To ask what's the rudest thing a stranger has done to you?

[YoungScrappyHungry]

Inspired by the lovely thread about kindest thing strangers have done for you, and also a chance for me to share this horror.

When I was 19, I worked on the tills at a supermarket in my holidays from university.

A woman I was serving was staring at me, trying to get my attention as I scanned her stuff. I looked up at her and smiled. She said, in still the most condescending tone I've ever heard:

'Don't you wish you'd studied now?'

I was so floored and ashamed, I didn't say a thing back and just carried on scanning her things. Fact was I was actually at university, but even if I hadn't been....aghh!....still gets me.

What are yours?

Many customers seem to think that people working in service jobs are really unhappy or there because they can’t do anything else. Same when I was cabin crew, despite that when I was working there (for a flag carrier), the airline had around 50,000 applicants a year for around 100 jobs.

I always found a breezy and smiley “oh I really enjoy my job, I get to travel for free and meet lots of interesting people” was a good comment to make when passengers were sneery about my job. As I’ve said before, I earned more flying than I did being a registered nurse.

Maybe people who deal with sneery comments in retail / hospitality could say the same kind of thing “I enjoy working here, it fits around my life, I have great colleagues and all the free coffee I can drink!”

Interesting thread.

But some posts are stealth boasts, eg, “You must have been a foetus when you had your baby” (tinkly laugh) or descriptions of assault or comments by mad people. The latter are obviously upsetting but not exactly rude . I was once punched by a man in the street - totally random. His carer begged me not to say anything, so I didn’t.... but anyway, I don’t consider that rude, just an unfortunate incident.

Rude I think is a hurtful comment - said unthinkingly or by design. One for me was when I had been babysitting as a teen. I had massive prototype braces top and bottom - it was the early 80s and they were a new thing. The woman rang up the next day and said she wouldn’t be asking me again as my braces had scared her dcs. I was mortified and became a recluse for two years. I don’t know to this day why the woman felt the need to be so “honest”.

@Oreservoir your story reminded me of something that happened to us nearly 30 years ago.

My DH comes from a family that have always believed in I’d hang property as investments. So as a young lad of 18 bought a flat and let it out, whereas he rented a room from a friend. Continued to do this a few times over.

So when we married, in our 20’s, we lived in a flat of his in London that was mainly paid off. For various reasons, we needed to move out of the city and followed the train line south looking at towns that had train station within walking distance and would be an easy commute for us both to get into London for our jobs in the City plus close to motorway to get to his parents’ home for family visits.

We went to look at a house in Weybridge one weekend. We showed up dressed as most 20 somethings would on a weekend in just jeans, T-shirt etc. We had the middle aged owner of the house tell us very snootily look at us up and down and advise we’d be better off looking at houses in addlestone as it was the working man’s Weybridge.

Sat in the bus stop outside the local hospital waiting to get home after visiting my mum after her double mastectomy when some middle aged bastard walked past and went ‘smile love, you’ve not much else working for you.’ To this day I don’t know how anyone could be so fucking rude. I think about it and it still makes me want to cry.

I was seventeen, barely in college, failing my classes and receiving no help academically, my dad had died three years before, my mum had just recently been diagnosed with very advanced cancer, I wasn’t speaking to my sister and I was so stressed I was turning grey and had eczema across my face.

I wept the whole way home thinking of just how worthless I and my life was. God if I could go back and face that piece of shit now. I try so hard to do my upmost to be kind to strangers, especially teenage girls. You never know where someone else is walking.

A woman whacked me over the head with a baseball bat when I shouted at her after her dog attacked mine. Police involved and everything. It was 30 years ago and I had forgotten all about it until a friend mentioned it a few days ago.

Turned right at a traffic light and remained in the right hand lane because I was going to turn right at the next lights 100m on. Driver of car who had followed me through the first lights, and had flashed his lights to try to get me to go into the left lane (because he wanted to drive faster than the speed limit) then pulled up in the middle lane next to me to drive straight on, shouted “You fat bitch” at me, to which I sweetly replied “I can lose weight, but you can’t gain intelligence, so try working on your manners” as my light changed and I turned right! The look on his face was definitely worth it😂

@CorvusPurpureus

Maybe a bit niche, this one, but I was teaching a novel for GCSE English Literature, which has a shocking/upsetting ending.

My very lovely top set year 11s were appalled when we got to the end.

I'd done quite a bit with them on the author's background - which was big on her religious beliefs, & they were genuinely pissed off that she'd had such a horrible & uncalled for denouement in mind. It was unfair. It visited horror on the well meaning protagonist & his innocent family.

Now, I was happy that we'd just read a schlocky horror novel, but y11 were not.

Ok, I said, let's email the author, shall we? So I did, politely asking if we'd all missed something & the hero had deserved the awfulness.

