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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Excuses that really piss you off....

86 replies

squirtymcsquirterson · 11/08/2017 16:22

Just want to know I'm not alone in hating ridiculous excuses!! Was messaging a guy who then blanked me completely....for two months!!! Then messages me yesterday with a 'sorry been busy' - well I saw red! Maybe OTT but what excuses really make the red mist descend for you??

OP posts:
quizqueen · 12/08/2017 11:37

I hate people at work who don't follow certain (often daily) procedures and then claim they were never told about them. These are staff who have been employed for months, years in some incidences. It's just plain laziness and sloppiness because it means someone else has to do it for them. I live for the day when they need references which ask the question, 'Would you employ them again?'. Problem is then, if I tell the truth I don't get rid of them!

SomeOtherFuckers · 12/08/2017 11:40

This is why I love my best friend - if we can't be arsed or aren't feeling the plans we've made we just say ' I'm sorry but I really can't be bothered' - this is an agreed thing, it's annoying but we don't get annoyed because we'd rather they just said it than lied

LockedOutOfMN · 12/08/2017 11:44

When the mother of one of my 17 year old students tells me it's perfectly reasonable that her daughter was doing another subject's homework in my lesson and refused to stop or apologise to me and the rest of the class when I caught her because the mother had arranged for relatives to visit over the weekend. This is a highly academic student whose mother's previous conversations with me have been about Oxbridge, Ivy League, etc.

At least the outcome was that I felt sorry for the girl having such an unreasonable mother and cut her a bit of slack.

In general terms, I'd rather people said when they don't want to do something or come somewhere rather than agreeing to it then dropping out with a feeble excuse.

KermitsLoveChild · 12/08/2017 11:45

I have a 'friend' who will not reply to a text unless she wants information/gossip/scandal. She'll
Acknowledge a text when we meet up but always uses the excuse of being 'crazy busy' for not replying. If she texts me fishing for info and I don't reply immediately I get increasingly frantic texts from her Hmm

She's also always late if we arrange to meet up because of being 'crazy busy'.

BossyBitch · 12/08/2017 11:45

'I didn't feel like it, surely you can figure something out' - from an employee of mine in response to me asking for more input in order for me to do him a favour.

No, sorry, I may be willing to bend over backwards but I'm not about to tie myself into a permanent knot on your behalf if you can't be arsed. Hmm

Sniv · 12/08/2017 12:07

People who can't come because their partner can't make it. You're a completely functional human being in your own right, you should be able to survive a BBQ without operating a buddy system.

Sniv · 12/08/2017 12:09

(obviously not a problem if they're sat by their partners bedside in hospital. Not cool if they're sat at home eating crisps because their partners doing overtime shifts).

MissBax · 12/08/2017 12:10

One of my 'friends' NEVER remembers dates, times, plans we have. She just uses the "my memories terrible LOL" or "I must live in a little bubble HAHA" excuses. It engages me that she thinks it's funny, it's just plain rude.

SheRaaarghPrincessOfPower · 12/08/2017 12:11

"Sorry, I fell asleep"

Frequent excuse from an ex-friend of mine. Basically she'd use it as an excuse to be unavailable just long enough to avoid whatever we'd arranged.

Bitch would disappear for weekends as well, and only contact me on the Monday "sorry, hectic weekend". Bollocks, you just couldn't be arsed.

MumBod · 12/08/2017 12:13

I hate the excuse of old age given for racism.

"Oh, I don't mean anything by it. You can't say anything these days. I remember when n brown was a colour."

Yeah, like that's something to look back fondly on...Hmm

DottyPi · 12/08/2017 12:15

I had a different ex friend who would always start the beginning of any interaction explaining to you why she was late, blaming it on her kids, her client who kept her on the phone, the train was late blah blah blah. Once or twice, fine, but every single time is just, in her case, trying to show how important and needed she is and how everything would collapse without her. She didn't care that she was inconveniencing people because she was proud of it, look at me, late again, because I'm important.

MyheartbelongstoG · 12/08/2017 12:18

Dotty - I ate so much fruit once in a day I was admitted to hospital!! I was about 12

I hate "I'm tired". They use it because its impossible to disprove.

faithinthesound · 12/08/2017 12:22

Blaming bad behavior on autism, when you're not diagnosed, you're just an asshole. "I say offensive things sometimes, it's because I'm autistic!"

Blaming bad behavior on autism, when you've read an internet thread about someone behaving badly and have no idea of that person's medical history, mental health status, general demeanor, or anything else. "Oh, he was rude to you? He sounds like he's on the spectrum, you have to make allowances."

I'm a high functioning autistic person. I don't use my autism as an excuse to behave badly - SOMETIMES, it's an explanation, but it's NEVER an excuse. And if I'm using it as an explanation, it's while I'm apologizing and looking for a better way to behave/a way to avoid doing or saying that which offended you.

Nothing pisses me off more than armchair psychologists who literally know nothing more than "X behaved badly" and yet can sit back in their armchairs and steeple their fingers and go "Ah, sounds like autism to me".

LadyFlumpalot · 12/08/2017 12:23

The friend my husband asked to be best man turned down the offer because he would be working the day before and couldn't get the time off.

We asked him a year in advance.

He still wanted to come to the wedding though. Just as a guest.

The day before he suddenly remembered it was his mums birthday so he couldn't come. Also, he had had a shift moved at work so definitely couldn't come. He would definitely send us a card though.

