Things That Embarrass People About Their Own Country

Every country is different and not everyone who lives in those countries necessarily thinks the same. It might be the norm to love football, but some people find the super aggressive fans embarrassing or aggravating.

*Content Warning: this article contains discussion of violence*


Reddit user u/Fededillerjohn asked:

"What makes you feel embarrassed by your own country?"

20.

Swiss people can be very close minded and behind on the times, yet people (especially online) always act like it's a super progressive and perfect country. but then homosexual marriage is still not allowed, and in some parts women couldn't vote until the 90s.

-g1nnyweasley

19.

That we lost a war against emu's. I mean seriously we are nation that produced the only force that had any impact at Gallipoli, the rats of Torbruk and we captured 100,000 Italian troops in WW2. But some large flightless birds? Nope didn't stand a chance. We were so desperate we asked the British for artillery.

-ElephantsOnTurtle

18.

It's a long list.

We're one of the most religious countries on earth; it's a dangerous place for women and we're homophobic AF. Our education scores are consistently at the bottom of the world rank. We sabotage sex-ed reform initiatives, which accounts for out high teen pregnancy rate. We have yearly 'cold' crisis in which the children living in the poorest areas literally freeze to death due to a lack of infrastructure, and we're patriotically blind about all of the above.

-computer_crisps

17.

It's a small thing, but I dislike how many British people enjoy showing how 'British' they are online. Making memes about the weather, politics, drinking tea, queuing etc, all playing these things up for an American audience. It's no great crime, it just strikes me as cringeworthy.

EDIT: I've just remembered when I lived with a Spanish roommate, and due to my being born near Birmingham he used to call me a Peaky Blinder. I fully leant into it. So I guess I'm the wanker after all.

-User Account Deleted

16.

The amount of people who harrasses and asks for 'Bobs and vegana pics' online.

P.S : No award to guess what country I am from.

-vaarux

15.

Every country has skeletons (frequently literally) in its closet. The world ought to be united in utter embarrassment at the way we have conducted ourselves at different times.

This is coming out less uplifting than I meant it to.

-shortermecanico

14.

This is a thing from history but I'm from Scotland and at one point we thought we would raid England while they had the plague so that they were weaker, but then we caught it and brought it back to Scotland and killed half the country. We're not a hell of a lot smarter now to be honest.

-rriliey

13.

The thing that didn't happen at that Square in that year on that day.

-Theactualguy

We all remember. It's in our history books...even if it isn't in yous.

-StalwartExplorer

12.

The politicians and how people treat monuments like sh*t, also the school system

(Italy)

-MartyElise

11.

Algeria

Mafia is leading our country.

-hardstop12

Bulgaria checking in. We even have a saying about it - "Other countries have a Mafia, here the Mafia has a country".

-Progressor

10.

There's so many lol, I'll go with the latest.


Last week a 'solidarity fridge' was placed in a street in Salvador (4th biggest city in Brazil) this is a project where they leave a fridge where people can donate food and the homeless can take it.

It was stolen less than 24h after being placed.

-sometimes_is_hard

9.

This happened a few years ago in Kuwait. We were hosting an Olympic tournament and during the medal ceremony, instead of playing Kazakhstan's actual national anthem we played its parody from the movie Borat. The guy playing the music downloaded it from youtube and didn't pay attention it was a parody full of insults. I had to apologize to a friend from Kazakhstan when this happened even though he thought it was hilarious.

-R9-devil

8.

northern ireland:

the sectarian conflict, the rampant illicit drug use, the fact that we haven't had a functional government for over 600 days now over a disagreement on a pointless law.

-sknnylgnds

6.

People here loveee to show off by saying Nikola Tesla is "ours". Our blood, our intelligence and so on.

Meanwhile the Tesla museum in our capital is a joke, it's basically 2 rooms, and in high school when we visited it our class literally had to be split in 2 parties because we couldn't all fit in it.

Mind you it is getting slightly better now but only because of the tourists.

-FlashFire2525

5.

The state of our roadsides and towns. For such a "proud" country, collectively we have a really funny way of showing it. I'm actually genuinely embarrassed when tourists have to see some of the filth, especially in cities like Glasgow.

-cragglerock93

4.

We had a very healthy and innovative aerospace industry, then just said f*ck it.

-PurpEL

3.

We don't always win in hockey

-drblah1

We used to!!! Our teams ruled the world for decades! sobs into cup of rink beer

-pickemupputemdown

2.

Scottish people can be really aggressive and rude. Especially in the more populated areas and especially with what we call "spice boys".

Like, a group of guys were making fun of me for moving past them and says sorry. Scottish girls can be as rude too. People always think it's just the English but no, Scotland is full of really rude people.

-GeekyWheatley

1.

When I saw news articles about a mass shooting, I initially skipped over them because I thought they were talking about yesterday.

They weren't.

-homura1650

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Dealing with people at their angriest and rudest does not breed a positive work environment.

Customer service can be a downright toxic job.

And if it's not the customers setting your spirit on fire, it's the companies themselves.