Well. She got back to me within 20 minutes, to explain that my class were clearly irredeemably stupid & I was evidently too thick to understand her fabulous creation. Year 11 were agog. We all went off to lunch still arguing about whether it was worth reading a book when the author was a self evident total arsehole, so it made for a fascinating discussion.

It was the most amazingly rude email I've ever read! It was...well, it was bloody awesome tbh. I've treasured it for years & dig it out occasionally when teaching Macbeth - ties in nicely to the slaughter of the little Macduffs.

But it was staggeringly, sublimely vile & aggressive.

Author was interviewed by the Guardian a few weeks later saying how much she hated her books being taught because blah blah thick teachers (still happy to take the exam board quids though eh).

I'd like to think 11ENG1 inspired that .

It had to be Susan Hill? She has form ..

I had similar comments to OP's when working in a supermarket as a teen.

When someone tries to shame you over something for which you're not ashamed, it is still insulting.

Everyone should have a job like that in their life. I can't belittle others the way I was belittled.

I think the sentiment shown to key workers in the current pandemic is possibly people realising that we are actually very dependent on a group of people that we've been looking down on as lower citizens (e.g. delivery workers and the like).

I was ordering in a MacDonalds once and mildly unsatisfied about something - maybe they were being too slow or whatever, I forget what it was about but it was a legitimate complaint. The assistant called me a bitch. In the same calm tone I'd been using up to that point, I said, "And your name is?"; asked to borrow her pen and then I slowly repeated what she'd just said to me out loud as I wrote both things down in front of her. In my peripheral vision I could see the colour draining from her face and she aggressively demanded her pen back (because being rude had been such a great strategy so far) as there was really nothing else for her to get uppity about at that point even though I had no intention of withholding her pen! I went ahead and complained and got a letter of apology and a wee voucher. If she'd apologised at once and said she was having a bad day I'd have let it go as I don't want to cause anyone to get into trouble with their jobs, even a rude cow like her! My children hate shopping with me, so embarrassing of me to call people out... I don't usually take it further after smilingly enquiring as to their name in response to rudeness but it is a satisfying strategy and usually nips bad attitude in the bud. ( And fun seeing the penny drop.)

whilst out with friend and her daughter who has down syndrome - a woman who said "What's wrong with it?"

I chased after her as friend was in shock!

I was in the checkout queue at wilkos, with 4 tills in a line and 1 line for all of them, I ended up being stood next to the 3rd till, only the last 2 tills were manned, a lady walked up and queue jumped in front of me. There were about 4 people behind me.

So I said 'excuse me, theres a queue here' and turned round and started mouthing off that I was queueing for the 3rd till not the others (even though no one was working on the 3rd till) so she walked off and joined a different queue.

Afterwards a staff member opened the 3rd till which I ended up being served on, so she started shouting at me across the shop. I was mortified!

Was in hospital with severe mastitis 4 weeks after the birth of my twins. Was back in the post natal section on a drip with strong antibiotics. My husband was at home with one of the babies and our older daughter and I had the other baby in with me. I hadn’t slept properly in weeks and was feeling dreadful. I was breastfeeding him but topping up with formula and I’d put some back in the milk fridge. Couldn’t move as was attached to a drip plus feeling horrendous and so rang the bell to ask the health assistant if they’d bring me my milk for the baby’s feed. Health assistant comes in and after I’ve asked if she’d get the milk for me, she had a a right go at me telling me I was really lazy and it was time I got up and did it myself. And it was no wonder I had mastitis if I was giving the baby formula. I burst into tears and she looked rather shame faced. Luckily a lovely midwife came in to change the bag on my drip and offered to get me a cup of tea and asked how my other baby at home was doing. Told the miserable cow to get my milk from the fridge in a very sharp tone!

I've also recently had a couple of men barge in front of the queue to get into the supermarket, when I've been first in line. Quite deliberate. I'm also a university lecturer with a loud, accusatory voice which I can throw to all corners of a room, and not afraid to speak in public.

So while everyone else is ignoring it or muttering quietly about how rude they are, once in the supermarket, I tracked them both duwn and said "You there. Yes you in the red jacket and grey trousers. You do realise that you barged past the entire queue without waiting". And when they start muttering excuses, the key is to let them ramble slightly, repeat your comment then hold your hand up and say I'm not interested in hearing your excuses" and walk off.

A small victory, but one which staff members and other shoppers have congratuoated me for on both occasions.

Hours after having ds1 & just out of bed after my epidural had worn off dp came back to the ward with someone we both were at school with. I’d had a very difficult delivery & was exhausted & mentioned how I wasn’t sure if I’d have coped without the epidural (she’d asked). She then said “I had my 2 normally & drug free, some women don’t try hard enough so can’t manage it properly”. I was gutted but too tired to say anything, dp was changing ds at the time so oblivious. Never forgotten it, her kids are at the same school as mine so I still see her 8 yrs later & feel angry. She acts like she doesn’t know me but will greet dp enthusiastically if he is there whilst still blanking me. She was a bit of a dick at school too, not changed a bit.

