To ask you for your tumbleweed moments

[GeekLove]

This is a mostly lighthearted thread but the gist is of the times you have announced some good news only to find silence and a tumbleweed from people you thought cared.

I get my GCSE and they are what I am expecting - 9 A*-Cs. My boyfriend also does better than expected. Is he happy for me? Well he was happy for my parents to pay for him at the celebratory meal out but pointed out that my grades could only be possible because (1) I was a girl and education is tipped towards girls and (2) his A in maths versus my B shows that he really has the superior intellect.
That was the first nail in that coffin.

My DP (before he came DH) on announcing to his friends that he had found a girlfriend (me). Tumbleweed as I was a non-Christian. Vicar was most disappointed in that we were living together but still offered to marry us. Fat chance! Not sure how it is part of god's plan to live in shared housing and be poorer by £300 per month.

After 6 months of unemployment I get a job. I phone my friends to tell them and wish them happy New Year only to find I am to be blamed for everything going missing (We vacuumed their squalid front room) and leaving the kitchen a mess (we'd got kicked out before we could clear up). Didn't stay in contact after that!

I'm having another tumbleweed moment right now it seems!

When my DH told my MIL we were engaged she made a cats bum face and said "Well look how marriage turned out for your sister"
Never said congratulations once. SIL got divorced after 6 months but we are now 6 years married and 14 together. Definite tumbleweed. I am now NC with all of DH family (not because if this, they're just complete plonkers)

At the morning report. Me - "gosh, you should see the colour of 'insert the name of nurse on other ward', you'd know she's a sun lover" She always prides herself in her very dark tan. The two Indian nurses who had just started that week were amongst the team. This was many years ago and over seas nurses had just started in our hospital. They stood looking confused as the tumble weed drifted by then the subject was changed quickly. FFS I've been there years, what the feck made them think the 1. The comment was racist and 2. The nurses would view it as racist. I ended up working with the female for years and we were reminiscing about the old ward and when I reminded her of it, she thought it was hilarious as they hadn't a clue what was going on.

P.s. Just for you OP.

DH "Families is pregnant!"

MiL "What? Already? But I'm not ready to be a granny"

Me

When I passed my PhD viva I phoned home, got my dad.
"How you doing hen?"
"Great dad, guess what? I just passed my viva!!!!"
"Oh that's great. Hey, you'll never guess who I bumped into in the shopping centre this morning..." and he carries on telling me the day's news!

toomuchtooold that has to suck. I remember passing mine and getting through a whole bottle of champagne with DH. At least that wasn't a tumbleweed moment but then there had been some friendship pruning there!

I've another one.
MSc group project of doom. Coming back after New year and optimistic for a new start I bump into one of my team members and wish him a happy New Year as you do. Only for him to give me a sullen look and whine that in telling the course tutors about the poor communication in the Group and my concern about the lack of practical work was making the Group 'look bad'. Well Durrhh!
So much for new Year.

Oh I can sympathise with that one. Met my postdoc supervisor to report progress, ended up confessing "sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out to be a scientist. I mean, sometimes I really doubt whether I'm any good at this."
[tumbleweed...]
And when I got offered a job at [fancy pharma company] he was like "you got a job at [fancy pharma company]?"

Huh. My academic career was one long tumbleweed moment...

Friend staying over for the night of my hen do (we both stayed at my mum's door the night (my old home town). Next morning while i was just coming out of the shower when i heard my friend trying to make small talk with my (very difficult) mother:
Friend: so you must be excited about the wedding
Mum: not really
silence...

DH "Families is pregnant!"

MiL "What? Already? But I'm not ready to be a granny"

Me hmm

Ditto precisely to the word. Identical when we announced engagement (and I was 28 for the latter, 34 for the former, so shouldn't EXACTLY be a surprise that a) we were getting married and 6 years later b) we were having a child!)

DSis stating, when I was 3 weeks post birth of second child that maternity leave was a complete joke, how the hell did women think they were entitled. Needless to say, she is alone and childless and facing her 40's (and yes, I am a total bitch when it comes to my DSis, but she deserves every single bit of me in that state)

Another pregnancy announcement tumbleweed lol we sent announcement cards with the scan pic through the post, I text my mum
"Check the post, I have a surprise for you!"
so she replies "OK "
Then a while later "Well I won't lie, I'm more shocked than surprised I'm afraid."

