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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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:

SiobhanSharpe · 12/05/2022 11:15

ShirleyPhallus · 12/05/2022 10:13

What does the man being black have to do with it…?

Show quote history

This is not only weird but clearly racist.

Luculentus · 12/05/2022 11:16

Jesus, I can’t be arsed with this anymore. The point is the poster deliberately misquoted what he said.

We can all see that she didn't, @Indicatrice: it was a direct quote. Or would you claim that I was lying if I said Martin Luther King said "I have a dream" because I didn't quote the entirety of each of the sentences where those words appeared in the speech in question?

You claim the manager said "sorry". Were you lying?

Rosehugger · 12/05/2022 11:19

I think I come across as good-natured, cheerful and agreeable, perhaps even a bit fluffy. Some people take this to mean a pushover. I've seen them visibly shrink or develop a squeaky bum when I become direct and assertive. Think Paddington.

SiobhanSharpe · 12/05/2022 11:19

Oops, sorry, have just seen the subsequent clarifying posts.

resuwen · 12/05/2022 11:22

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!

Actually lolling at this!! Brilliant. I want one!

PipeScatter · 12/05/2022 11:25

Soubriquet · 12/05/2022 10:48

Go one step further and change his surname to yours!

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Ha! Why have I never thought of this!? Genius - going to do that now - thank you!

Pollydonia · 12/05/2022 11:25

galvanizethis · 12/05/2022 11:07

😂Brilliant!!

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...and this wins the thread 🤣🤣

LilacWines · 12/05/2022 11:27

Had a school mum who was a total nightmare. She set up a whatsapp group with me and my DH, her and her DH, and did things like have her husband send mine a very dramatic message saying that my child's bday party was endangering everyone due to covid (all within current rules and all other parents happy), then cancelled his attendance after RSVP date, so after we'd paid for his ticket.

She then told me he was 'devastated' about the party still going ahead and as a 'goodwill' gesture could he come for a sleepover the night before.

I said no but agreed to have him over on another day (such a doormat!).

On that date her DH was so late picking him up I had to feed him dinner and she told me, by message, to make sure he was ready to do as she "had some things to get done that night".

Then she messaged me thanking me for the playdate and making a catty comment about how many carbs I'd fed him over the day (even though he only got dinner as she was so late getting him.)

My final, deeply pass-agg move was to ignore her final message and simply leave the WhatsApp group.

Handyweatherstation · 12/05/2022 11:28

Rosehugger · 12/05/2022 11:09

It's amazing how many drivers you can annoy just by sticking to the speed limit.

Absolutely. Also by stopping to let pedestrians cross the road.

Stabbitystabstab · 12/05/2022 11:29

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 09:50

It was the end of the day, give the guy a break, he did say sorry, what was he supposed to do, grovel?

Shop staff aren't there to bow and scrape to you.

Show quote history

I don't give rude service a break.
I've worked in Retail and people are HORRIFIC.
I wouldn't have dreamt of being rude to a customer though.
He got what he deserved

TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo · 12/05/2022 11:30

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

You punched an old man in the face and are congratulating yourself for this???

Jeez we have hit a new low here!

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 11:32

Luculentus · 12/05/2022 11:16

Jesus, I can’t be arsed with this anymore. The point is the poster deliberately misquoted what he said.

You claim the manager said "sorry". Were you lying?

It wasn’t a direct quote though. Let’s hope you never work in journalism.

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 11:34

@ancientgran

he often had issues as obviously a young black man had probably stolen the card.

Are you going to explain your post because it just like racist AF at the moment.

evtheria · 12/05/2022 11:36

@LilacWines I'd say neither petty nor pass-agg, but dignified and very reasonable last move! Their poor kid.

Vicktorius · 12/05/2022 11:39

In my office, you don’t need to book meeting rooms for internal meetings and no one ever does - you just grab one of the many rooms around (external meetings are on a client floor and need to be booked).

