To be fed up with male tradesmen making funny jokes that are anything but

[Allerlugi]

Carpet fitter came. He starts unrolling the carpet and then gets really serious, asked me if I’d measured it (yes), then proceeds to say it’s not going to fit, it’s too small and the measurements aren’t right. Meanwhile I’m feeling sick about having to fork out for another carpet.

Oh, but he’s joking! He was just having a laugh! The carpet’s fine, lol.

Delivery guys come to collect a mattress that we’re returning. It says on the website that they will bring wrapping materials and pack it up. They arrive and start to say they can’t collect it as it’s not wrapped up. I tell them what it says on the website. Nope sorry, the website’s wrong and I should have wrapped it up. Meanwhile I’m starting to get stressed and wondering how long this will have to take to resolve with the company.

Oh, but they were only joking! Haha isn’t it funny!

Believe it or not I had a third example from the past fortnight but I must have blocked it out.

I’d bet you a tenner that these guys don’t do it with men.

I find this blokes response insanely funny and I can’t explain why.

I agree that is hilarious.

Most of the jokes I hear are crap but I love witty replies like that.

car at the garage having noises fixed - have you got anything to quieten DP down too.

😂 Tickled me anyway

It's always men.
I had it in the coop. Asked the name assistant Can you show me where the clotted cream is please?
Oh we don't sell it!
Ok no worries, and I go to walk out the shop.
He chased me down the aisle.
ONLY JOKING! It's here with the butter.

How the fuck is that funny? It's just irritating. I asked you a perfectly polite normal question. Just answer it

It's misogyny 🤷‍♀️

See I'm really fucking petty about stuff like that and would have been "no worries! Just tell your manager what happened and you didn't want me to buy it!"

I've found a great plumber who turns up, has a pleasant chat, does the job brilliantly and doesn't charge a fortune. Never letting him go

Window cleaner and other such tradesmen usually turn up, we exchange polite pleasantries, then they get on with their job and me with mine. Because that's the other thing about this sort of banter, annoying though it is, lots and lots and lots of people don't do it. And possibly I attract/retain the type of tradesmen who don't.

It's certainly true that most of us only people we like and think did a good job to come back into our homes. We had a handyman/general contractor type guy who did a great job but eventually neither DH or I could cope with his patronising tone towards both of us or his endless slagging off the work of other people. It was too tedious. So now we have someone new whose work is the same quality and has a much more proactive attitude - recently there was an unexpected issue when he was doing some work and instead of sucking in his breath and telling us what a crisis it was, he pointed out and gave us two options as work around. Without blaming anyone. Was fabulous.

There's a comedy character from the 80s/90s who used to do this, isn't there? Deliberately annoying with a sort of strangulated 'John Major' type voice... I'm thinking Harry Enfield or Fast Show or similar? Would leave a long pause then say 'Oooooon-ly jooo-kiiiing!' with that bumptious clenched-fist, arm-across, wahey-type movement... Does anyone know who I'm talking about??

Nah, you're good thanks.

'Banter' is for people who are as thick as pigshit. People too stupid to be able to converse like a normal intelligent adult.

Yes it was harry enfield, think it was a dad character.

Well done @Allywill

Do give me a wink when you get it. 🤣🤣🤣

Sorry I found this so funny lol hope they keep ur up
lighten up , jeez

I am short and young looking for my (advanced) age and I have got this ALL my life. Being black it is also often tinged with racism.

I hate it even without the racism as it feels like an attempt at forcing intimacy. Also definitely a bit of the 'smile luv' culture at play.
E.g.

1. paying at the petrol station, the attendant adds £50 to your petrol total.
2. staff at a centre give you wrong directions. They call you back laughing as if you should have known they were joking
3. asking for loo in pub - sorry they are broken.
4. asking for a sandwich and told they only have 'brown' bread.

Really pointless attempts to make you mentally start and stumble for their benefit and not for yours.

Well yeah, I’m sure they’ve heard the question “where is your fish from?” many times before. Does they mean they’ve done the shit “from the sea” joke many times before also? Can’t they think of anything cleverer or different? Maybe to relieve the boredom they have a bingo sheet of customer reactions to it and have got a little game going on. Although I probably wouldn’t even see it as a joke TBH and my next question would be “what freshwater fish do you have then?”

i just pity people who don’t speak the language very well when I come across people giving banter answers.

How is that witty though? It’s so lame and tedious and been done a million times before. Some people must live quite sheltered lives if they haven’t come across stock jokey answers like this before. Or maybe be much younger than I am.

How is that witty though? It’s so lame and tedious and been done a million times before. Some people must live quite sheltered lives if they haven’t come across stock jokey answers like this before. Or maybe be much younger than I am.

They may have said it a million times but if it’s the first time going to them the customer wouldn’t have heard.

Loosen up a bit and take the stick out of your arse.

Life is for smiling and laughing, not spending every day being miserable and uptight.

I’d bet you a tenner that these guys don’t do it with men.

I can absolutely guarantee they don't do it with women like me, either. IME it's all about body language.

I’m on the spectrum and I hate these types of jokes as I find it difficult to realise that someone is joking if they say it in their normal way of speaking, especially if I don’t know them. I hate small talk about nothing too. It irritates me that I’m paying for a service but have spend my time and energy on top of that entertaining and listening to them when I could be doing something more worthwhile with my time.

One of my male in-laws is like this. It’s tedious.

I'm pretty sure they would of done it to man! I can appreciate somebody not finding this funny especially in times like these involving such a big purchase, but why the mark em up for casual chauvinism?! Plenty of women are guilty of humour like that and would find it just as funny! And wether you find it funny or not, comments and " jokes" like that lower the tone suitably enough to simply go " don't be a dd" and then move on with your life...🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

I hate this too! When my dog was a puppy I had a guy in to fit laminate. Puppy v stressed by this and hid. I was looking for her and asked the joiner. He said "oh yeah, a white dog just ran along the street." I was out shouting her name and panicking while he laughed at me. Dog was under the dining table all along. Dick

i don’t think it’s uptight to find something that someone said boring and unoriginal, no-one needs to tell me how I should feel about something, and I don’t particularly feel tied to social convention at my age.. There’s no stick up my arse. If I find something funny I laugh and have a joke back. Which is quite regularly! (There are a lot of genuinely amusing people in my city.). If I don’t find something funny, then I find it tedious to do the fixed grin, forced “ha ha” to save their feelings. I mean, I’m not talking to a 4 year old who’s just discovered what a joke is and is now making up their own that don’t make sense, and you humour them by laughing at it. Maybe these people should have a better standard of banter!