"You're being rude" - Etiquette hypocrisy & misunderstandings

[dietcokeofevil]

I was in charge of product sales for my daughter's girl scout troop.  All the date information was included in the sales packet, plus I sent constant email reminders about it.  I got called rude and racist, because I wouldn't accept one girls orders a week after the deadline.   

[Adelaide]

-I have told my parents that I am studying something of a sensitive/polarizing topic in addition to law school and I do not want anyone from back home to know what it is for various reasons. I have told my parents what to tell people when they ask. We have been over it. One day I came home and my mother casually said "Oh yes, Mrs. Smith wanted to know what you were studying and where you wanted to work, so I told her [exactly what I'm doing]." I asked her why she would do that when we had been OVER what she should say, and my mother snapped back that she had forgotten and it would have been rude not to tell Mrs. Smith something. She continued by saying "I'm not going to lie for you" and insisted that it would be "rude" to lie or fudge the truth to random people who wanted to know. I now tell her that my dream in life is to study international law and work for Coca-Cola.  (My brother, who's in the Marines, was literally speechless at this exchange.)

I can kind of see her point in the bolded. I do think it's rude to lie.

However, being vague is not rude. Nor is saying, "You know, I'm not sure of the details, you should ask daughter."

Now, I don't know what you asked your parents to say, so perhaps it was some variation of exactly that, in which case your mum was waaaay off. But if you asked her to lie on your behalf, then I think you were rude to put her in that position.

I disagree in this particular case.

If Adelaide's reason for not wanting the truth revealed was to avoid flack -- whether directed at herself or her parents -- it was rude of her mother to go against her wishes.  How does that lie impact Mrs Smith other than avoid telling her something that was none of her business?

Adelaide would be rude to ask somebody to lie (if that is indeed what she did - I'm still not sure). She would not be rude to say "Please refer people to me if they ask me what I do."

If Adelaide did the latter, and her mother went ahead and told Mrs. Smith anyway, then I agree that she (the mother) was rude.


I'd compare it (in idea although not in severity) to parents wanting their kids to believe in Santa. If a kid comes up to me and asks "Is Santa real?" I'm not going to lie and say "Yes". I'm not going to be blunt and say "No" either though. I'll say something along the lines of "You should really ask your parents that."

If Adelaide asked her parents to say "Yes" - then I think she was rude, no matter what her parents ended up answering.
If she asked them to say "Ask Adelaide" and her parents then said "No", then I think her parents were rude.

My parents have been very vocal about always wanting to know what my brother and I do for a living and want to do. I told them that I would only tell them on the condition that they would tell the general public that I was actually doing something else, which is similar. So I told them to say international law. Plain, simple, not a complete fiction. It just boggles my mind that, in the beginning, they went along fine with it and seemed to understand. But when my mother forgot the words "international law", suddenly it would have been rude to lie to some random person at the church I don't even have contact with and will never see again?

If she pulled the same thing with my brother's profession, someone from the Marines would be at our door to have a chat about how loose lips sink ships. I'm not saying that it's okay to put anyone on the spot and ask them to lie for you right then and there. But when said person explicitly consented to lying as a consequence of being told the truth...you'd think they could manage an "I can't remember" or "you'll have to ask her" instead of just blurting out the exact thing I begged them not to tell anyone.

[MariaE]

If she pulled the same thing with my brother's profession, someone from the Marines would be at our door to have a chat about how loose lips sink ships. I'm not saying that it's okay to put anyone on the spot and ask them to lie for you right then and there. But when said person explicitly consented to lying as a consequence of being told the truth...you'd think they could manage an "I can't remember" or "you'll have to ask her" instead of just blurting out the exact thing I begged them not to tell anyone.

I completely agree with you there I tried to put enough disclaimers into place, but may have failed. If she consented to lying (or being vague or whatever) and then didn't then she's definitely rude.

[Adelaide]

If she pulled the same thing with my brother's profession, someone from the Marines would be at our door to have a chat about how loose lips sink ships. I'm not saying that it's okay to put anyone on the spot and ask them to lie for you right then and there. But when said person explicitly consented to lying as a consequence of being told the truth...you'd think they could manage an "I can't remember" or "you'll have to ask her" instead of just blurting out the exact thing I begged them not to tell anyone.