Still waiting for the card two years later. Angry

millifiori · 12/08/2017 12:27

I genuinely do miss emails. My service provider has locked me out so I have to access them through another format which sometimes does and sometimes doesn't flag up a new message in a chain. Sometimes it buried new messages in the original chain dated a few days earlier. But not always. No idea why or how to fix it. But I do know that it is possible to not get an email.

DottyPi · 12/08/2017 12:29

We should all be like Phoebe from Friends.
"Would you like to come?"
"I wish I could, but I don't want to" Grin

CruCru · 12/08/2017 12:38

I don't mind one excuse but it does get on my nerves when it's a string of them. I've sort of ditched some friends because half the time we are meant to meet, they cancel with hardly any notice (we only meet twice a year at most).

I do hate it when the excuse is given in the passive voice. "The children have been sent to stay with their granny so we can't come after all". You mean, you have taken the children to their granny instead of coming round.

AztecHero · 12/08/2017 12:45

My FIl used to say ' I am too old to do things I don't want to'.

He said it early; no-one was left wondering if he would come or not; and he was resolute.

Grin
ParentInCharge · 12/08/2017 13:02

@faithinthesound would you believe that I have had a MN post up for over a day about a violent bully in my DS's class and it HASN'T been written off as the child being SN/on the spectrum yet. As an aunt to two lovely boys with autism, I find it infuriating when bad behaviour is shrugged off because they "must be SN". Not all children on the spectrum are badly behaved or violent, just as there ARE NT children who are just dicks, whether it there own personality or crappy parenting.

alfagirl73 · 12/08/2017 13:16

People with crap excuses for being late - or who see their constant lateness as "funny/charming" with the "Oh you know me - I'm just hopeless... hahaha" type of excuse do my head in.

Yes, occasionally there might be a genuinely horrendous traffic jam caused by a genuinely horrendous accident - the type where you're seriously stuck and there really is nothing you can do about it no matter how much time you left for your journey. However, when I manage to drive a route regularly without ever getting stuck/being late - and the other person somehow ALWAYS gets into a "horrendous" traffic jam every single time, I know it's bullshit and all it says to me is that I'm not important enough to them for them to get up/leave early enough. To me it's just total bad manners.

Same applies to people late for work all the time - no it's not the train's fault, or the bus' fault or the traffic's fault.... it's your fault for not getting up earlier!

gamerwidow · 12/08/2017 13:27

I hate excuses full stop. If you've done something wrong then just own up and say sorry. Saying 'I'm sorry but...' isn't an apology at all.
If you haven't done anything wrong then no need to try and justify your behaviour either.

NoParticularPattern · 12/08/2017 13:28

Crap excuses in general wind me up, but the stuff that winds me up even more is when people claim to have done nothing wrong or not have forgotten something but yet somehow magically the problem is solved when you get off the phone to them.

One example: a parts company we deal with for warranty work and general supply of manufacturer specific parts has just changed to an online/email only invoice system. No problem, I filled in all the details online. Set up my account, received emails to confirm my email address etc all fine. Months later I try to log in to their system after some warranty work was carried out at the same time as a service. Can't log in so I email their tech support guy from the info provided on their website: no response. Call their offices, leave messages, nothing. So I leave it figuring that when they want their money they will have to chase us for it the old fashioned way- with a standard paper copy.

Eventually we start getting shitty phone calls and "final demand" letters from their credit controller for having not paid the invoices they have sent. Fair enough, we haven't paid so I ring them to explain/pay the bill- no answer so I leave a message asking them to call me back giving them four different numbers they can contact me on, plus my email address. I also email them and try to log in to their system again using the details I previously supplied on the website they provided in my registration confirmation emails. Email not recognised apparently so I email and call them again, still no response. I finally get hold of their credit controller and explain that I have tried repeatedly to log in, contact them and attempt to pay for these parts but have had no response. She FINALLY picks the phone up and says "well they have all been emailed out to you". I check my email once more and scour my spam folders again just to make sure- nope, nothing there. She then tells me I must have put my email in wrong. I explain that this can't possibly be the case since I had confirmation of registration emails- which I have forwarded to her! She denies all knowledge of my email and my registration (read: she lies to cover her arse) and says that's no one ever received my phone calls and emails despite me being able to prove that I did carry them out or send them. I provide her with my email address AGAIN and ask her to email me the documents over in order for us to pay the invoices- she does and I notice that my email is missing the "L" off the end of hotmail. I explain that it must have been copied over wrong as I got registration and confirmation emails but nothing since. She denies it and says that I will have to register again. Try, can't do it as email is already registered (despite previous attempts saying it wasn't recognised).

3 weeks later I magically start getting the invoices emailed to me through my account. No word from them, no explanation no nothing. It really winds me up when people argue that black is white, realise they're wrong but instead of saying "sorry I've just seen it wasn't copied over right" they carry on denying all knowledge and then just fix it on the sly and never even mention it. Really winds me up!!

Gothbaby · 12/08/2017 13:41

I had someone stand me up for a job because "they had a late night and slept in". Honest but my god did it make me angry! X

Maddiemademe · 12/08/2017 18:39

Zippy and peanut FlowersFlowers

OurMiracle1106 · 12/08/2017 18:48

I lost your number
But are now messaging me on said number Hmm

I thought you were seeing someone and then being annoyed that I am- over a year after you last text me!

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