In a bar in Bali: a guy who asked me how much my partner (now husband) paid for me (I’m mixed race, he’s English) 🤦🏻‍♀️

In England : lady who used to clean for me husband told me I would be irresponsible to have kids as they would be bullied in school for not being white.

I've had drunk adults loudly sneer at my hair and been called "it" by teenagers on a bus.

In England : lady who used to clean for me husband told me I would be irresponsible to have kids as they would be bullied in school for not being white

Response: white people are irresponsible for having kids as they're horrible bullies. What a stupid woman!

Ex-colleague told me that it was a disgrace my Mum had me when she was 17. I'm not quite sure what she thought I could do about it.

Her boyfriend once spotted me in the shop on a Sunday without make-up on. The next day she told me that it was unfeminine for me to have been out in public without make up on.

Finally, a shop assistant at self scan checkouts rubbed my tummy and asked when I was due. I wasn't. I'd recently been told I would probably struggle to conceive. When I said I wasn't pregnant, she didn't believe me. I complained to the shops head office and they said she was sorry for offending me but that rubbing my tummy was a kind gesture.

A man once spat in my face as he passed me. I was very young at the time - 20 or so - and didn't know what to do so I didn't really react. It was absolutely vile though.

Someone also once kicked me in a lift because I accidentally trod on his foot without realising.

Not sure how much those are rude vs plain old assaults to be honest!

Walking into Oxford street tube once down some stairs from the street, the lad in front flicked his lit cigarette end down and it landed on my foot and burned immediately through my tights and I could feel a small pain on my foot, I said Oiy and he turned round WHAT? I said your cig just burned me and he had a go at me!!

@Figmentofimagination

On holiday at Disney World in Florida. Family holiday for my sister's wedding.

One cast member asked my sister if I was her mum. Not to be mean but just to make conversation and not properly paying attention.

I was horrified as I was in my late 20's at the time, my sister is only 18 months younger than me, and I actually looked great for the first time in years as I'd lost 4 stone in weight. Put a dampener on the rest of the day.

This happened to me with my sister who was 8 years younger. She spent an hour taking the piss

Until we went to a cafe and the waitress asked if we were twins 😁

The inevitable fat cow comments but eventually I was so bored of them they stopped having any impact. Well, beyond yay, yet another tosser in the world. Goody.

The one that got to me (as me, not comments about my disabled children of which there have been loads and a fair number of regrettable reactions from me) was a woman with a kiosk thing in the shopping centre who stepped away from her area to come right in front of me and block me to try to get me to pay her for threading my facial hair.

I have pcos, I pluck every day because waxing and immac actually don't work and shaving leaves me with a five o clock shadow! I am so embarrassed and ashamed of it. I really thought daily plucking kept it under control but this woman picked me out of a crowd from several feet away and was not quiet with the sales pitch as she stared at, well, my beard I suppose. I felt 2 inches tall.

@CorvusPurpureus oh please name and shame! I work in a library and I'm happy to say that all the authors who have visited us have been lovely. However, I took my daughter to a talk by Anne Fine about 16 years ago and she was an utter bitch. Her "funny" comments about hating children went down very badly. Lots of people walked out.

@BriarNorth

I was buying a pair of leggings at our local Sainsbury’s. The cashier scanned them, looked at the leggings, looked me up and down, hooked her fingers into the waistband and gave them an experimental tug before looking me dead in the eyes and saying “Just so you know, these are really fitted...and the sizing is accurate” in a saccharine voice before folding them and sliding them down the little metal ramp to me with a smirk.

I’d recently lost 2 1/2 stone and was feeling pretty good about my size 10 self- I was absolutely crushed, couldn’t think of anything to say, paid then went out to my car and cried!

(Later I thought of all the things I SHOULD have done/ said but hey ho, that’s always the way!)

That's awful! Did you complain?

@ThornAmongstRoses

I have a hidden disability on I was on the bus one day, sitting in the seats for disabled people, and two elderly women behind me kept making really nasty comments about me being there. They were saying them loud enough for all surrounding passengers to hear and they were so disparaging towards me - basically saying who did I think I was sitting in seats for disabled people and it was disgusting how I had the audacity to sit there.

I had tears in my eyes for the length of the journey, I was so embarrassed, hurt and upset.

In hindsight I wish I had said something to them but I just felt too intimidated

I'm sorry you had such an awful experience; intimidation of this type is disgraceful.

I understand how you felt and it's nice that people here suggest responses but in real life it takes courage to respond.

I have similar nasty events fairly frequently and also find it difficult to deal with; some of the worst comments come from healthcare-professionals. I find it sad we have to hear all these unpleasant opinions.