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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

No good deed goes unpunished

24 replies

sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 13:58

Someone asks for a fairly inconvenient favour, you do them the favour and then they treat you like shit. Why? AIBU to find this upsetting?

It's happened to me twice recently and I don't know if it's me who's a soft touch or them who are taking the piss. I am irate today because a woman I did a big favour for (2hrs a week for 3 1/2 months between March and June last year at her request - I did not offer) has just blanked me in the co op and was overheard referring to me as a 'snob' by my DS. Angry

Has this happened to you? Do you know why people do this?

Why would you be so unpleasant to someone who has helped you.

OP posts:
Poodles1980 · 29/09/2018 14:40

Hopefully karma will bite them in the ass. I am a firm believer in this.

explodingkitten · 29/09/2018 14:43

My SIL is an entitled bitch. Last month she was complaining that nobody ever visited or cared about her. You reap what you sew.

explodingkitten · 29/09/2018 14:43

*sow

EmperorTomatoRetchup · 29/09/2018 14:50

Without knowing what this huge favour was and what treating someone like shit involves, it is hard to make meaningful comment.

I wouldn't pay a moments notice to a child's game of Chinese whispers though.

sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 15:03

The favour was helping her DS who had been excluded from 3 schools in the last 4 years to get some GCSEs (he got maths, eng and science at a level 5 and is now doing an engineering BTEC) - during the time I was working with him she was sending OTT messages of gratitude "You've changed his life and motivated him" "I will never be able to repay you" etc the minute he got his results and his college place (he refused to attend open days with his parents so she asked me to take him which I did) she started ignoring me. Today she blanked me in the co op and called me a snob to her DS who pointed me out to her and then came over and said hello whilst she studiously avoided me.

It's not just about this one incident. This has happened to me many times. I just don't understand how people can use someone in this way. I feel calm now, I will just have to stop helping people as I find it hurtful when people do this. I don't expect a big thank you or fuss, but would hope the relationship would continue as it had before the favour?

OP posts:
SynchroSwimmer · 29/09/2018 19:03

Smiling at your header, happy memories for me.

That was my late dad’s favourite saying which he modified to;
“Every good turn deserves to be punished”

He even had it translated into Latin and used it as his personal motto with some sort of couloured shield...

He used to voluteer drive patients to hospital in his car...then get his car damaged, or a puncture, or some other costly incident not of his own making, and loads of other mishaps, all associated with going out of his way to help someone.

Must say I have adopted the motto when asked to do favours for friends....always wary that I might get myself to some sort of incident too 😉

Just to say sorry you have been badly treated though.

topcat2014 · 29/09/2018 19:14

No good deed goes unpunished is the motto we use every day in our office :)

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 29/09/2018 19:26

Shaw put it well in Arms and the Man : "if pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing". The real test of friendship is owing a debt you can't possibly repay, and that sense of humiliation will find the crack in weak and petty people.

sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 19:46

I'm glad its not just me!

That's an interesting perspective Disgrace.

Does that mean its is better not to help anyone?

I feel so disheartened

OP posts:
junebirthdaygirl · 29/09/2018 20:05

Maybe she is ashamed now about how her son behaved and wants to carry on as if it never happened. You know too many intimate details about her life so she resents that now once the crisis has past. Very mean of her.

twoshedsjackson · 29/09/2018 20:07

You succeeded with a "tricky customer" and got him back on the rails. Criticism of her parenting by inference?
I would be cheered, however, to notice that her DS, regardless of his Mum's opinion, is grateful to you. Maybe he's been singing your praises at home?
You know you did the right thing, but karma may take a little longer.

Firstbornunicorn · 29/09/2018 20:07

Awk, I thought this was gonna be a thread about Wicked :(

OP, let me tell you a story from days of yore.

