To think that some people have no idea how to conduct themselves?

[Luckster]

I'm fuming this evening. I'm a teacher and work long hours like lots of other people so I'm totally exhausted and may have overreacted slightly to this.
Background information - dh is a cub leader. Not the only leader, but one of a team and one of them ( not sure which one but fairly sure it isn't dh has organised a visit to an activity centre tomorrow.

Having my dinner this evening and a woman knocks on my door. I don't know her but recognise her as a parent if a cub and know she lives somewhere on the road behind me. I answer the door and she starts off saying what's happening tomorrow then? I could tell she was worked up but as I have nothing to do with cubs I have no idea what they are doing and told her so. She was getting note and more upset and asked if dh was in. When I said no she pretty much tried to barge in. Basically she hasn't seen an email about times for tomorrow, has no idea what is going on and was crying and getting hysterical by this stage saying over and over - but I'm a nurse - what am I supposed to do?

She was really over the top and most definitely unhinged and then started ranting about it being unacceptable. I pointed out there was nothing that I could do and all I could do was speak I dh when he got home and see if he knew. I pointed out that he also works long hours and is a volunteer so sometimes he may not email in a timely manner but he is doing his best. (I refer back to the fact that I am pretty certain it is not him organising this event). Anyway she ranted on and on (hysteria!) so I told her she was too emotional and needed to get her shit together. I also told her not to darken my door again with her screaming and ranting and promptly shut the door and went inside.

Seriously there was nothing j could do to help her. I appreciate its frustrating and she just wanted to get organised but to yell and scream at a volunteers wife because they have no idea what is happening is just unreasonable.

She's pretty lucky I didn't tell her to fuck right off as I'm pretty conversant with swear words! I feel I was quite restrained to me. God knows how she'll react if I see her in the street again in our small village. Oh my god, I am actually so wound up. Seriously who goes and knocks on someone's door randomly and act unhinged because you don't know what time you are supposed to be somewhere??!! People are bloody hard work!

Actually I think it's greatly to MN's credit that posters generally posit scenarios where someone's mad behaviour is explicable. I don't think empathy is a bad thing. It's a good thing that so many people here are aware that other people have less than perfect lives and that sometimes when they go OTT and do something utterly, completely unreasonable, there may very well be a totally understandable context to that behaviour. That capacity to see other people as real human beings, not just the cardboard cut-outs our media generally encourages us to see each other as, is an exceptionally valuable quality and one that makes MN a bit of a cut above the usual stupid sites full of stupid people.

Where it stops being a positive however, is the point at which posters are urged to accept disrespectful, abusive or threatening behaviour because the person doing it may be having a hard time. While it's obviously a great thing to be able to recognise and empathise about someone who may be going through shit, it's never a good enough reason to tell women they have no right to set their own boundaries about what behaviour they're prepared to tolerate.

Basil I agree with your post apart from the stupid sites with stupid people bit.
Who are we to call others stupid ?????

Arf. I'm happy to consider stupid statements to be stupid. I do think that leaving aside specific disabilities, it's a form of stupidity not to be able to empathise with someone else. Emotional intelligence is still very much under-rated IMO.

I've met plenty of people who are quite intelligent formally (degrees etc.) but seem to have a sort of blindness when it comes to understanding that other people have other perspectives on the world. And it's not because they have Aspergers or whatever, it's because they just haven't got very much imagination.

I'm going to get a selection of teas in, just in case a random ranter at my door will be able to choose his / her beverage of choice while verbally abusing using me.
A big thank you to the poster upthread who mentioned it

Ah I see what you mean, thanks for the clarification Basil and now I'm inclined to agree more.

I have enjoyed this thread but there is one thing about which I am confused.

Super - what exactly is it that your mum does/did for a living? You've not been clear.

Gloopy I'm not 100% sure, but I think she said a teacher - maybe mentioned it briefly a few pages back

Haha Gloopy!

Also super, what is this obsession you have with an "on-street slanging match"? You've literally just made that up!!

Tinsel OP said "God knows how she'll react if I see her in the street in our small village" so putting the blame either on the woman and expecting her to start on her again, or setting up a possible scenario re confrontation. It was only a few pages into the thread that OP admitted that as she didn't like confrontation so if she saw her in the street things would be fine...

She did say that she was "pretty lucky I didn't tell her to fuck off as I'm pretty conversant with swear words" which is fine, again considering her scenario but before she said "I don't like confrontation and wouldn't" then I took that along with her other statement see above re bumping into her that if she "had" bumped into her there would have been words spoken. Again OP clarified this.

Also as I said before the woman was clearly unstable but you, i, OP etc have no idea as to what degree, OP's DH said she was "highly strung" but nothing more than that.

Like I then said again it would be good for Op's DH to have other measures in place to deal with pesky parents like this mother obviously is. Especially as another poster says this sort of scenario is quite common. So you head it off in future.

I haven't said OP deserved to be verbally attacked and from my first few replies all I was saying was think of the woman at the door. At the end of the day although it was an unpleasant altercation no one got hurt, woman didn't pass OPs threshold and hopefully woman has got the message. Will everyone be happy if when OP and woman meet again the woman apologises for her behaviour and says she was having a bad day? Because that is a good outcome in my mind.

I'm definitely not making up that one in Greenock. Those lassies were pure mental. Braw!

Gloopy my mum was a primary school teacher, a class teacher and also art/drama also a SENCO (special educational needs coordinator) and a manager.

bloody I was envisaging what might happen, I admit there was a bit of poetic licence there.

A few of you seem to doubt my mum's profession. My family have a family friend the wife of the family friend is a retired legal secretary. For a few years she refused to believe my mum was a teacher saying instead to a mutual friend she thought she was a TA. Hilarious.

Francis trying to inject a lighter tone, I heard Bach do rescue remedy capsules in a tin, maybe one of those next to the front door??!!

I'm afraid I will need CVs.

I'm with you, OP. Bloody outrageous behaviour. Trying to barge into the house? Presumably on the basis that you were lying about DH not being home. I think you were pretty tolerant, tbh.

As for PPs saying you should have asked her in, what planet do they live on? Turn up at random people's doorsteps and expect therapy? Asking loosely wrapped strangers into your house is neither safe nor sensible.

I'd have just shut the door in her face tbh. Unacceptable behaviour.

Gloopy next time I'm at my mums I will try to get her to locate her teaching degree for me.... like hey will I

As any child of a teacher will know life is no picnic at school because if your teacher or headmaster knows what your parent does they expect you to be better behaved and have deference to teachers... again yeah right

francis I already have Valium and Prozac in blister packs by the keys of the house ready to calm down any rogue ranty callers. There's also a spare clean straight jacket inside the area where I keep the coats...

Francis I knew you'd have tried the Bach pastilles and thank you for your recommendation. head tilt and tinkly little laugh

Stop squabbling children school's finished for the day

Not for the teachers Portia. Don't you know they work eleventymillion hours per day and must comport themselves with professional decorum at all times. I'm sure Super can confirm this. Her mum was a teacher - or hadn't you heard?

Laughed myself silly reading further responses. I can report that I have just got in from school ( I'm a teacher didn't you know) where I did not swear, I didn't even think about swearing so I'm feeling pretty angelic. But I shall not be answering the door to anyone this evening !