Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Original poster

I was just rude and unreasonable - how can I stop? :-(

158 replies

Auvergne · 08/12/2017 09:04

I certainly wasn't raised to be rude to people.

I was in Tesco, at the self service, and was juggling everything and dropped something. No harm done. The sales assistant ran over making "squawky" noises and it really irritated me, I think because it made people turn and look which always flustered me.

So I (rudely) snapped, "All right, I dropped something, is there really any need to be so dramatic?"

This happened a lot when I was younger. I found myself being confrontational, surly and generally unpleasant in interactions with random people and it is starting to happen again now quite a bit.

Has anyone ever managed to successfully stamp this out of their character?

OP posts:

lynmilne65 · 08/12/2017 09:46

Oh dear I also have major foot and mouth disease!!!

Moshmoshi · 08/12/2017 09:49

I'm like this as well at times, but with my family. I'm lovely to strangers and my friends. I wish I could stamp out the irritability out of my character too I hate being snappy!

diddl · 08/12/2017 09:51

What are "squawky" noises?

Buglife · 08/12/2017 09:53

I find it a bit depressing on this thread that when the OP admits she was rude, and is asking how she can stop snapping at people making them feel bad and so many responses are ‘ugh sales assistant sounds awful you should have been rude she deserved it”. How awful. Everyone can be irritated by other people’s behaviour at times but unless it’s harmful or malicious there’s no excuse for snapping at people. OP feels ashamed and remorseful afterwards so she obviously doesn’t think it’s justified. Also I don’t know if everyone has a cast iron interpretation of exactly what “squawking” means but deciding it is rudeness from the shop assistant is a leap?
Having worked for local government for years where people can be utterly vile to you I make a huge effort to be polite to people in customer service. Even if you have a complaint to a company it generally isn’t the fault of the person you are dealing with. And if you get annoyed at their manner or the way they put themselves across think is it really a big deal that you are having a few minutes interaction with someone you find annoying.

calyyypo · 08/12/2017 09:53

I get like this sometimes when I'm embarrassed too

DingleBerries · 08/12/2017 09:54

I can be like this OP especially if I’m stressed.

Driving with idiots on the road really sets me off.

LilyDisney · 08/12/2017 09:59

You noticed and feel bad, so that's one good step.

I think I personally would go back and apologise. I know it'll feel awkward but that lady might have a bad now and you could go fix it, thus making both you and her feel better.

I once struggled getting something in a bag for a customer when I was a teen working in a shop. I apologised for it taking a while and the woman snapped "it isn't bloody rocket science is it?!" at me.

16 years later and I still think about that cow. But if she'd have come back and said sorry it would have been a very different day.

ItsYuleyme · 08/12/2017 10:01

If you thought that she was trying to embarrass you then you did the correct thing, by being snappy with her. She sounds a silly cow!
What she should have done is come over with soothing, it's ok, don't worry about it sounds. Not sqawking like a banchee!
She'd have "got it" both barrels from me as well.
I do not Suffer Fools gladly!

Kintan · 08/12/2017 10:03

What exactly do you mean by 'squawky' noises btw? Just trying to understand what it was that triggered your response. In terms of stopping yourself reacting to people that annoy you in a rude manner I guess if you try to cultivate a cloak of serenity around yourself you wont get so easily riled - are you stressed out in general do you think?

pigeondujour · 08/12/2017 10:04

Oh dear I also have major foot and mouth disease!!!

Roussette · 08/12/2017 10:12

How mean. You know you were rude and sometimes it just takes one comment like that to really upset. Having worked customer facing for many years, that sort of comment could almost bring tears to my eyes.

Who says she was a 'squawking bansee'. No one. She probably just said 'oh dear, you've dropped it, let me come round and pick it up, hope it's not broken' or whatever. That's not squawking like a banshee.

How horrible that those on here say they would do the same, where's being nice to your fellow man gone?

OP, you know you did wrong and that's half the battle. It's those that think there's nothing wrong with snapping rudely at someone just doing their job that's got the problem.

MaroonPencil · 08/12/2017 10:12

I have this too so am interested in any ideas that aren't "well just don't do it".