I completely agree with you there I tried to put enough disclaimers into place, but may have failed. If she consented to lying (or being vague or whatever) and then didn't then she's definitely rude.

Yeah, her explanation was that it would have sounded weird if she didn't know what I was doing, or why I had moved across the country for school. Internally I was thinking "Oh hey, remind me never to tell you anything important again." 

[Tini]

I used to run the register for a local pre-school. The place was a charity, so a lot of the jobs were done by volunteers, including mine. The job mostly involved keeping the waiting list, allocating places to new members and allocating more hours as and when they became available. Because children under three required a higher staffing density, we could only have a certain number of them coming each day. Order of preference was strictly by birth date and not by how long you'd been on the register because it could easily ended up being unfair to an older child.

Anyhow, so this one mother called me one evening right in the middle of supper and kept me on the phone for an hour going on and on how her child only had two days so far and how other children had more, but she never came out and actually said what she wanted. I explained repeatedly how the system worked and that as soon as I had more days available for her boy I would gladly give him more. Then she'd start over again and I'd woefully look at my congealing supper.

I got the feeling that she thought if she kept me on the phone long enough I would magically find more days for her boy (like customers always seem to think that the magic back room will provide their heart's desire if they bug the saleswoman long enough). As much as anything else, I kinda resented the implication that I would hold back time slots for special people. In the end, I said to her "Look, I really don't understand what exactly you want from me right now. Are you expecting me to throw someone else out so that your child can have more days, because that is the only way I could make this happen."
And she said "You're so rude!" and hung up on me.

I still don't know what exactly she wanted from me.

[Venus193]

Adelaide, we had a discussion long ago on the issue of White Lies.  I think we mostly agreed that telling a lie to spare someone's feelings or to avoid an argument or controversy is not rude as long as there are no dangerous or harmful consequences.  If the OP's profession is something Mrs Smith would strongly disapprove of, there is no good reason to tell her the truth.

[Adelaide]

Adelaide, we had a discussion long ago on the issue of White Lies.  I think we mostly agreed that telling a lie to spare someone's feelings or to avoid an argument or controversy is not rude as long as there are no dangerous or harmful consequences.  If the OP's profession is something Mrs Smith would strongly disapprove of, there is no good reason to tell her the truth.

I do remember that, but I got the (probably mistaken) impression that some people thought this was more serious than a white lie, or different than the ones we were talking about. Usually no one coaches you about telling your friend her haircut looks good, after all.

[snowflake]

I think this qualifies as one thing that drives me up the wall!   Here are my favorite stories here:

1) When a toddler slammed into me as I walked off a plane.  The plane was very late and I was sleep-deprived but I was in the "lane" where other travelers were getting off.  I had heard her screaming and running around, but because it didn't occur to me that she'd just run into walking people and didn't watch for her.  (And I wasn't exactly motivated to be extra aware at the time.)  I was told I was rude for not watching for her.  I'm not proud of this but I told the mother to "parent already."  As I walked away I heard her tell her daughter that "It's OK, her mommy didn't teach her to be polite."  Thankfully I recovered myself enough to not turn around and say that my mommy was severely depressed and negligent but there is no way in heck she would be negligent enough to let her daughter go running into people! 

2) When I asked someone to "keep it down" at a camp site.  They were being very loud at 1 am.  They complained that I had "spoiled everything."  Well sorry for the other 100 people here who are encroaching on your family time.

3) When I tried to get past a woman talking on a cellphone on one of those moving sidewalks at the airport.  I said "Excuse me." But she just blithely kept wandering from side to side and jabbering away.  My husband had been ahead of me and we were both moving fast to catch a flight.  I called up to him, "Tell them I'm coming!"  She turned around and berated me for talking loud when she was trying to have a conversation.

4) When someone was holding up a line at a store while berating the cashier for something that wasn't her fault.  He refused to talk to a manager because, "You'd better just fix it!"  Someone else in line said, "Could you speak to a manager?  The rest of us would like to be served as well."  Of course that person was told off for being "rude."  Which made all of us in line snicker a little.  He realized that all of us where smiling at the irony and told us we were all rude.

[Queen of Clubs]

I used to sell on eBay.  I'm in the UK, and I stated in my auctions that I would only accept payments from non-UK places if the payment was made by PayPal.

