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?!

I managed to head off a cf person once ( I had more self esteem 'back in the day' ) I didn't even know her that well either)
she was desperate for childcare and I said no I wasn't a childminder and didn't have the relevant insurance should her child have an accident. She looked baffled by this and soon scurried off! She Avoided me after that.
It can be done but it takes tact and you need to get in first! If you want your children cared for go through the proper channels.

A CF friend called to say she’d broken down near KFC and could I drive over and help her. I knew her car was dodgy so I got DP and his friend in my car and immediately went over to the business park. She sees us, gets straight in our car and starts directing us. We go for miles out of town...to her new boyfriends. She’d promised him KFC and was worried her car wouldn’t make it.

45mins in the car for me, DP and his friend.

The friendship did not survive much longer.

I once worked in a busy large office. Helped organise leaving cards and presents for birthdays, retirements and so on.

When I left to have my first baby I didn't get so much as a card. It was just "See you on Monday... oh you won't be here will you, you're starting maternity". I don't think I contributed to many collections after I returned to work.

We'd had friends (couple) over for several barbecues, we enjoy entertaining and roll out the red carpet for guests. They invited us to theirs for an evening barbecue, I took some great wine. On arrival they said they'd had a busy day could we have a takeaway instead. Fine with us, told them to hang onto the wine for another day as Barolo and Indian takeaway are not friends. Friend phones order through and promptly asks us for £25 to cover our half plus a few beers from the village shop. These people are not remotely skint, they have multiple properties and the latest of everything, I can't abide meanness and needless to say they haven't been invited to our house again!

Gardenchoas , that's why your ex friends are wealthy.
They have short arms and long pockets!
I have often found the richer someone is the meaner they are.

I understand that gardenchaos we’ve got some friends a bit like that, invites to theirs often change into a meal out where we go halves, or when we go over we get asked to bring a dish/course. They’ve got plenty of cash, just like to spend it on themselves.

@Fanthorpe They're not friends, I would stop inviting them for meals.

Gave my brother money when he was skint,didn't want his wife to know that he borrowed money from me. He borrowed £15k from my dad for a house he was buying. 4 years later house he 'bought' was a council house and he fucked off half way down the country.
We realised he was borrowing money to keep his wife pampered. His wife always makes a point of how she's too good for him. Recently my dad was chatting to us and he mentioned that loser brother owed my other brother £6k . We're never going to see our money again. Major regrets for all the good deeds I did for him. I hope karma gets home like a crocadile getting it's prey. He has hurt my parents with his constant lies,I could write a separate thread on him.He's a lost cause.

Thank you Cadent, don’t worry, they’re well known in our circle for their behaviour, we all know the score. What’s extraordinary is they can’t work out why invites are so few and far between...

@Fanthorpe glad to hear it! So clueless. Reminds me of that episode of Bob and Margaret where all they get a is a bowl of peanuts in return for lovely meals!

Helped a "friend" and her family move back to England from abroad. Did everything we could for them, she ended up poisoning the relationship I had with my relatives, spread awful rumours about me, threatened me, bullied me and yet was delightful to my relatives who thought I was being unreasonable. We ended up moving away, our lives were turned upside down by her. I regret not standing up to her and discussing what was going on with my extended family. She literally kicked me out of my life.

I lent a colleague £300 because payroll had messed up her pay. Months later she still hadn’t payed me back and said that I didn’t deserve the money back because I was management and she should be compensated for the stress she had been through.

Not quite sure why I should personally lose £300 because an external payroll department made a mistake. I had to get her boss involved in the end to get my money back.

I helped out a fellow Mum who'd been out of the workplace for years. She brought her kids to the playscheme I'm chair of. She'd been a parent helper on a few occasions, but she said she lacked confidence due to escaping a DV situation.

Over a year or so I helped her build her confidence. I found funding for training to help her confidence and CV. I dropped her and her two kids home every day. Not just me, the vice-chair spent a lot of time helping her out with all sorts of things, they seemed to become great friends.

Then she did something that breached our policies. Nothing major, but could have been problematic so we had to have a chat with her. It was all very friendly. Just a "Look you did X and you can't do that because of Y and Z reasons." Nothing OTT.

She stormed out in tears, slated us all on social media, slashed my car tyres (though I can't prove it was her, only my car in the middle of a busy car park was touched) and screamed at vice-chair in the street.

Worst of all she went round some parents who sent their kids to us and told them horrible stories about how poorly we looked after their children. She turned up at our AGM with a couple of them who'd been taken in by her. Someone contacted OFSTED with a major safeguarding concern so we got an unexpected visit.

It damaged our reputation for two years until she did the same to the Brownie leader who went through the same.

Yes one friend in particular, things loaned come back broken and dirty without fail and money loaned never comes back when promised.. im a slow learner even though id regret every time i did the favour asked. And id mostly only hear from them when they wanted something. I put distance between us now. Its hard when there is a long friendship history of a lot of good times as well as the frustrating stuff.

@justmakemeacuppa

Always put in for birthday collections bake cakes send cards. My birthday came I made three different cakes/treats. Got nothing off most. The receptionist bought me a card and a girl who was on holiday brought me a bunch of flowers when she returned which ment so much to me just to be recognised. The rest can do one in future, even the staff I have a good relationship with just sent a message to say my cake was good. Future collections will have to go without me contributing now. Watch me be called out for it.

I had similar. We always do birthdays and other occasions at work. My milestone birthday was missed thought it was because of lockdown but they have given gifts and cards for other occasions since then including a persons 'original wedding date' as they wedding has been moved due to lockdown.

