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 gave DH's friend's daughter my old car when he bought me a new one as we knew she was struggling to find a decent car and her parents had told us they were struggling with money. She turned up to collect it and thought I was giving her my brand new car. She cried when she realised it was "an old car" (2014 honda civic) and asked if I could just give her my new one (2020 range rover). She then said she'd take the old car if I paid her the difference. I ended up saying i'd changed my mind so a week later her parents bought her a 2019 merc!

Got one going now, a "friend" has asked me to help (translate) her put her holiday house on air&b. I said "send me the text I'll translate it," it then becomes clear she wants me to research, create & probably do admin on this as she has no wifi ...& no computer....
she also wants me to research the other platforms & their refund policies ......

@SplendidSuns1000 OMG I can't actually believe that. She actually told you to pay her to take your car? What planet is she from. How did she even think for a second that her parents friend will just Give her a brand new car. Wow some people are just shocking

We live in a house with a large driveway but a lot of the houses in the road have no off-street parking at all. A neighbour/friend was always complaining that when she came home she could never park near her house (opposite ours) so we said it would be OK for her to park in our drive on such occasions, just until a space became available on the road.

Over the years that followed she took this favour with less & less consideration for us, no longer tucking her car neatly into the corner we had indicated at first, leaving it in the most inconvenient places making it difficult for us to park our own cars in our own drive. The final straw came when she left it badly positioned for 5 days without moving it over a bank holiday weekend - so we went over to tell her we were terminating the arrangement. She was angry & indignant, told us we were horrible people and the friendship came to an end.

She has since moved away but I have discovered what a taker she was as almost every neighbour has a story of how she used them in some way or another.

Sometimes other neighbours, seeing how much parking space we have, have hinted that we might allow them to park in our drive but I am never making that mistake again.

I should add on the day we went to tell her we were stopping the favour, she was very drunk but that did not stop her stomping across the road there & then and moving her car out of our drive onto the road with angry engine revving. She thought SHE was the aggrieved party. Her lack of self-awareness left me speechless.

@LemmysAceCard

I have never understood that phrase "no good deed goes unpunished", if you are doing a good deed you are trying to be nice or helpful so why would you be punished for it? I dont understand it.

A good example is a post upthread. The poster saw her (nasty) neighbour struggling to open her car door on a frozen morning, so she put her coffee on the dashboard of her car and then went to de-ice neighbour’s car door.

Unfortunately the coffee fell into the car’s fusebox, which couldn’t be fixed properly and she sold her car for next to nothing.

So I can definitely see why she felt she was punished for that good deed. It cost her thousands to help a nasty neighbour.

Agreed the old lady next door could put some garden cuttings in our green bin one day 5 years ago. She now fills it regularly and we pay the annual bill... 🙄🌱

Can't believe the cheek of some people!

I recommended a "friend" for a job in my dept as she was looking to move. They didn't interview anyone else as they trusted my judgement. She is a nightmare she has meltdowns and shouts at my colleagues, is rude to women but flirts with the men. I'll never recommend anyone again.

During lockdown my husband had agreed to go to the shops for my disabled neighbour, she asked.

He was happy to oblige as both her and her husband were shielding.

He did this for weeks and weeks with little fanfare

One day he dropped off the groceries and she the texted him to say he had been buying the wrong milk for the last few weeks, they prefer Cravendale milk.

I think a lump of kindness is often taken and rolled thin!

My last job I gave my colleague a lift to and from work (she did pay £10 a week though) and I didn't really have to go out of my way.
But in those journeys she never stopped talking
Morning commute:
What she had for dinner (every single detail)
How (grown up) DS slept / how he had spent the evening
Anecdotes about same grown up DS' school days (he was 22 at the time!)
What chores she had done the previous evening
What dream(s) she had had and how she had slept the night before
Anecdotes about her (sadly) deceased dog
Evening commute:
What she might have for dinner
Who she might phone that evening (DSis or DM)
More anecdotes about her (sadly) deceased dog

After I was furloughed then made redundant in the summer, all contact finished on her part even when she knew that my poor dog was ill - nothing, no interest at all.
I assume that I had outlived my use

@LemmysAceCard

I have never understood that phrase "no good deed goes unpunished", if you are doing a good deed you are trying to be nice or helpful so why would you be punished for it? I dont understand it.

