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?

@Ffsseriously

All the people saying how customers were rude saying you will end up like this if you dont study. They then gleefully point out they were studying. You really are agreeing with the rude people. You are quick to point out you are more than just bar staff or shop workers, so you are just as rude. Its no come back or challenge to the ingrained snobbish in the remark.

Very very true

People are hilarious in their rudeness arent they?
I once told an exes mum about my new job and she said " of, thats not paid very much is it?!"
It wasnt but even so. Thank god i didnt end up with her as mil.

I thought of nurse rudeness. A nurse told me off when my canula fell out. My fault apparently. I had just had an emergency section after 48 hours of labour!!

@ThisIsNotARealAvo

When DS was little he had a very big tantrum in a park and was hitting his head on a wall and kicking metal play equipment. DH and I had been trained in safe holding and I was holding DS to get him calm. A woman came over and screamed at me that I was abusing my child (er, no, just trying to stop him from breaking his skull or toes) and that she had taken pictures and was going to call the police. I told her to call whoever she wanted but it really shook me and I avoided taking DS out for a while. Thankfully he doesn't do it any more.

I can see why that shook you its not nice to feel threatened and criticised.

However there is a flip way of looking at that one, you were doing it safely to protect him from hurting himself, it was in his best interest. What if you hadn't been? What if you were someone abusing your child? The way she did it was totally wrong, but I always think its better to check 10 legitimate situations then walk by that 1 abusing their child.

Every patient of mine who sees fit to comment on my weight for some reason, I've learnt to ignore it now.

Some builders who whistled at me in the street and then when I automatically turned my head shouted "not you fatty".
i got the last laugh tho', I went over to complain to their manager and they were brought down to street level where they were told off by their manager and me and could not look me in the eye as I told them what disgusting specimens of humanity they were.
Nurses have thick skins lol.

@Justheretoaskaquestion91

The ones with nurses being unkind sre absolutely horrendous! They are in a position of power over vulnerable patients and it’s sick/has made me fume just reading

I was never ever unkind to a patient in 40 years of working for the NHS. People who are should be sacked. I'd always go the extra mile.

Two incidents stick out for me

One was I was walking home and a group of teenage girls were behind me. One of them ran up and just kicked me on the bum. I think she was trying to push me over for some unknown reason, luckily I am a fat old sod and am pretty solid so it barely winded me. They ran off pretty quickly.

Another one was a bit scarier as again I was walking home pushing my DD in her pram and a young guy turned to look at me and started shouting that I was an ugly English bitch, a f*%$ing cunt etc etc...I must admit I simply ignored and ran for it. Annoyingly he lives somewhere bear me as he's shouted at me twice more since, I cross the road when I see him.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

Every patient of mine who sees fit to comment on my weight for some reason, I've learnt to ignore it now.

Some builders who whistled at me in the street and then when I automatically turned my head shouted "not you fatty".
i got the last laugh tho', I went over to complain to their manager and they were brought down to street level where they were told off by their manager and me and could not look me in the eye as I told them what disgusting specimens of humanity they were.
Nurses have thick skins lol.

Well done @Shehasadiamondinthesky that's hilarious! 🤣. Told off like the silly little school boys that they are.

Some of these are horrendous. I'm so sorry that you've all experienced such abuse.
Mine aren't anywhere near as bad, more...bizarre.
Once when I was walking home from my part time job in a cafe (I was about 17) some boys on bikes rode past and shouted "posh bitch" at me. No idea why as I'm not posh and wasn't dressed ostentatiously or anything...I had my uniform on (standard black trousers and black top) plus a black coat.

Another time when in town a man walking past me said "I like your bag" sarcastically. It was a very nondescript black and brown bag,

The worst one was when I was working in a corner shop as a teenager and a man came in asking if I still have my school uniform (it was summer so school was out). I was confused and a bit naive so just said "yeah, why?" and he told me in a conspiratorial voice that there may be a "job" for me at such and such address, "if you know what I mean", wink wink. I was too stunned to say anything and just stared at him until he went away.

@Ffsseriously

All the people saying how customers were rude saying you will end up like this if you dont study. They then gleefully point out they were studying. You really are agreeing with the rude people. You are quick to point out you are more than just bar staff or shop workers, so you are just as rude. Its no come back or challenge to the ingrained snobbish in the remark.

No they're not, they're demonstrating why the rude person's argument is invalid!

Hospitality can't = uneducated if the people you're looking down on are doing qualifications.

Exactly

I had a chap aged 90 loudly and rudely demand i show him where the 'Suppengrün' was in a supermarket recently. I was clearly not a supermarket employee but he had this massive North Face bubble coat on, baggy jeans and knit hat. He looked like an angry, wizened rapper and that amused me so I decided to humour him.

I showed him the vegetables and he realised I was English, he started talking in this beautiful accented English about all the great times he'd spent in Milton Keynes on business trips , we had a nice chat and he was actually quite a sweetheart. I must admit I love really old rude people and I'm usually willing to go along with their nonsense. Imagine being 90!

I've no patience with younger people who are just rude and awful. Sorry to all the people who've had really sad experiences with strangers. I've had some but I really haven't had anything so bad that I remember or care about it with any clarity. It's tended to be family that have devastated me, unfortunately!

