To think this is not rude?

[Lulabell1979]

Would you consider the phrase"have you got the hump today?" to be rude?

Context - business meeting, someone senior from other organisation being very rude, not listening, interrupting aggressively pushing an idea, having a go at junior member of team, then starts having a go at my organisation saying we don't do anything. (We provide thousands of pounds of support and man hours to his organisation that is a charity). He is normally quite jovial but is bossy. I was getting so annoyed by him my options were to end the meeting or cut him dead somehow. I said the hump comment because I believed he had a sense of humour. Clearly not! I recognise it's not the most professional thing to say but when someone is being incessantly aggressive towards you I don't think it is the worst I could have said? Whilst he presents as being friendly/ jokey he is also very "boys club" and my boss has now told me off about this. Can't help feeling he just didn't like a woman telling him to back off and am v pissed off that I have been called over it. AIBU?

@Bluntness100 are you my manager? ;)

Yes not very professional. However he isn't a customer or client. Perhaps you should have acknowledged his unhappiness with your organisation and offered to terminate the relationship to enable his organisation to seek more appropriate support elsewhere.

He sounds like hard work - obviously didn't think about his position when he was ranting away at you. It will make your company think twice about furthering their relationship with him when there are other options on the available but unfortunately you're part of the story now which may come to mind when promotions are on the table. Focus on learning to see these situations through professionally, if someone is being a pain distance yourself from them, let them dig their own hole. In the long run - be professional, get promoted and then YOU'LL be in a position to make decisions about who your company works with. What's worse - being told you have the hump or being told your contract/relationship isn't being renewed - play the long game!

Highly unprofessional. Meh oh you seem to be batting away as he isn't a 'client'

(Don't know where 'meh oh' came from)

Even if I don't have the jump, nothing will give me the hump quicker than being asked if I have it. It's a bit inflammatory and makes 'the hump' a fait accompli.

Also the HUMP

You were spectacularly rude and completely unprofessional.

"I think we have got as far as we can on this matter today. Let's all think it through again and meet again STNW." - said with a smile on your face, and repeating it no matter how it is challenged for as long as it takes to close the meeting. Politeness - smiley and steely - will take you a long way.

Having read all your posts and most of the responses, I can say that you are not getting it.

You are pissed off, that's fair enough, but you do need to accept that what you said was inappropriate for the setting and therefore rude, because it was unprofessional and not the sort of thing you should say in a business setting! You're cross because your manager didn't think anything of it before this man complained to her; but she has had to take a call of him complaining, and has had to say that she will deal with it, and has therefore done so by passing on to you that your comment was inappropriate.

Now you just need to accept it and move on, making sure that you don't use such inappropriate language in such a setting again.

If you said it to me, I would think I had wandered onto the set of TOWIE. i think that's their expression of choice along with 'stop mugging me off' and 'stop giving me agg'

In this context, extremely rude and unprofessional

For goodness sake . Really. It was a reflect comment and has been blown out of proportion. What a snowflake. Out of order for it to be mentioned and then you told off. It's covert bullying to you. Boys say much worse to each other ! How old do they think you are. You made the decision to say it. They should have left it. This is trying to put you in your place.

Sorry reflex.

The actual wording is no stronger than "have you got a strop on today" so whilst the words themselves aren't rude, it probably wasn't appropriate to use it in that context.

Not professional - best if a meeting is going badly to say 'I suggest we defer further discussion to another meeting - can we agree a date to suit?'

Boys?!??? What do male children habits have to do with behaviour in a professional setting?

Saying have you got the hump acknowledges a persons behaviour but suggests that they are upset over something silly and insignificant. It ignores and belittles the fact that there may be legitimate concerns.

I can see why you are justifying it the way you have been (they need us more than we need them and he started it first) but really its by the by. Your response to a difficult situation failed. Thats the crux of the matter.

I saw a recommendation on here recently for a book called how to deal with difficult people. Might be worth a look.

@redexpat thanks have just ordered it!