My grandmother grew up in a not-very-wealthy seaside village in NI. There wasn't much employment - the cobbler, blacksmith and carpenter would all take on a boy to train up every couple of years, and the local seamstress usually had a girl to give her a hand. Granny insists that these were more or less the only jobs around (which I find difficult to believe, as surely there must have been at least some fishermen, but she was always prone to exaggeration).
Anyway, granny's df had a very good job: he was a ship's captain in the merchant navy. He bought a lovely house with cash for his young family to grow up in, and although he was gone for most of the year, he contributed hugely to the local community by offering many of the young men jobs aboard his ship.
On the last day of every month, my granny's mother would stack a pile of shillings by the front door, and a steady stream of kids would come to the door and say their mothers had no money for the rent. They were always given what they needed, sometimes alongside some food or money to buy bread.
Granny told me many times of how she cried when children were beaten in school for not having the right books, simply because their families couldn't afford them. She gave away a lot of her school supplies to stop her friends from getting in trouble, and either bought more, or begged her mum to buy enough to last the whole class for the year.

She got a good education, but moved back to the village where her heart was, and married a local farmer. She had ample savings. My grandfather drank and smoked and gambled every penny she had, making sure to give her a good beating on the regular. She would never hear a bad word about him, even until the day she died. He died relatively young - before I was born, anyway. But life had changed forever for my granny.
Sometimes she would be walking between the village and the farm, and someone whose rent her family used to pay would pass in an expensive car (transport links having improved to the extent that commuting for work to a local town was now possible) without stopping to offer her a lift.
People who had clamoured to be her friend when it was beneficial to them would no longer give her the time of day. They were suddenly "above" such company.

OP, I know this was long winded, but the message is this: people are dicks. Always have been, always will be. I guess I should tell you to live and learn, but I really hope this won't stop you from being as wonderfully generous as you seem to be Flowers

C0untDucku1a · 29/09/2018 20:07

She used you for free tutoring.

He appreciates you. Hold on to that.

timeisnotaline · 29/09/2018 20:10

In this case I think it’s worth it to have made such a difference to someone who seems such a nice young man. In general, YANB entirely U. I’d always like to do some favours though!

LordNibbler · 29/09/2018 20:19

You've changed this young mans life. Try to hold onto that. I admire your selflessness and dedication to helping him when he was in a bad place and no one else could help him.

FrogFairy · 29/09/2018 20:23

Perhaps she is jealous that you connected with him in a way she couldn’t.

That young man will be eternally grateful for the life changing help you gave him.

DopeyDazy · 29/09/2018 20:54

people want good turns doing but hate you knowing they needed it,so they don't want anything to do with you afterwards

sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 20:56

You are all right. I was silly to be upset because I did it for him, not her. Thanks for some perspective, much appreciated.

It does sting thou.

OP posts:
Neshoma · 29/09/2018 21:16

I wonder where his (previous) attitude came from?

Well done you for turning his life around and enabling him to show good manners.

PlinkPlink · 29/09/2018 21:30

It's a sad perspective but I don't do anything for anyone now unless I've known them for quite a while. Any hint of piss taking and I make my excuses.

That's a sad way to be but I'm not putting up with users anymore.

There are some truly awful people out there who will blatantly use you and then discard you. I find it awful and I sympathise wholly with you feeling crappy about it.

Better off without her and her son will always be grateful, even if she isn't.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 29/09/2018 21:39

@sportsdirectmug : you should always help as much as you're able. Otherwise we'd be living in howling barbarity. But anyone I helped, who didn't remain civil, would find that no one would offer help ever again.

sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 21:41

I'm thinking about what you've said and I think maybe she is angry with me if her son is unkind to her and kind to me. I have only been extremely positive about her towards him and encouraged him to try and stay out of trouble for his own sake. I am no hero and genuinely only wanted to help, I generally get on well with 'difficult' people and am quite laid back so thanks for your kind words, it means a lot to me.

OP posts:
sportsdirectmug · 29/09/2018 21:46

"@DisgraceToTheYChromosome* that seems a good policy to adopt. I am exhausted tonight and wondering why I voluntarily give so much time and energy to ungrateful bastards thou MN has made me appreciate her sons efforts and get a grip! Grin

OP posts:
TheColonelAdoresPuffins · 29/09/2018 23:21

he refused to attend open days with his parents so she asked me to take him which I did
Might be plain old jealousy. She should be eternally grateful to you though

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