It means this - you do a good deed for someone by taking their dc home from school. Then the parent is Kate so the child needs food then it happens again and again. Which isn't what you wanted, therefore you are punished aka taken advantage of.

@Iminthewrongstory, Oh my that sounds exactly like the mother of a boy in my DD class, not called A B was he?

Many years ago I came out of our house to find an elderly lady sitting on our front wall. I asked her if she was OK and if she wanted me to call anyone (it was a winter's day and she had a thick woolly on but no coat). She told me that her neighbour had dropped her off to visit a friend but she wasn't in and now she couldn't remember the neighbour's number. I offered to give her a lift home (3 miles into London) and she was delighted. When we got there, her house was rented out and she was actually a resident of a care home 4 doors up from me. She cried and was visibly distressed to see her old home. I felt so stupid and had to take her back to her 'prison'. We both had a little cry.

I was driving home from a friends new home, took a wrong turning and got completely lost.
I stopped the car and asked a man for directions to the motorway. He told me that he was going in that direction and asked if I could I give him a lift. I was a bit apprehensive, but agreed as I wanted to get home as soon as possible. He took me on a journey which basically took him home and I was miles from nowhere. I ended up asking for directions from a police officer who was parked in a lay-by, he told me to follow him to the motorway which was about 5 miles away.
I would never, ever give anyone a lift again.

@Lavender2018

I was driving home from a friends new home, took a wrong turning and got completely lost. I stopped the car and asked a man for directions to the motorway. He told me that he was going in that direction and asked if I could I give him a lift. I was a bit apprehensive, but agreed as I wanted to get home as soon as possible. He took me on a journey which basically took him home and I was miles from nowhere. I ended up asking for directions from a police officer who was parked in a lay-by, he told me to follow him to the motorway which was about 5 miles away. I would never, ever give anyone a lift again.

You picked up a stranger and drove him round in your car?

Dear god, yes, don't give strangers lifts again.

The friend I posted about a couple of days ago, the one who's sponged off us for the last year and then bought a pedigree puppy and a massive tattoo, has just posted pictures of her new camper van. Brand new VW conversion to her own design: orange interior, leather seats, microwave, every extra you can imagine and all decked out with fancy lights, beautiful throws and looking like a magazine shoot. And this is the woman we were providing food parcels for so that she didn't have to go to the food bank just a few months ago. I'm livid.

We moved to a different part of the country pre-DC. We often had friends come to stay and they loved it as it is a beautiful place. One of them decided that he wanted to move there too and get a job in the same company as DH. All fine. He got the job (on his own merits) and we suggested that he stay with us for a couple of weeks as it would be easier to find a houseshare whilst living here.

Our flat was very attractive as it was smack in the city centre. Literally rolling distance to pubs/clubs/restaurants/takeaways.

He stayed for 6 months! I barely saw DH in that time as they were out every night and generally camd back merry (all in our early 20s).

After six months I told DH that he needed to have a word because friend needed to move out. He was respectful and tidy, but I wanted to be able to walk from the bathroom naked again, and have evenings with DH.

Turned out one of the other locals at our local was renting out a room so he moved in there within a couple of weeks. He missed our location though as she was in suburbia.

@Billandben444

Many years ago I came out of our house to find an elderly lady sitting on our front wall. I asked her if she was OK and if she wanted me to call anyone (it was a winter's day and she had a thick woolly on but no coat). She told me that her neighbour had dropped her off to visit a friend but she wasn't in and now she couldn't remember the neighbour's number. I offered to give her a lift home (3 miles into London) and she was delighted. When we got there, her house was rented out and she was actually a resident of a care home 4 doors up from me. She cried and was visibly distressed to see her old home. I felt so stupid and had to take her back to her 'prison'. We both had a little cry.