One auction, the winner was not in the UK.  She emailed me to say she'd post the payment.  I emailed her back, explaining about PayPal and offered to cancel the bid.  No, no, she wanted the item, but had to post the payment to me.  Foolishly, I let it go and emailed the details she'd need plus how much the item and postage was in my currency and in hers.

When her payment arrived it was a cheque made out to the wrong name, made out for the wrong amount and in her own currency (so worth even less in my currency).  I emailed her to let her know the cheque had arrived but I couldn't cash it and explained why.

But *I* was the rude one for refusing to take her payment.

[QueenofAllThings]

Driving down a one way street, I see a car headed towards me.  she slows to let me pass. Thinking that perhaps she isn't aware it's a one-way, I roll down my window and tell her.

The response? "Get a $)&@$ing life, b$&@h!

[2littlemonkeys]

I've posted about my favorite story before but I'll share it again.

I was dating a guy who rubbed elbows with some rather wealthy people.  He was not wealthy on his own, nor was I but he had these connections through his well-to-do parents.

So we were invited to a pool party at the home of one of these friends.  I'd just bought a new bathing suit and was excited to wear it.  It was a fun party.

A few weeks later, we received an invitation to another pool party.  My boyfriend was completely and utterly appalled that I was going to wear the same suit to the party.  How RUDE!  Was I raised in a barn?  How could I even THINK about embarrassing him like that?  It was so strange.  He cut me loose before the party but I wasn't exactly crying in my (domestic) beer. 

Another time, I was out walking with my then toddler daughter.  She was in the stroller and we were walking down a park path.  A giant dog and his owner were coming from the opposite direction.  The dog was off his leash (illegally, I might add) and was making a beeline for my kid.  I instinctively put myself between the dog and DD.  The dog jumped on me a bit and I gently redirected him back down again.  The owner, instead of apologizing for his ill mannered dog, started going on about how I was so rude and that his behemoth wasn't going to hurt DD and how dare I touch his dog and if I was going to live in the city, I'd better get used to this sort of thing.

Well, that may be true but I didn't know this dog and I didn't want to find out he was the aggressive sort the hard way.  But this guy was just so put out that I would do such a thing.   And even if I didn't think he was going to bite DD, he was a jumper and might have whacked her in the face with his paw.  So...yeah.

And finally, this story still cracks me up.  I was at Borders one night after work.  There was a man there, arguing with someone on his phone.  He was getting louder and louder and also getting pretty creative with language.  Eventually he realized everyone was noticing him.  He put his phone down and snapped, "This is a PRIVATE CONVERSATION!  Mind your own business!"

Honey, nothing about that conversation was private...

[PastryGoddess]

Driving down a one way street, I see a car headed towards me.  she slows to let me pass. Thinking that perhaps she isn't aware it's a one-way, I roll down my window and tell her.

The response? "Get a $)&@$ing life, b$&@h!

Our mailperson used to do this on our street.  One day, I just put my car in park and sat there until she moved.  I pulled a book out and got through about half a chapter before she reversed and went the correct way up the street.

[Shalamar]

2littlemonkeys, your dog story reminds me of when I was out for a walk once.  I don't really like dogs that much, but I don't mind them if the owners keep them from lunging at me.  This owner did not.  Her little mutt tried to jump on me, so I backed off (apart from everything else, I was afraid of accidentally kicking the dog).  As I continued on my way, I overheard the owner say "There, there, Fifi.  Never mind.  SOME people just don't like dogs."

[Katana_Geldar]

Some people are afraid of big dogs, which is why I always got my parents golden lab to sit when kids wanted to pat him. I told them he'd have to say hello by sniffing them, but he would accept their pats much better sitting. He was gentle, but boisterous and will jump when excited.

[mmswm]

Some people are afraid of big dogs, which is why I always got my parents golden lab to sit when kids wanted to pat him. I told them he'd have to say hello by sniffing them, but he would accept their pats much better sitting. He was gentle, but boisterous and will jump when excited.

My Mastiff is of the opinion that everybody in the world is adores him and wants to pet him. The problem is that, at 135lbs (and still growing...he was 120 just two months ago) there are a lot of people who are afraid of him.  As such, I have trained him to sit down and "ask" if he can approach a stranger.  I have encountered more than once person who are put off by my dog sitting down and looking at me when the stranger is trying to approach us.  Yes, I do understand that lots of people love my dog, but I feel this way is safest for all of us, and most importantly, those people who are afraid of very large dogs.