Does being rude come with Nouveau Riche territory?

[Slinky1460]

Just had a few days out and about, one day at a car event where we treated ourselves to first time ever hospitality, and a couple of days in a nice hotel by the beach.

Both venues were amazing but I couldn't help but notice both seemed to be dominated by 30-something couples or groups of very entitled people being unnecessarily demanding or rude to the staff.

Now, if your thing is swigging magnums of Whispering Angel, regaling stories of your time flipping between the UK and Dubai, asking your little darlings to act out for your insta then reading their school reports out during breakfast - great, you do you. But being rude to the waiting staff, never saying please and thank you, and actually believing you're the most important person in the room was embarrassing.

AIBI to think this isn't acceptable behaviour and flashing the cash is just plain vulgar?

YABU it’s a bit tragic and snobby to go on about ‘new money’. People from all backgrounds can be rude. It’s not illegal to be tacky or gauche.

I think you misunderstand the point. Perfectly possible to maintain a coterie of Aged Retainers out of a sense of noblesse oblige without in any way ever thinking of them as equals, or in any way a human being on the same footing as yourself. (A friend if mine was a footman at Blenheim Palace.) Downton Abbey is a mystifyingly popular and deeply reactionary (hardly surprisingly, given the author) attempt to retrospectively whitewash the aristocracy by depicting them as routinely regarding their servants as friends/lovers and equals. It also gives the impression that aristocrats were routinely engaging in cross-class romances with their servants and holding anachronistically liberal opinions.

Poor children having their reports read out to them over breakfast.

I’d describe this as ‘bling culture’ - showing off essentially. You get show offs in all walks of life but some are publicly louder than others. Sounds like you were somewhere that attracted show offs…

No one acts unless you make them have an emotional response. Sorry, but your ever so quiet and 'reasonable' expression of dissatisfaction is immediately forgotten.

Never heard of dumb insolence? Being loud and obnoxious is likely to get you the bare minimum and not much else.

I've never found it so. Obviously, the odd time you will encounter someone too incompetent, oblivious or malicious to want to help, but in general if you are polite, reasonable and communicate clearly, people are far more likely to act than if you act obnoxiously. I think you're confusing 'rude' with 'asssertive'.

Having done those jobs - no it isn’t. You more often get what you want because it’s the easiest option.

I’m not confusing rude with assertive - that isn’t the dichotomy between my post and 4lightz.

The dichotomy is expressing your dissatisfaction/ feelings versus not doing so because you don’t want to give the waiter a bad day.

You never managed to play them at their own game. You give them enough to get rid of them/shut them up but you could do a lot more.

Probably not, because it’s not a game. At least not for the worker? They just want to get in and out meeting the least resistance possible. You meet resistance so you give the person what they need to stop the resistance.

If you come across a wet flannel who says ‘by the way we didn’t like this but it doesn’t matter it’s sorted/ drunk/ eaten now’ then the path of least resistance is ‘sorry about that goodbye’.

Squeaky wheels and oil and all that. It’s not the game you think it is. I feel like everyone who has ever worked a service job knows that.

Of course not. You complain at a point when the person/people involved can do something about it. You send back a dish that is cold/undercooked/the wrong dish at the time, so the kitchen can replace it. What would be the point in complaining after the meal?

So I’m not sure what your point really is then? I was responding to a ‘I’m always lovely to service workers and tell my husband not to voice his frustrations’ comment.

These sorts of manners/lack thereof (in people of any class) typically stem from insecurity and a misguided view of what sort of behaviour conveys confidence or being socially established.

DH earns loads, he is much posher than me. He is very at ease with it and is extremely calm, collected & polite. I am from a less secure background & am generally ruder. Sometimes it stems from frustration, of having worked so hard to claw your way up the rungs its somehow more inflammatory when that rude parisian waiter or snooty concierge treats you like shit on their shoe, it feels like personal injustice.

So that the business can address whatever issue caused it going forward.

As a waiter you have the brass neck to type that....a genuine complaint should be dealt with "showing frustration" shouldn't and you know full well what happens to food that is sent back by a knobber

In my experience of proving a gardener service to people in a fairly affluent town the people who have always had money are brilliant they are used to dealing with staff. People who employ people are also good, they know how to talk to people.

The problem is the person who is working for a company and is being paid well or is married to that person and doesn't know how to deal with people they consider socially below them...hence they resort to the master and servant stereotype.

Some examples from my own experience: being asked to pee in the garden rather than come in the house. The person having a coffee morning in the pouring rain and not offering me a drink, so I got my camping stove out of the van and brewed up in front of their clearly embarrassed friends. The person who wasn't happy that I said hello to the neighbours. The person upset that I turned up to do something in my wife's Mercedes.

Clearly I should know my place 😂

But if you complain at the time you receive a cold, badly-cooked or incorrect dish, the business can both rectify if for you so that you have a pleasant meal, and rectify whatever issue caused it on a more general basis.

Sorry if my post wasn’t clear. What I meant was that I am polite to staff, even when trying to sort out an issue, not that I never sort out issues or behave like a “wet blanket”.

Example, when sorting out a problem with your taxes, you might need to contact HMRC customer service. They have a procedure they are required to follow to confirm your identity, which takes time. My husband, if already frustrated with HMRC, may show his frustration with the long identification process by speaking to the CSA in an obviously annoyed tone. I would gently remind him that it isn’t their fault that they have to follow this process, they would get in a lot of trouble if they didn’t, and he should therefore use a kinder voice towards them.

I know someone who had a very privileged upbringing, including a boarding school, and who is now in her 50s. She treats retail and hospitality staff like dirt.

I worked in that industry and can confirm that the worst people I ever met in my life were new money rich car pricks.

Hardly brass neck, more a sense of reality than some of the supposedly virtuous and ineffective suggestions on the thread.

Same.
biggest twats going. Never had to bite my lips more than the Bentley GT launch. I did enjoy pointing out to certain people who were really getting on my tits what shared parts it had with a golf.

@HidingFromSunshine🤣🤣

A lot of them are entirely clueless but they have MONEY so it doesn’t matter, people will kiss their ass regardless.

A golf! Quelle horreur!!

Reminds me of Bojo, moaning about John Lewis furnishings that May had installed. Many of us dream of JL you overpriveleged twat. But the replacement gold wallpaper struck many as tacky as hell in comparison.

Do you mean the causation?

I've seen people who see being particular and flash with the cash as "getting their money's worth" and "having standards".

If you're well-off and go on ten holidays a year, whining about one meal out isn't a big deal and all the wealthy types I know would just not go again. If you've suddenly acquired money, then it does turn some people to be wanky in that