That's really sad, but you did a good deed Billandben44 I hope you don't regret it.

I've got a covid one. A relative has a friend who has a shielding family member and an adult dc, no health problems, who lives with them. Relative is over 65 but fit and healthy. Friend is younger by 20 years.
After Christmas 20, friend starts asking relative for bits of shopping that were missed from online groceries. This turned into lists of 10+ items. Relative had a hard time getting money from friend. Friend starts to take the piss, asking for exotic stuff and then explaining that the dc was very brave risking her life by going into a shop. Relative starts to wonder why it was ok for her to risk her life.
It all culminated when friend paid relative for groceries in loose coins (silver) that she put on the ground in front of her outside the house for relative to scrape up while friend watched. Relative had handed groceries over in a bag.
She could have bagged the money up or put it in an envelope! And yes, I did tell relative not to start it.

Mine is perhaps more a misunderstanding. I agreed to look after my friend's flat and his dog so had to stay there for the week while he and his partner were away on holiday. Bit of an inconvenience for me as I was at uni quite a few miles away and also had part time work to go to throughout the week so it meant a lot more commuting for me, but I was happy to do it, partially as it was a flat in London so it felt cool to be there for a bit. I asked if I could have my boyfriend over and he said yeah no problem so we stayed there together a night or two and made the most of being in London throughout the day. Anyway my friend comes back and all is well etc I go on my way. Shortly afterwards he messages me saying that someone has worn is new shoes which were in a box apparently and he hadn't worn them yet. I had no idea what he was on about, he accuses my boyfriend of wearing his shoes and going out in them. I'm absolutely certain that this couldn't have been the case, I think it even turned our they were different sizes so I'm not sure what happened there. I think he was a bit miffed for a while about that but there was nothing I could do.

@GiveTheGirlAGun

I've got a covid one. A relative has a friend who has a shielding family member and an adult dc, no health problems, who lives with them. Relative is over 65 but fit and healthy. Friend is younger by 20 years. After Christmas 20, friend starts asking relative for bits of shopping that were missed from online groceries. This turned into lists of 10+ items. Relative had a hard time getting money from friend. Friend starts to take the piss, asking for exotic stuff and then explaining that the dc was very brave risking her life by going into a shop. Relative starts to wonder why it was ok for her to risk her life. It all culminated when friend paid relative for groceries in loose coins (silver) that she put on the ground in front of her outside the house for relative to scrape up while friend watched. Relative had handed groceries over in a bag. She could have bagged the money up or put it in an envelope! And yes, I did tell relative not to start it.

What do you mean it culminated? Did relatives stop buying fur her? I bloody hope so!

@Shedbuilder

The friend I posted about a couple of days ago, the one who's sponged off us for the last year and then bought a pedigree puppy and a massive tattoo, has just posted pictures of her new camper van. Brand new VW conversion to her own design: orange interior, leather seats, microwave, every extra you can imagine and all decked out with fancy lights, beautiful throws and looking like a magazine shoot. And this is the woman we were providing food parcels for so that she didn't have to go to the food bank just a few months ago. I'm livid.

I would reply to her post at a time when she is hopefully not online to maximise the amount of other people who see it. Call her out and ask why the hell she was accepting food parcels from you if she had enough money for the camper, dog etc. Don't just let it go.

@sashh I feel like your post deserves a whole thread! What on earth happened?

My friend said she had no food in the house only a days worth and could I lend her some money. I didn't but instead did a whole weeks shop for her and her 2 children. When I dropped it round and helped her put it away, her cupboards were already completely full of food. I was so pissed off but didn't say anything to her. Never helped her out again though.