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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Best passive aggressive/petty moments..

588 replies

LittleMissUnreasonable · 11/05/2022 16:49

The other day I was trying to park in one of those private run car parks where there are no designated spaces. There was only one quite awkward space left and there was another car behind me who was practically sat on my tail trying to get this awkward spot. I decided to reverse out and find another car park but this tailgating car was not letting me go go as they were so hell-bent on getting this space and were trying to go around me. I just thought screw it and drove into the spot as I had nowhere to go. You could practically see the red mist coming from the driver's ears as they had to reverse and find another car park 😤

Another consistent one is that we have a manager who will without fail walk up to a small group of colleagues with a query and direct it to the men, completely ignoring the women. So now, even if I know the answer and the male colleague doesn't, I will just get on with my work and not intervene. It's funny to see the manager flapping around trying to work out the answer when he could have just asked...you know...a woman😱

OP posts:
ChilledScandi · 12/05/2022 08:43

StoppinBy · 12/05/2022 08:36

I disagree, I love this person lol.

The ALDI person on the other hand.... what a twat..... they put all that extra work on the staff who had nothing to do with the customer who was bothering them.

Yeah the only thing the Aldi person achieved was more work for the staff and possibly having to bin frozen stuff.

ThreeLeggedCat · 12/05/2022 08:44

When my brother and I were little, my uncle gave us both a harmonica. You can imagine how much my parents loved that! Fast forward 20 years and my uncle had a child. For the child’s first birthday my parents brought him a couple of saucepans and metal spoons to bang on them. The child loved it and made as much noise as possible 😊.

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 12/05/2022 08:47

A couple of weeks before Christmas at Bluewater. No parking available at all. All Blue Badge parking in use - a significant amount of those bays used by cars without a badge. Lots of frayed tempers…

Anyway, dsis and I had got there early, and had parked up. We got back to the car and a passing driver asked if we were leaving. My dsis said we were, but that this was a disabled bay. “Oh, don’t worry about that… they never ticket here,” they answered. I assume they’d missed the wheelchair I’d just put in the boot. Dsis waved her keys in the air and pointedly put them in her pocket. We were in a stand off (drive off?) for quarter of an hour before they realised dsis meant business. And even after they left dsis refused to move in case they drove round, and came back.

I’m not entirely sure that the phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” isn’t relevant here. Best part of half an hour it cost us.

MerryMarigold · 12/05/2022 08:50

PomBearWithoutHerOFRS · 12/05/2022 01:36

I did once give in to "shop rage" in Aldi.
I was putting a full shop on the conveyor belt, and the woman behind me started putting hera on without leaving any room for the rest of mine, tutting and rolling her eyes and obviously In A Hurry.
I just abandoned my own still half full trolley, sauntered down the line, said "sorry, but it's this or punch her" to the checkout person, and walked out.

Well that's what my mum calls 'cutting off your nose to spite your face."

So you had to do your shopping all over again, elsewhere?! What a hassle for you.

Newestname002 · 12/05/2022 08:51

@TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo

Hope you also changed your locks after this. 🌹

FlipFlopFlap1981 · 12/05/2022 08:52

I never comment on Mumsnet but have a passive aggressive move that I have been pulling out of the drawer for the last 3 years. My husband bought me a birthday card 3 years ago and he made the colossal mistake of buying me one with a badge that says 'Amazing Wife'.

Now - whenever he is being a knob or has anything negative to say about me I go and put that badge on and just walk around the house with it...I have been to tesco wearing it - school run - even a dinner with his family where before the meal he had a go at me because he thought I was being too slow getting ready.

It does break the tension and makes us laugh but he will always regret buying it!

MerryMarigold · 12/05/2022 09:02

Oh wow, I SO wish I had an 'amazing wife' badge.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 12/05/2022 09:04

@VintageGibbon , can’t say I blame you.

That sort of thing is horrible. I was once stopped at the exit of Asda because nothing at the self service till had clocked that there was a small security tag on the back of a pack of steak. And I hadn’t bothered to take my receipt.

So had to stand there for what seemed ages, guarded by two security staff, while they went through the bin looking for my receipt. Which they eventually found, with my pack of steak registered.

I now always take my self service receipt, even if I’ve only bought one thing for £3. But it still pisses me off that the SS tills didn’t pick up that security tag, which I’d never have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it.

GarlicGnocchi · 12/05/2022 09:07

@FlipFlopFlap1981 That's great, glad it helps smooth things over a bit

KettrickenSmiled · 12/05/2022 09:07

FlissyPaps · 12/05/2022 01:46

When I was at uni and lived in student accommodation one of my flat mates left a note on the fridge saying something a long the lines of “I have spent X amount of hours vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen. Can we all keep it clean going forwards”.

