To ask whether you’ve ever regretted a kind gesture?

[Rainbowb]

I offered to pick up a friend’s daughter after school three times a week when she got a new job. I then discovered the child liked to jump on furniture, trash bedrooms and eat me out of house and home! Was two terms before I had the guts to pull the plug on it! Was wondering if any of you guys had ever tried to do something kind and wish you hadn’t bothered?!

[HollyGoLight]

My parents bought their house via right to buy. They couldn’t sell it on because there were plans to demolish the house. So they purchased it for something like £5k but the council would buy it back for £30k when the houses got demolished. Less than a year after purchasing the house, my dad left my mum for another woman. My dad then demanded that I pay for his half of the mortgage, as his solicitor had said it was ridiculous that he was paying the mortgage when a fully grown up daughter was at home (I was 18, and earning £6k pa). My mum spoke to her solicitor who informed her that I had absolutely no obligation to pay my dads share of the mortgage (I already paid about £100 a month to my mum in “digs”). I told my dad that I wouldn’t be paying his share: he screamed at me down the phone, hung up and didn’t speak to me for a year.

After a year, he was involved in a bad accident and couldn’t work, so i reluctantly agreed to pay his share of the mortgage until his compensation came through, he would then repay me, and start paying it again. So fine.

A year after that, I was still paying his half. my mum heard through the grapevine that my dad and his new partner had just purchased a holiday home. She went absolutely ape, and called him demanding that he repaid me immediately and gave me back the money I had paid. He did put an envelope through the door with the money that night: but didn’t speak to me again for years.

[MsScoot]

Yes! When DS was a baby, he had a particularly bad day after vaccinations. After hours of screaming he fell asleep and I sat down for a nice cup of tea. DDog then sees me sitting down and decides to bring some toys over for me to play with her. I feel quite guilty as she hadn’t got the attention she was used to. So, I drag my knackered arse off the sofa and get up to have a play with her. Within 10 seconds she jumps up into MY seat and makes herself very comfortable. Wee shite. Just as well she is cute

[Noshowlomo]

@lordalmighty good for you!

[Lavender2018]

@lordalmighty
Hope you had a good day at work and didn’t suffer any grief from your
colleague 🤞

[Matrottinetteelectrique]

Well done!

[Lacucuracha]

Woohoo! I’m so happy to read that @lordalmighty ! Well done for sticking to your guns 😃

It’s good you have nipped it in the bud now before it got baked in.

She can get to work the way she did before!

[lordalmighty]

@Lacucuracha as expected messaged to tell me she would be ready at 8.15 (no hello, how are you etc) and I replied that I can no longer take her to and from work but would see her at work at 8.45am. She replied saying it would have been nice if I let her know before now as she now has an issue of how she can get there. I replied saying it was always a temporary arrangement so I'm unsure where the confusion lay and I would see her tomorrow. No thanks for all the lifts so far or anything so just confirmed I have done the right thing!

[littlebillie]

Walked a little boy home with my DCs a few times as mum was running late. She had decided that this was a permanent arrangement, when I said I had plans one week and I couldn't walk the boy home she went out her way to exclude my dc from play dates and from a party (they were all really good friends) and was exceptionally unpleasant to me personally.

Absolutely strange and unkind, it put me off helping out with children even on a casual basis

[Lacucuracha]

[quote lordalmighty]**@Matrottinetteelectrique* @Lacucuracha* she will text me tonight to tell me she will see me in the morning and will respond then that actually I am unable to give her a lift anymore and will see her at work. Cool, calm and collected! I don't even feel nervous about it, if she complains I will just tell her exactly why![/quote]
Yes! Let us know her reaction 😂

[Lavender2018]

@AmberltsACertainty
I know totally agree, I think I was so taken back it just didn’t cross my mind!
I also forgot to mention that when the
dad arrived to collect his son, he didn’t even have the decency to come to the front door, he just tooted
on his horn and the child just ran to the car without even a thank you or goodbye.
You live and learn! (or do we?)

[Likeandsubscribe]

Yes I'm afraid a close family member and I have experience of paying someone's urgent vet bills for them , and their IT so they could work, and then discovered the person concerned had blown a lot of money on interior decor. They then went on to criticise our houses for being shabby

[Theunamedcat]

Friend who had "no money" for catfood she gave her kitten some corned beef and she had vomited it up she was "so poor" my cats were fussy so I had a lot of half bags of cat food and some leftover kitten food i packed it all up and met her in town she went to a coffee shop first then on to McDonald's (I'm following her around carrying a huge bag of fucking food) she spent almost thirty quid on McDonald's then ordered a taxi to take her home to her (adult) children with the McDonald's she then moaned at me that she would have to get a taxi back into town just to get the shopping (and obviously home again after) I still gave her the catfood because well wtf was i going to do with it but I haven't spoken to her since her idea of poor and mine are clearly vastly different (and yes she did live in walking distance of town and the bus stop is close) this was all the straw that broke the camels back

[willibald]

[quote lordalmighty]**@Matrottinetteelectrique* @Lacucuracha* she will text me tonight to tell me she will see me in the morning and will respond then that actually I am unable to give her a lift anymore and will see her at work. Cool, calm and collected! I don't even feel nervous about it, if she complains I will just tell her exactly why![/quote]
You really need to grow a spine and tell her NO. No explanations, justifications, apologies. Just unable to do it anymore. Message only. She rings, don't pick up.