In day to day life I am, if anything, over polite, anxious about putting people to trouble or offending them, but every so often I snap and then feel awful afterwards. For example, I thought a woman rolled her eyes at me when my DS was cycling on the pavement so I snapped something like "well he's too young to cycle on the road" and have been mortified ever since. I would apologise but I don't know who she was and I have dreadful face blindness so would never recognise her again, however every time I pass an older woman on our road I cringe and wonder if it was her.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 08/12/2017 10:13

I think the shop assistant is in the wrong job. It's the theatre she more suited to.
The Cracked cow

EleanorXx · 08/12/2017 10:17

Are you joking ItsYuleyme?

The80sweregreat · 08/12/2017 10:18

yes you snapped, but i hate it too when people pick up on things so quickly - its as if they have never dropped anything or did anything wrong in their lives. Tempers are frayed this time of year as well and supermarkets are rammed - its enough to make any one irritable.
I might have then said sorry to her as i am that way - but as i've aged i've found myself snapping at people a lot more than i used to. I wouldnt worry too much now, i am sure she gets much ruder customers than you!

Dustysparrow · 08/12/2017 10:19

I get like this when I'm driving and then afterwards wish I had kept my cool and feel ashamed for over reacting. I was wondering about it the other day and actually came to the conclusion that it might be anxiety related - like I snap at them first before they can snap at me type of thing? I'm not sure exactly but I would like to stop too, but it's like your body reacts before your brain has caught up.

morningtoncrescent62 · 08/12/2017 10:28

I agree with the pps who have said to go back and apologise. She may well be used to rude customers, some of them much worse than you were, but the fact that you've taken the trouble to apologise will likely make her day, even if she'd forgotten all about the episode.

Going forward, it sounds like you need to work on a) noticing in time that you're getting wound up, and b) an internal script that you can activate immediately so that it becomes habit. I've had to work on this when the menopause turned me from Ms Nice Person to the Incredible Hulk in the blink of an eye. So what I've had to do is identify the feelings of irritation the moment they start (and for me there's a physical feeling in my stomach which is the first sign, before I snap) and then I immediately tell myself, 'It's fine, it doesn't matter' and visualise a stormy sea calming to a still one. In a matter of seconds the need to snap subsides. The earliest signs of irritation might be different for you, and the internal script will be different, but I think the principle is the same - get into the habit of calming yourself down before you get so wound up that you hurt other people's feelings.

Nakedavenger74 · 08/12/2017 10:32

I twisted my ankle in M&S food hall and the reaction I got made me irrationally angry. A woman stopped about two foot away and stared as the shop staff got me a chair. And she stared and stared like it was some kind of spectator sport. I snapped 'can you fucking get on with your shopping love?' Then I snapped at the shop staff for being too lovely. I was extraordinarily embarrassed at having gone arse over tit and my reaction, which was to say "YES YES IM FINE LEAVE ME ALONE!" was unreasonable at the lovely staff who were fussing and clucking as they were just trying to be kind

Staring woman however would still get a bunch of fives if I saw her again.

You did something normal and someone made a big deal out of it. Despite trying to be helpful there's something that also makes me irrationally angry, like they've drawn more attention to me than is necessary.

I felt the same when I bought an ironing board and took it home on the bus. You would have thought I was carrying the bloody corpse of the queen the reaction I got!

LemonysSnicket · 08/12/2017 10:33

Im like this year round, usually only to DP or my mum though, and it gets worse in Summer when i'm hot and around my period. DP lives in fear of the month after my implant is re-inserted as i become extremely snappy and frustrated. A pp's ex likened them to a Rottweiler and frankly thats a perfect description of me at that time.
You know you did wrong so let it go x I apologise if I can but if I cant I just send apologetic vibes lol.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 08/12/2017 10:34

What should op say in this apology.
Sorry you were a drama Queen

EleanorXx · 08/12/2017 10:37

Awwlookatmybabyspider
you don't sound very nice.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 08/12/2017 10:41

Where did I say I was

BertrandRussell · 08/12/2017 10:46

"had lots of elderly women clucking and loudly saying, "Oh, she has dropped it! She has dropped her purse, look!" "

Really? Are you absolutely sure this happened? Because it sounds like a Monty Python sketch........

ButchyRestingFace · 08/12/2017 10:52

OP needs to come back and elaborate on the "squawking".

RoseWhiteTips · 08/12/2017 10:52

The sales assistant should have said, “No problem, madam. Let me help you with those items.”

I would have been annoyed too.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Swipe left for the next trending thread