What pass-agg about that?

It's a clear statement followed by a clear request. Both probably futile ... but!

KStockHERO · 12/05/2022 09:11

In my last year of school (early 2000s) I was on a scheme to help poor and potentially wayward kids not drop out.
One Saturday (fucking Saturday) we had a tour of the local newspaper including a Q&A session with their travel journalist. He was vile. Absolutely vile. He was really patronising, smug and judgmental of us council estate oiks.

He was telling us about his job and said "I get paid £12,000" a year as he reclined in his seat, put his brown shoes on the table, put his hands behind his head, and smirked at us all. At this point in time brown shoes on boys had a whole language around them - code for being a poser, for offering out fights but being too cowardly to actually fight.

A while later, the tour lead asked us if we'd be interested in journalism and I said "Fuck that, £12,000 is peanuts, and I don't want to end up like this guy and his brown shoes". Much hilarity ensued. I got called rude. We were asked to leave. Petty, fun and zero regrets Grin Grin

OhamIreally · 12/05/2022 09:16

I think a poorly made cup of tea has got to be the most British passive aggressive thing ever!

@Luckinspades your DH just sounds lazy.

Luculentus · 12/05/2022 09:16

hangrylady · 12/05/2022 08:28

My DH knows someone who was falsely accused of shoplifting in a supermarket. From that day on he would nick something from the supermarket whenever he went in. Never got caught!

Asian friend of mine was being followed around a shop by a store detective. She spotted a white person shoplifting, but waited till he'd gone before turning round and telling the detective what he'd missed whilst concentrating on the suspicious forrin woman.

ancientgran · 12/05/2022 09:16

My DH was a police officer. Back in the late 60s early 70s credit cards were less common and he often had issues as obviously a young black man had probably stolen the card. He had this problem consistently in a local department store near to where worked. His mother loved the place and asked him to get stuff for her.

On one occasion he is stood behind a man paying with a credit card, assistant looks at the card and the customer says, "It's my girlfriend's card, I'm shopping for her." Assistant said it was fine and processed the sale.

DH put his hand on his shoulder and basically said, "You're nicked." He said the look on the assistant's face was a picture and she was very embarrassed when she had to give a statement.

I think they probably thought DH was petty but he enjoyed it.

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 09:19

ChilledScandi · 12/05/2022 08:34

Sorry but that just sounds unhinged. Same as the Aldi incident.

Why is that unhinged? I fully agree with @VintageGibbon 's actions. The shop made her feel like a thief and then didn't even try to make reparations by taking her to the front of the queue or an empty till.

Are you saying she should have meekly gone to the back of the queue?

Etinoxaurus · 12/05/2022 09:19

FlipFlopFlap1981 · 12/05/2022 08:52

I never comment on Mumsnet but have a passive aggressive move that I have been pulling out of the drawer for the last 3 years. My husband bought me a birthday card 3 years ago and he made the colossal mistake of buying me one with a badge that says 'Amazing Wife'.

Now - whenever he is being a knob or has anything negative to say about me I go and put that badge on and just walk around the house with it...I have been to tesco wearing it - school run - even a dinner with his family where before the meal he had a go at me because he thought I was being too slow getting ready.

It does break the tension and makes us laugh but he will always regret buying it!

Love this!

Soubriquet · 12/05/2022 09:20

I always hated it when you were loading your car up, and someone would sit there in another car waiting to see if you were leaving.

If they were polite and asked, no problem.

If they sat there glaring, waving their hand to try and hurry you along, or worse, beeping the horn, I would load the car up and go back in.

ThatWriterInTheCorner · 12/05/2022 09:21

If you know me you'll already know this story, so this will absolutely out me, but I enjoy telling it so I don't care. On my first day back to work after mat leave with DD, our resident office knobber decided to share his opinion that "if" he ever had children then he and his (entirely theoretical) partner would never put them into nursery. Instead, he would earn enough money for his partner to stay at home and look after their baby. Lovely.

Important background info: Office Knobber, like many of us, often ate his lunch at his desk, using cutlery borrowed from the office canteen for this purpose. The canteen staff (quite reasonably) didn't appreciate us wandering off with all their cutlery, and would regularly make requests for the return of all their missing items. At the time, Office Knobber had managed to accumulate a massive collection of spoons and forks. (He wasn't going to take the cutlery back to the canteen, on account of being A Very Important Knobber.)

So I waited until he was out of the office for a good four-day stretch, and then I collected up all his spoons and forks from where they were scattered among his belongings and laid them out in a long, neat row, right across his desk. There were really quite a lot of them. It looked amazing. Also,completely unhinged. After a while, a couple of people walked past his desk and saw it and said, "That's brilliant" and then the word obviously got out, because over the next four days, people started coming from all over the building to make a pilgrimage to see the desk of this strange, strange man, inexplicably covered with contraband cutlery. My proudest moment was when the factory manager came from over the road to have a look. (We were all in marketing, and were therefore a bit annoying and poncey, so having someone with a real job like Factory Manager come and visit us in our natural habitat felt like a special experience).