[maddiemookins16mum]

Offered a colleague a lift home. Ended up doing it for months. We both finish at 4pm, but if I was in the middle of something I’d stay longer (I’m talking 5 minutes not an hour). She’d have her coat on at 3.55pm EVERY DAY and stand at my desk at 3.58pm, bag on shoulder glaring at me. At 4pm she’d say ‘right, are we off now?’. Thank God Covid put a stop to that. She never thanked me either. Now she gets her daughter to collect her, she looks out the window tutting from 3.55 if daughter is not parked up in the disabled spot outside our office by then.

[Matrottinetteelectrique]

She will complain to your colleagues and give you the silent treatment for the rest of your working days, but who cares!

[lordalmighty]

@Matrottinetteelectrique @Lacucuracha she will text me tonight to tell me she will see me in the morning and will respond then that actually I am unable to give her a lift anymore and will see her at work. Cool, calm and collected! I don't even feel nervous about it, if she complains I will just tell her exactly why!

[Lacucuracha]

@lordalmighty omg you have to stop! It's too much anyway but her moaning would make this unbearable.

[Thepollonator]

I worked as an assistant manager in a lovely little decorating store. I was once given the task of training a guy to become a store manager (not of my store) I put everything I had into it and I do think I did ok.
Roll on about 12 months and he finishes up at my store where he turned out to be a liar, a back stabber and a genuinely horrible guy but nice as pie to any other managers or higher.
I got so fed up and frustrated by him that I and three other staff had to leave! Never got any support or understanding from regional manager as the guy had always been very professional when faced with him. I had worked there very happily for 10 years.

[Matrottinetteelectrique]

Ok lordalmighty, text moany lift woman and tell her due to your childcare arrangements you’re not offering her a lift anymore and she’ll have to make other arrangements, don’t give any more explanations, no saying “oh just text me if you’re stuck”, nothing!

[lordalmighty]

I have a few.

I advertised my daughters old baby clothes on Gumtree, free to anyone who needed them. I was inundated with messages and stories asking for help but in the end just went for the first person to message as I didn't think it was fair to 'choose'. Anyway the woman comes to collect, 2 black bags full & asks if she can have a look, fair enough I thought. #
She took every single item out, inspected it and huffed. She then said 'you said it was all designer?' And I told her my ad had included photos and at no point did I say it was all designer, some things were, and lots of things were new with tags as they were gifts etc. She basically complained that had she known she wouldn't have bothered coming but would take it she supposed. A few months later I advertised more things and a lovely woman arrived with her baby, didnt want to look in the bag & was so grateful. She had come on 3 buses to pick it up with a tiny baby in winter! I gave them a lift home and we kept in touch for a few years before she moved away.

I am currently in the position where I offered my colleague a lift to/from work one week when her DH was working away, and I am now trapped by it. If I am ever 2 minutes late she phones to see where I am, she complains about my driving, huffs if I can't park right beside work & most recently she has asked that I collect and drop her at her house instead of the main road as 'the walk is hurting her back' and she has NEVER said thank you. I also regularly need to detour to pick up click & collect items despite needing to be home to pick up my kids from their gran. I am ending the arrangement this week as it's more stress than it's worth and I only offered to do it for a week!

[londonscalling]

Personally, I feel it's a bit like owning a washing machine. You don't need one but once you've had one you wouldn't want to go without one. In fact, at times, I've almost felt a dishwasher is more important than owning a washing machine, as I can do without a washing machine because I can use the local launderette!

[EggyPegg]

I've got one where a friend regretted doing me a favour.

We babysit for each other and one night DH and I went for dinner and drinks in Bristol. It's not far, but we do go on the motorway. We were aiming to be back for about 1130pm. At 11pm we got onto the M32 which is normally very quiet at that time. Just as we went past an exit, traffic backed up and stopped dead.

There had been an accident involving a truck and a van that had happened literally minutes before. It wasn't serious, no-one was hurt, but they managed to block all three lanes. We watched as the tow truck came past us about half an hour later.

We kept my friend updated (with photos of the gridlock) and finally got home at 130am.

We bought her many gifts the next day by way of an apology.

[Opal93]

Just thought of another one. I had a friend who was a single mother of 3 and in a new relationship. It was her mother’s birthday and they were having lunch in a family restaurant and I offered to babysit the kids so she could enjoy a kid free lunch and bring her boyfriend along to meet her family. She was very happy and accepted. The lunch was at 12, and hours and hours and hours went by and I couldn’t get her on the phone. I couldn’t just leave because I couldn’t just leave the kids! My husband and I had our own dinner plans I had to cancel! At half 8 at night she rocked up, “ we decided to go to Portstewart beach (over an hours drive from Belfast where we live!) and then we decided to call into the pool hall for a game of pool on the way back. Never again!! Some people will take a mile if you give them a yard

[ExitChasedByAnImposter]

@Mintsmints I hope they paid any money back and returned anything of value. I’d be tempted to point out how much help they actually got if they made comments or showed that you were both now beneath them. What are the chances that they were using you to save up for their dream home?

[Mintsmints]

My cousin and his now wife. They used to live with my cousins mum and dad and so came round to ours a lot to get out. We gave them furniture we could have sold, they even came on holiday with us and only paid for the flights as we had booked a big apartment. My cousin quite often borrowed money to pay for things as he had not got enough on him and we knew they were saving up to get married so didn’t ask for it back.
After they got married and moved into a big house we suddenly were beneath them and were dropped. Every time I see them at family events my blood boils.