@gardenchaos
I hope you took your Barolo back! 😲

I had a friend who was strapped for cash while dealing with a stressful family situation. I gave her money with no expectation of it being repaid. I also spent hours helping her apply for a new job, I more or less wrote her whole CV for her.

A few months later she accused me of being heartless and stopped talking to me, because I refused to get involved in a political issue on Twitter (as if anyone is looking to my stupid little Twitter account for information on political issues anyway).

Needless to say that's the last time she'll receive charity from me.

@ Divoc2020
Yes, been there with amateur productions and with the astounding expectation of services that would have been chargeable at well over £3,000 had I sent an invoice. In this case I wasn't even involved with the faith-based collective who managed to take over every spare minute of my life for the best part of 2 months. Instead, a good friend had asked me if I could help them with designing a quick flyer for a forthcoming performance event. The next weeks were spent doing designs that were willingly accepted only to be revised in bafflingly contradictory nature after 'evenings in prayer'. I then discovered that, not surprisingly they'd lost 3 volunteer designers already.

To cut a long - and potentially outing - story short, I also took on all the photography and publicity (this latter including putting up two displays one of which was done without any useful material or collaboration. None of these tasks had I volunteered for but it was like being on some terrifyingly ramshackle rollercoaster that never stopped to let you off. My DH was also going through what turned out to be his final illness although he was relatively perky at the time but for sure, I wasn't exactly sitting around looking for ways to occupy my time. Six months after this shitshow of exploitation I was phoned up and asked if I knew how to design a specific item. Yes, I said. But I'm not planning to. And with that, I put the phone down.

@lyralalala Well you certainly helped her with her confidence.

I have met someone like that. They can only see themselves as the crusading victim, fighting for justice. They are only happy when they are in a “fight”. The woman I knew burnt through every local club until only the church would have her and they permanently banned her after 6 months and ended up getting a restraining order against her.

She was all sweetness and light to me when I first met her but ended up sending me death threats over some perceived slight.

Now when I meet someone I am very wary if they try to tell me how badly other people/groups have treated them. I now see it as a huge red flag.

Does she still bother you at all? Did the people who supported her apologise to you?

Friend was a bit strapped for cash and we were both due to travel to a party that evening where train fair would have been £20 each. I offered to drive us both there and back, knowing petrol would be about £30 for both ways, and splitting it would have saved us both some money. Well CF didnt offer petrol money once, or even get me a drink at the party, meaning I was out of pocket for giving her a lift than if I'd have just got the train .

Also one where a nice deed by someone else was actually cheeky fuckery....a group of friends were around at CFs house about to order a takeaway. I'd been invited over but mentioned I'd eat at home first because money was strapped. CF insisted I come over as there would be loads of leftovers as they'd ordered too much. Very grateful I swung around early. Turns out I mostly sat there with an empty plate whilst friends gave me some of their leftovers and CF friend and her husband ate the lot of theirs. Fair enough, I didnt mind, it was a nice offer....until the next day where CFs husband sent me a text asking for my share of money for the takeaway!! He had charged me as if I'd had a full on meal....I was gobsmacked as the husband was one who hadn't offered me so much as a scrap of his food....greedy fucker

[quote Daisyhut]@lyralalala Well you certainly helped her with her confidence.

I have met someone like that. They can only see themselves as the crusading victim, fighting for justice. They are only happy when they are in a “fight”. The woman I knew burnt through every local club until only the church would have her and they permanently banned her after 6 months and ended up getting a restraining order against her.

She was all sweetness and light to me when I first met her but ended up sending me death threats over some perceived slight.

Now when I meet someone I am very wary if they try to tell me how badly other people/groups have treated them. I now see it as a huge red flag.

Does she still bother you at all? Did the people who supported her apologise to you?[/quote]
She was a complete piece of work. Turned out she was involved in a DV relationship - she battered the life out of her ex

I’m the same with sob stories. I’m also much less forgiving for errors. Which is a shame, but now there’s a set way and I don’t deviate even if it feels mean.

Of the 4 people that joined her little crusade (which involved slating me personally to parents at the school I worked in) 1 crosses the road to avoid me, and is always mortified. One apologised profusely. One registered her kids the summer after the Brownies debacle and just said nothing at all. The last one still maintains there is no smoke without fire.

She moved away thankfully so doesn’t give me anymore hassle

There are definitely a lot of people who, once helped out of adverse or abusive circumstances, determine never to be made a fool of or become downtrodden ever again (which isn't a bad thing at all), but in so doing, they make themselves so hard and flint-faced and their new bullet-proof defence mechanism can make them nasty towards everybody, assuming that they intend to hurt them - even those who have continually proven themselves to be kind and caring throughout.

Within that attitude, they know deep down that the genuinely nasty and abusive people might still present them with a challenge, so they build up their confidence by taking it out on those whom they know they have no cause to fear.

Like a lot of parents, I've always taught my DS the general rule that nobody is more important than he is; but also that nobody is less important than him. Some people's needs will sometimes take priority, but never them as a person.

@Cadent thank you for the link, that was great  @Happynow001 I still regret leaving it there, if it hadn't have been quickly tucked away I'd have grabbed it from the side on my way out..... they are wine fans, they knew exactly what it was. CF indeed.

Thought of another....spent my entire weekend helping CF boyfriend move house (CF friend was in bed with a bug so couldn't help). Finished helping on sunday so decided to go to the local cafe for a sandwich and coffee. CF friend (who miraculously perked up) and bf (earning 80k between them) didnt offer to get my coffee and sandwich which came to a fiver.... CF friend spent the entire time on the cafe complaining how she'd missed out on the 'fun' of moving into the new home because she was ill. No thanks at all