The best part was that most of our visitors thought he'd done it himself, for inexplicable Knobber reasons of his own. The general consensus seemed to be that 1) this was somehow about what they'd expect of him (somehow) and 2) they'd always thought he was a wrong 'un and were glad to have their suspicions confirmed.

And then when he came back, I got the enjoy the even bettest best part: before he could even put down his laptop, he had to collect up all the cutlery and do the Walk Of Shame up to the canteen to return it. And because there was so much of it, all the canteen staff hated him for ever more and he always got the edge piece on pie day and he never got extra chips ever, ever again. And for the rest of his time at the company, he was known throughout every department as "that weird marketing guy who had all the cutlery on his desk".

Revenge: a dish best served with seventeen spoons and twenty-one forks.

Staffymumma · 12/05/2022 09:22

My fave petty thing to happen to me is my MIL was always very vocal about her dislike for me (that's a whole other post!) and she told me a few days before my birthday that she prefers to make cards as it's more thoughtful and that she only gets vouchers for people she doesn't really care about, my birthday arrives and I got a shop bought card and a £5 voucher 🤣 we are NC with her after a long string of vile behaviour (this incident isn't included in that list!)

MangoLipstick · 12/05/2022 09:23

A pp post reminds me of a girl I used to live with at uni.

There were 5 of us in a house share, all friends.

I think a few of us must have had a couple of pots in our rooms (I had a plate and a cup which I hadn’t taken down yet) There we’re still plenty of pots in the kitchen for her to use, but she wrote a really passive aggressive note and stuck it on the front door so we’d all see it when we came downstairs. It read something along the lines of ‘bring your plates down and wash them, it’s fu@king disgusting’

She acted like nothing had happened & never mentioned it. Very odd. She was abit strange though.

CopenhagenMummy · 12/05/2022 09:23

I could see that my ex husband was using my HBO account to watch Game og Thrones. I came up with a plan - to say fuck you. I waited until one of the last and most awaited episodes (Battle of the Winterfell) and then changes my password on the day the new episode came out. A was lauging to myself imagining him trying to log on and then getting angry. It was petty but he deserved it 😂

DifficultBloodyWoman · 12/05/2022 09:24

@ThatWriterInTheCorner, I’m both in awe of you and a little but scared of you! Well played!

cookiemonster2468 · 12/05/2022 09:26

LittleMissUnreasonable · 11/05/2022 19:00

So pleased you got out of your marriages @BalloonsAndWhistles and @itsmeagainlol !! Love the pettiness as well 😉

@Cyderdelic that's brilliant!! Serves them right for being so judgemental.

I've had similar where I've been in a shop and must have been in someone's way, so said "oh I'm sorry!" Moved and smiled. I got a Paddington Bear hard stare back. So I pushed my trolley ever so slightly in their way and pretended to not notice until they had to politely say excuse me

You sound a little passive aggressive/ petty yourself tbh.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 12/05/2022 09:26

FlipFlopFlap1981 · 12/05/2022 08:52

I never comment on Mumsnet but have a passive aggressive move that I have been pulling out of the drawer for the last 3 years. My husband bought me a birthday card 3 years ago and he made the colossal mistake of buying me one with a badge that says 'Amazing Wife'.

Now - whenever he is being a knob or has anything negative to say about me I go and put that badge on and just walk around the house with it...I have been to tesco wearing it - school run - even a dinner with his family where before the meal he had a go at me because he thought I was being too slow getting ready.

It does break the tension and makes us laugh but he will always regret buying it!

You. I like you.

Agree about the Aldi incident (just why?), and the returner of the stash of porn DVDs had me cackling like a goose. Kudos!

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 09:29

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 12/05/2022 09:04

@VintageGibbon , can’t say I blame you.

That sort of thing is horrible. I was once stopped at the exit of Asda because nothing at the self service till had clocked that there was a small security tag on the back of a pack of steak. And I hadn’t bothered to take my receipt.

So had to stand there for what seemed ages, guarded by two security staff, while they went through the bin looking for my receipt. Which they eventually found, with my pack of steak registered.

I now always take my self service receipt, even if I’ve only bought one thing for £3. But it still pisses me off that the SS tills didn’t pick up that security tag, which I’d never have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it.

Self-service tills are usually manned by one extremely busy staff member. After you've paid, it's generally expected that you approach the staff member and ask them to remove the tag. Otherwise you're just going to set off alarms and waste time.