Some companies seem to revel in creating discontent.

That's why these types of jobs have such high turnover.

Redditor Psychological-Name15 wanted the customer service reps out there to give us some truths, so they asked:

"Customer service workers of Reddit, what secret can you reveal from your former company?"

I want to know about the inner workings of Comcast!!

I loathe them!

Oh Dear

Jennifer Lopez Smh GIF by American IdolGiphy

I used to work in tech support for Citi Bank. The people working there are not intelligent. My favorite interaction went like this..."

"Banker - How do I type the upside down I?"

"Me - Ma'am, that's an exclamation point."

slappy_mcslapenstein

The Crappy People

"In every CS job I’ve ever had: we will bend over backward to help a nice person. We will expedite any complaint, give maximum compensation, and harass other areas of the business for you."

"We will do the absolute bare minimum to help a shi**y person and if you’re really bad, we will do everything in our power to make sure you get nothing but what you’re legally entitled to and it will be a process to get that."

11catsinahumansuit

"I don’t work in CS but 100% the same for us in IT a nice person will get new stuff while a shi**y person will get questionable secondhand crap that will take 12 months to fix! I will make sure that you wait as long as humanely possible to have anything fixed!"

Sharp-Demand-6614

Go to Holiday Inn

"If you ask for a supervisor calling Marriott you will just get another person who is not a supervisor, but say they are."

cryptnificent

"Yep. I've seen this done numerous times across multiple industries. Usually, it only involves an actual sup if it's a genuine problem or if they want to make a point."

"The last job I had was in towing junk cars. Two of the inside buyers, one male, and one female, would bounce that sup card around constantly. Idk how no one ever put it together. We'd get repeat callers and repeat sellers so I don't know."

ItsBobFromLumbridge

Heartless

"Worked at a contracted call center for Centrelink. The manager told us to deny as many emergency payments as possible and they would back us no matter what. They were actively working towards a culture that despised the callers and churned staff to get heartless right-wingers who hated the poor."

Rizza1122

"I feel ya. My best mate is a quadriplegic. Centrelink denied his disability pension because he wasn’t disabled enough."

Less-Storage

Go to Home Depot

You Are Dumb Patrick Star GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphy

"I worked at Lowes. I didn't know anything about anything in the electrical department yet that's where they put me without any training."

Eattherich187

Not training people is not just a Lowes thing.

There are too many unqualified people doing too many things.

Switcharoo

Drag Race What GIF by TAZOGiphy

"Can confirm it's an unwritten policy for deli departments in Coles Supermarkets to change the written expiry dates on their tickets so they can sell out-of-code products at full price."

REDDIT

A Little Sunshine

"I worked at a call center for the billing department of a major internet and cable service provider. We were authorized to give up to $90 credit per customer on their bill but only as a last resort. Always remember to be nice to all customer service workers. You never know just how much they can help with a friendly attitude."

Axel_Dunce

"Former call center employee here. Highly accurate. Use your manners, and well fix your issue. Anything else, just makes us want to take longer, and you won't get a credit. Just because we are authorized, doesn't mean you'll get the credit for being an a**hat. haha. I've been verbally abused a few times for asking them not to swear at me. Lol."

Ok-Ad-7247

LELU

"I worked for a major telco company for many years in something called a ‘LELU’ which stands for Law Enforcement Liaison Unit. This 'unit' is pretty self-explanatory, but it essentially is a team who worked directly with the police/FEDS to monitor people's information for things such as obtaining communications history of call logs, SMS loss, etc."

"However, most importantly, the software we used, we as agents could directly see all your SMS texts, including MMS and their explicit imagery of whatever you were sending. This would include sexting, naked images, family photos, and everything. There were instances where people abused this position by stalking or 'monitoring' their SO’s comings and going’s."

MidniteMischief

Cookies!!

"I worked at a cafe chain called 'The Cookie Man,' 95% of their cookies arrived in cardboard boxes layered with bubble wrap. The last 5% arrived as pre-made dough that we would bake on-site to make the place smell like fresh cookies."

"I also worked at a cupcake shop. It's literally just packet mix that you add eggs and oil to before baking/piping pre-made icing onto. Don't waste your money on these places, 90% of these chain shops are the same and most are severely underpaying their workers (this is for Australia btw). Just purchase some packet mix from the supermarket and call it a day."

Frequent-Selection91

Look in the Back

"I was a Store Manager for a very large grocery chain and I can tell you that 95% of the time when customers complain to the manager, we may be professional and show empathy, and even resolve the problem."

"But then we usually just make fun of or talk crap about the person who complained to the other employees. And when a customer is really rude when we go 'look in the back' for something, we legit just stand around and talk to other employees, and make zero effort to look for the item."

A_Womans_Thoughts

From the Box

Kaitlin Olson Brunch GIF by The MickGiphy

"I once worked at 'the area's premiere day spa'; the mimosas were made with Sunny D and not real orange juice, and the wines came out of a box."

SailorVenus23

Sunny D and champagne?!?!

What in the name of Lucifer?

Who does that?!

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.