospital as you are too radioactive, geiger counter gets put near you twice a day etc. ) I'm now in remission, but I have a scar across the front of my neck due to the surgery's, just above my collar bone.

Now I work on a checkout and yesterday i had a customer who asked me what happened to get the scar. I simply said cancer, that's usually enough to stop most random people questioning me. She then asked me what type, did I have chemo etc.

I just looked at her and her husband informed me that she wasn't being nosy as she is a nurse and is allowed to ask these things. She then told me how she likes to find out about people's health and as a nurse it is her job ! I actually ignored her and didn't speak to her again. I got the cats bum face from her and muttered about how rude I was being !

As far a i'm concerned she was being nosy, being a nurse doesn't give her the right to question a complete stranger about things. She was lucky that i've come to terms with the cancer and have a good prognosis, many others haven't and this type of questioning could really upset them. Also what if the scar i've got was from something else ?

It's not the first time customers have questioned me about it. Worst one asked me why I tryed to do it. He thought i'd attempted to kill myself ! You wouldn't ask a random stranger in the street about it so why feel the need to ask a checkout operator ?

Would it be unreasonable to tell the next person enquiring to piss off ?

*catpark"
the thing is if you DID have the nerve, your whole body language and demeanour would show it
and the snotty comments would stop
pick the best ten comments from this thread.
Write them on postcards and put them in your handbag.
Even if you cannot summon up the courage (yet) to fire them back at people, pull one at random out of your bag for YOU to chuckle over

I had braces in my first year at Uni. Mortifying. So I went to a halloween party with safety pins dangling from every clip, down my chin and neck. No more comments were made by anybody. :-)
Brazen it out - you will feel a million dollars.

Sorry if my comment about covering it up came across wrong, as I wrote earlier

"People are rude and always will be, others curious and tactless but don't mean to be rude
As people won't change, could you ask about wearing a roll neck under your uniform to stop the questions until you feel ready to cope with people's silly comments again? I'm not saying hide the scar because it shouldn't be seen, but just till up you feel stronger to cope with the twats
I say this as someone who has a scar under my eye from sunbeds and not enough sun screen (hardly any sunbeds and sun screen more often than not - warning to all sun worshipers! )"

I fully understand the tenderness of the scar and the heat.

I also don't think you should need to cope with the comments, because they shouldn't happen, but they do, as many of the people on this thread have said.

Good grief, I'm a nurse and wouldn't dream of being so nosy and intrusive. I'd probably notice your scar and idly think IN MY HEAD 'oh that lady might have had thyroid surgery' (I've taken lots of sutures and staples out of necks in my career, usually due to thryoid surgery) but I wouldn't ever say anything.

I doubt she was a nurse at all, and if she was I'd be asking her if she wanted me to inform the NMC just how inappropriate and unprofessional she was being.

I'd be very tempted to say that I'd had a lucky escape from a serial killer.

I've had plastic surgey on my face - a skin graft below my eye, it's barely visible now but when I first had it done I took to wearing huge sunglasses, especially when I had a dressing stitched to my skin and it looked like a giant yellow hairy caterpillar, the looks and comments I got on the one occasion I went out of the house with it were really insensitive.

Don't worry Eaglewigs , i know what you were trying to say r.e. covering it up.

Watch this, No-ones going to comment on it now if I decide to use one of the comebacks on here !