Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
ClawedButler · 12/05/2022 12:05

Loving the cutlery man and wife badge. Also the ultra-British act of deliberately making someone a bad cup of tea as the worst possible thing you could do to someone!

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 12/05/2022 12:07

BobHadBitchTits · 12/05/2022 12:04

This thread is being ruined by petty comments...

It's on passive aggression. Sounds pretty much par for the course to me ...

SpeckledlyHen · 12/05/2022 12:20

ShirleyPhallus · 12/05/2022 10:20

“You’re just thick and couldn’t figure it out” Confused Christ.

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 This part read to me that the person who stole the card was “obviously a young black man”, not that the poster’s husband was. Perhaps I misunderstood it but there is no need to call people thick and be so bloody rude.

thanks @Kanaloa for politely explaining it!

Show quote history

@ShirleyPhallus - I don't think you are thick. I didn't understand the post at all either. It was badly worded and didn't explain that her husband was black. Nothing to do with racism but poor comprehension. Because you didn't figure out someone else's poorly worded description doesn't make you thick that you couldn't figure it out. Sometimes MN is soooo bizarre.

FlimFlamCentral · 12/05/2022 12:20

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.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS

RhubarbCrumbled · 12/05/2022 12:21

Kanaloa · 12/05/2022 10:37

There, that’s my pettiest moment.

Kanaloa. I salute you. Best, pettiest and most passive aggressive act on the thread!

MyBottleOfRibena · 12/05/2022 12:25

MintyGreenDream · 12/05/2022 10:13

My bitch psycho boss had been micro managing me all day and it was a Friday before we had the bank holiday off.
I cheerfully told her See You Next Tuesday as I left.It felt so good and she knew what I meant but couldn't do anything as it was factually correct.

See you next time also works 😀

Silversprinkles · 12/05/2022 12:25

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”.

I don't see that as PA or petty. She was just fed up of skanky room mates! I suspect she had probably said similar verbally and been ignored.

MarinoRoyale · 12/05/2022 12:26

DonnyBurrito · 12/05/2022 08:25

My ex used to leave used (bloody) dental floss and cores of rotting fruit everywhere like the arm of the sofa or on the side of the bath, or just anywhere like that he plonked it and left it for ages.

Eventually, when I realised asking him nicely wouldn't work, I just started putting it in his shoes.

Tbf the relationship was already dead, but this did start a chain of not so subtle passive aggressive behaviour that helped put the nail in the coffin.

Love this one, if you’re putting rotten fruit in shoes, the relationship is over! 😂

whydoesthedog · 12/05/2022 12:26

This thread really went off the deep end. I really enjoyed the many spoons, and the turning off of electricity on music knobbers.

theDudesmummy · 12/05/2022 12:37

Some enjoyable stuff in the thread but I truly can't understand the people going on about racism. It was absolutely clear what that poster meant. Do people REALLY think someone would come onto a thread on MN and state that their husband's card had "obviously" been stolen by a black man, and not mean it sarcastically??

ShirleyPhallus · 12/05/2022 12:44

theDudesmummy · 12/05/2022 12:37

Some enjoyable stuff in the thread but I truly can't understand the people going on about racism. It was absolutely clear what that poster meant. Do people REALLY think someone would come onto a thread on MN and state that their husband's card had "obviously" been stolen by a black man, and not mean it sarcastically??

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought she was saying, hence asking about it.

It wasn’t clear that she meant the husband was black and given that she said he was a police officer and stolen cards were an issue, I thought she was implying that it was obvious that young black men were to blame. Many other posters read it the same way.

Silversprinkles · 12/05/2022 12:45

@ThatWriterInTheCorner I'm hysterical here at your cutlery story! Just brilliant! Lack of extra chips is second to badly made tea in British PA, well done canteen staff Grin

MerryMarigold · 12/05/2022 12:46

ClawedButler · 12/05/2022 12:05

Loving the cutlery man and wife badge. Also the ultra-British act of deliberately making someone a bad cup of tea as the worst possible thing you could do to someone!