One day I was working on a difficult project and had decamped to a meeting room for some quiet. At, say, 2pm, several people came to my room and told me they had it booked. I asked if they could use the empty room next door but they refused as this was the room they booked. So I had to pack up around 10 lever arch folders and papers so they could have the room.

I then went on to the system and booked the room from 3pm onwards. At 3pm I took great joy in going back to that room whilst they were mid meeting to tell them I have the room booked. Cue several senior men having to get up and leave from the room.

BreakorMake · 12/05/2022 11:43

@ODFOx

I would be raging if someone drank my very expensive cognac willy nilly!

Here's what I would do though..... keep the empty bottle of Remy Vsop or whatever it's called, and decant some Martell or Hennessy etc. (Aldi have a good one!) into it. Leave it visible, let him drink away, and lock away your special Remy for yourself. Bet he would never know the difference, and if he did he won't say much, because he shouldn't be quaffing YOUR bottle anyway!

Luckinspades · 12/05/2022 11:44

ThatWriterInTheCorner
Absolute beaut of a story is that!
absolutely pissing!!!!

TheGoodEnoughWife · 12/05/2022 11:45

ODFOx · 12/05/2022 11:12

I am being passive aggressive at the moment but DH hasn't noticed yet. In fact I'm hoping he doesn't notice because I'm a bit of a walkover/laid back about most things and it's giving me a tiny thrill just being a bit awkward.
I bought myself a bottle of Remy Martin champagne cognac at Christmas. It has been at the back of the cupboard since then, after we both had one on Christmas Day and after dinner on New Years Day. We have other drinks about: I buy other brandy for cooking, wine and beer, and DH like Jack Daniels so we are by no means a dry house but Remy is my favourite and a real treat for me (he isn't that bothered about cognac).
A couple of weeks ago I went to pour us both one to go with coffee after I'd made a special meal, only to find that there was only one measure left in the bottle. I was miffed, but not enough to make a fuss, but I poured it for myself and had it with my coffee, without mentioning it. He knows that I know he drank my special
Cognac, but I haven't told him that I know or made an issue of it because although I am miffed, it is only a bottle of booze and he's lovely apart from that!
Last week he presented me with a bottle of a special reserve Remy that he'd spotted on line as he knew I'd love it (he's right, I will), and then dropped into conversation that he's dying for me to open it as he'd love to try it too.
Reader, I am never ever opening that bottle.
Petty,? absolutely. Cutting off my nose to site my face? Completely. And yet, every time I think of my hereforto unnoticed passive protest I get a little frisson of happiness.

This is excellent!

TheGoodEnoughWife · 12/05/2022 11:46

Managed to quote and my comment is not there. Love this. The unopened bottle will blow his mind. Excellent stuff.

TalkingCat · 12/05/2022 11:51

TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo · 12/05/2022 11:30

You punched an old man in the face and are congratulating yourself for this???

Jeez we have hit a new low here!

Show quote history

If anyone, old man or not, kicked my dog really hard, I'd punch them in the face too! Age is no excuse for abusing an animal!

Fromwaleswithlurv · 12/05/2022 11:55

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.

What a strange, self congratulatory post.

I'm cringing for you after reading that.

Triffid1 · 12/05/2022 11:56

Fromwaleswithlurv · 12/05/2022 11:55

What a strange, self congratulatory post.

I'm cringing for you after reading that.

Show quote history

Based on her user name and the experience she details, I'm considering asking her if she needs any freelance work!

Horses for courses I guess!

BoDerek · 12/05/2022 11:56

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 11:34

@ancientgran

he often had issues as obviously a young black man had probably stolen the card.

Are you going to explain your post because it just like racist AF at the moment.

That’s how I read it at first but now I understand it means

the dh was a young black man and was continually coming up against accusations that he had stolen the card (because he was black). So the poster and her husband were subjected to racism rather than being the perpetrators.

LilacWines · 12/05/2022 11:58

@evtheria it felt very pass-agg but I will take dignified, thank you. And yes, i feel so sorry for the kid. She does not help his friendships by behaving like this.

BobHadBitchTits · 12/05/2022 12:04

This thread is being ruined by petty comments...

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