TUMBLEWEED

(Btw this is a much planned pregnancy with my husband of 3 years, 7 years together)

I weirdly got this a bit when I told people I was pregnant for the second time.

DC1 would have been about 16 months when I had my 12 week scan and we told people.

Quite a few people just looked really shocked, and kind of affronted.

It's not that small an age gap (22 mo between the two of them).

Just...why???

toomuchtooold The postdoc merry go round is SO depressing and people wonder why so many people drop out of the first rung of academia, particularly women. Perhaps its the wondering whether you have a job in 12 months-type thing, which tends to put a brake on research?

Geeklove, the filthy industry sell out who hasn't had to look for a job for 7 years (despite finding out about DS1 pregnancy on day 1!)

At the workplace where I had been volunteering for several months, shortly after an unusual external job vacancy had been advertised. I'd applied for, been interviewed for and been appointed to the post. None of this was a secret...
Me, walking into building with celebration biscuits 'hey everyone, good news, I got the job!'

Boss then goes wierd, stops talking to me for weeks and eventually bullied me out of role.
Other volunteer who had been there for less than two weeks and - crucially - started after the job advert had closed started yelling at me that it wasn't fair, they'd be better than me at the job, who did I think I was rubbing it in everyone's face etc...
A second volunteer shrugged, then proceeded to sabotage me at every step.

I left. A third volunteer walked out when I did in support of me, as she was disgusted with the way I was treated. Later on, we found out that I wasn't the first (or in fact the second) person this had happened to.

The workplace has since closed down.

When I told my mother I was expecting dc2. She made a cat's bum mouth and mumbled something about needing to go and buy some sugar. She refused to talk about it for the rest of the day.

(She did eventually come round)

GeekLove, when I got my industry job out of that postdoc I felt like I'd been rescued from a bloody shipwreck. The academic system is just screwed up - you're supposed to spend your late 20s/early 30s travelling the world on 12-24m contracts, so the only way you're going to have a relationship or kids is if your partner is happy to be a trailing spouse. It's basically still set up for the gentleman scientists of Darwin's time.

What on earth is a tumbleweed moment

When after 8 years of IVF we finally told PIL I was pregnant. FIL says "Do you know what you're having? A boy or girl or something in between?" I suspect it was a reference to DH's uncle who had just come out at the age of 60.

Or, at a family meal where a random friend of Great Granny's was invited. She randomly asked me (after watching me drink several glasses of wine throughout the meal), when the 'big day' was. Extremely embarrassed, I say that I'm not pregnant and have no plans to become so. Great Granny pipes up, "Well, I did wonder!". Total silence, apart from MIL who practically spat her wine out through her nose and had to leave the room to cover her hysterical sniggering!

I must add that apart from these incidents (and many more) I adore my PIL and Great Granny (and her mad as a box of frogs friends). They have done a lot for me which balances out the regular gaffs.

Gumast A tumbleweed moment is when you announce some good news to people only to find they aren't as happy as you thought they would be. It's a difficult thing to describe its more something that needs to be seen.

Me - 'Dad, I'm having a baby!' (Married 4 years, very settled and secure)
Dad - 'Oh right, brilliant. Did I tell you Jane is having a baby?'
Me - 'err, right ... Who is Jane?'
Dad - 'Oh she's just a woman at work. She got promoted in December and none of us expected her to be off on maternity so soon [babbles on a bit longer about her pregnancy'.
Me and DH - '.......Right'.
Tumbleweed

Another pregnancy one (that I have shared before).

We call DSIL1 to say we're expecting DC4 and all looks well (only have 2 at home as DC2 was a late loss).

Her reply was silence and then in a cold voice, "Is this happy news? It doesn't sound to me like this is a good idea."

(We are married and in our 30s and 40s with good professional jobs. It is not as if we are teenagers!)

Me - I got a promotion in work
"Friend" - did I tell you DS won that competition he entered?
Oh.

Me - I'm pregnant
DF - that's nice
Oh

At a poorly attended exercise class

I looked around and said "Well shall we start or just go to the pub?"

Announing dd2s name to Mil OH !