A window cleaner once referred to me while talking to my husband as "that deaf and dumb woman." I am deaf, but not dumb. My husband was absolutely gobsmacked and told him to go eff himself.

Old homeless man purposely spat on my face and arm as he shuffled by me...eugh I want to wash again. This was years ago..

Well, thats more disgusting than rude. But still

I was flipped the bird and sworn at by a teenage girl who walked out without looking from behind the stationary school bus I'd been following and was cautiously creeping past at about 2mph. I noted where she went, parked up, knocked and told on her to her mother. It could have gone either way but her mum was shocked and made her apologise. It was a small village. 😉

Once when I was about 14 walking through Birmingham city centre with 2 girls of same age, 3 business men types walked past us. As they did one of them pulled my top down exposing me. They all laughed and walked off.

At about 17 I was walking down a road toward some builders standing around their truck one of them loudly on the phone ‘you can’t miss it, there’s a fat girl walking towards it’ staring right at me. They all laughed and I died a bit inside. (I had recently lost 3st - not in a healthy way.. and was about a size 14).

When I was 16 my boyfriend bought me a rose on a night out from a street vendor.
I was walking hand in hand with him being all loved up and occasionally sniffing my pretty rose and a slightly older girl walking towards us on the pavement with her friends reached out and crushed it at the same time as bending the stalk. I was so shocked I didn't even say anything, just sort of wandered along kind of shocked with this crushed bent thing dropping petals everywhere.

The casual cruelty and sheer nastiness of seeing someone take enjoyment from something and wanting to take that from them for no reason will always stay with me even though it was actually only a minor incident.

30 odd years ago some git on the platform at London Bridge. Complete stranger, about 9:30 a.m, rush hour crowds. Guy comes along the platform towards me tapping his umbrella, kind of as zones in on me, full eye contact, then gets right in my face, literally nose to nose and spits out at full volume: 'FUCKING UGLY LESBIAN!' and sort of shoved me.

I am a presenting officer for appeals and was attending virtual appeals over the internet in the summer term. My husband had been called to the hospital at 5am that morning as his Dad had been taken to A&E after collapsing. He rang me just before 9am to tell me his Dad had died.

I'm the only presenting officer in the Trust so I decided I should see the appeals through. They were for Reception places (ICS) so really difficult for parents to overturn.

I presented the case for the school and all the parents were online and able to ask questions. A couple of parents were quite rude (I understand they are upset but there is no need to be rude) because they didn't like it that I was giving full confident answers. One of the parents forgot they were on mute and said, 'She's an unfeeling cow! What a bitch!'. Everyone went silent so I just waited for the chair of the panel to remind them all that I was expected to present a case effectively and rudeness was not acceptable.

It was a crap day - but all appeals were dismissed so I knew that I was an unfeeling but competent cow!

@Polmuggle "No they're not, they're demonstrating why the rude person's argument is invalid!

Hospitality can't = uneducated if the people you're looking down on are doing qualifications."

The comments are rude to people who work permanently in that role, as a job / career. It is unlikely that someone studying law etc will continue to work in a bar / shop once they've qualified. That's totally fine and expected.

Of course qualified people do these jobs, I am one myself! But what you are missing is that she isn't defending her job or the others doing it by bringing up her degree, she's using it to elevate herself from those she works with, who the comment is aimed at.

Riding my horse with a friend and going down a road in a housing estate and a woman come the other way and slow down opening her window to show her kid the horse which was lovely. But she was still moving with the kid on her lap and crashed into a parked car which caused my horse to spin round in panic and kick out at her car (he missed)- I didn’t come off and he didn’t actually’do’ anything until the crash. She proceeded to get out her car ranting and screaming it was my fault she crashed her car, despite my horse doing nothing until she crashed.
She tried to pull me off my horse and a person in the house near called the police and she was ticketed while screaming about me and my horse. The police were stroking my horse and even helped me back on but she called me every name imaginable

@HelplesslyHoping

That is an horrendous thing for her to say. In what world would that even be ok?

I am so sorry for your losses

[quote Boxerbinky]@Polmuggle "No they're not, they're demonstrating why the rude person's argument is invalid!

Hospitality can't = uneducated if the people you're looking down on are doing qualifications."

The comments are rude to people who work permanently in that role, as a job / career. It is unlikely that someone studying law etc will continue to work in a bar / shop once they've qualified. That's totally fine and expected.

Of course qualified people do these jobs, I am one myself! But what you are missing is that she isn't defending her job or the others doing it by bringing up her degree, she's using it to elevate herself from those she works with, who the comment is aimed at.[/quote]

I think she's simply saying that people from all walks of life work in supermarkets for different reasons and you shouldn't judge someone because of their job. I don't see what's offensive about that.

@BuffyFanForever

Walking down the road in my uni town with my first girlfriend (now wife) and a group of young lads drove past. The youngest honestly probably about 13 shouted “Dyke” out the window. My wife just shouted back Yes! Honestly he was so shocked he actually shouted back alright then!

My uni friend was a goth and also a lesbian. Sadly, she was no stranger to verbal abuse. Any time anyone shouted 'goth!' 'dyke!' or anything similar she used to reply with a loud ''thanks!' and a cheery wave. It confused them so much.