I'm terrible at making tea. Now wondering how many people have taken this as an act of passive aggression Blush.

theDudesmummy · 12/05/2022 12:50

@ShirleyPhallus I am not saying overt racism is not rife in society but it would be very unusual indeed for such an egregiously racist comment to be placed on MN, if that was what she had really meant. Therefore, I thought the sarcasm was absolutely obvious.

Idrinklotsofcoffee · 12/05/2022 12:52

I have a name that can be spelt with a J or a G but my name actually starts with a J. When people spell it incorrectly in emails (my name is right there!) I always start their name with a G therefore David would be Gavid, Michael becomes Gichael, etc. They get the hint quickly.

Silversprinkles · 12/05/2022 12:54

@Indicatrice He didn't say 'Not my problem' though. Why lie?

Ummmm, you may want to go back and read the original post about this incident a bit more carefully before you make yourself look more foolish ...

Silversprinkles · 12/05/2022 12:58

@Indicatrice

In fact, here you are, cut n paste from motnights original post:

His exact words were 'madam, that's not my problem'.

cecilthehungryspider · 12/05/2022 13:02

This reply has been deleted

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

That's not passive aggressive. It's just plain aggressive.

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 13:03

Silversprinkles · 12/05/2022 12:54

@Indicatrice He didn't say 'Not my problem' though. Why lie?

Ummmm, you may want to go back and read the original post about this incident a bit more carefully before you make yourself look more foolish ...

You may want to go back and re-read the thread before posting. This has been discussed. Ad nauseum.

starfishmummy · 12/05/2022 13:03

I was doing council job for which they got funding from an outside source. This meant 2 of us were employed to do our job only and not get involved with the daily business of the small centre where we were based. The head of centre was not our direct boss, not involved in our work but was "in charge" for all matters regarding things like timekeeping, signing off expenses etc.

All was going well until head of centre went on maternity leave. Cover was someone based at a different location who relied on the gossipy centre secretary and cleaner to keep her briefed. Started getting odd comment - nothing directly said - but clearly she had decided we were skiving so asked for daily logs detailing pur activities. First week she said they were not detailed enough.

Well she asked for it. Made sure to log that I was arriving 30 minutes before my starting time (buses) so that my early morning coffee "break" was actually on my own time and not in working hours. So I actually logged something like this
8.30-8.49 arrived and had coffee in staffroom.

8.50-9.00 arrived at desk ready to set up for the day.
9.00 contracted starting time
9.00-9.01 filling in daily log

And then I continued in a similar vein with every change of task being followed by an entry for completing my daily log!! I believe the early ones may have contained things like hanging my coat up.

IncompleteSenten · 12/05/2022 13:03

Oh no, no, you're wrong. Apparently the fact the reply missed out the words 'madam' and 'that's' means it's totally different. Apparently 'madam that's not my problem' and 'not my problem' are not in fact the exact same sentiment. 🤦

ShirleyPhallus · 12/05/2022 13:04

theDudesmummy · 12/05/2022 12:50

@ShirleyPhallus I am not saying overt racism is not rife in society but it would be very unusual indeed for such an egregiously racist comment to be placed on MN, if that was what she had really meant. Therefore, I thought the sarcasm was absolutely obvious.

Well yes, but given how ambiguous the sentence was that’s why I clarified. Then another poster accused ME of being racist and “thick” and that’s when it all kicked off Wink

Indicatrice · 12/05/2022 13:05

This reply has been deleted

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

2pinkginsplease · 12/05/2022 13:10

My dh bought me a last minute box of chocolates from the garage for mothers day. No effort and no thought put into it. I didn't even like the chocolates he bought. However i thanked him.I then kept them and gave him then back for Father's Day!

Soffana · 12/05/2022 13:11

MyBottleOfRibena · 12/05/2022 12:25

See you next time also works 😀

Show quote history

I don't understand!!!

Swipe left for the next trending thread