Teachers Share The Worst Cases Of 'My Child Can Do No Wrong' They've Ever Seen
Parenting isn't always easy, but most parents recognize that their kids are going to mess up and need to be taught how to behave. Some, however, have deluded themselves into thinking that their little angel couldn't possibly misbehave or do anything wrong.
These parents can be a nightmare for teachers to deal with because the kids often just need a bit of redirection and some reinforcement of that at home, but the parents aren't willing to see that their kid needs help.
Reddit user u/Will-I-Am_No9 asked:
"Teachers of Reddit, what is the worst case of 'my child can do no wrong' have you seen?"
10.
I had a student in 5th grade. He had a history of misbehavior dating back to the first week of kindergarten. He would regularly shout insults at other students, threaten them, refused to do any work, and on several occasions, yelled at me and once threw a chair. One day, while we were taking a test, this student was talking. I quietly reminded him that it is against the rules to talk during a test, and that he needs to be quiet. He kept talking.
I told him that this is his last warning, and that if he talks again he will need to go in the hall. He talked again. So I told him to go in the hall. He gets up, walks out, and on the way out says, "You're autistic." to me. I wrote him a referral and contacted the parents, explaining the situation. They didn't pick up the phone, so I sent an e mail (oops) and I ended the e mail saying that I hope we can work together to help (student) be successful.
I received a rage-filled e mail back saying that MY behavior is unacceptable, that I am targeting her son and am out to get him, and that I will be hearing from her lawyer. This woman is a cop. She went all the way to the district level to complain about me, and made up all kinds of lies about me and told the other parents.
Oh and once, after a different incident where he physically assaulted another kid, he was suspended for a day. Mommy took him to Disney World.
9.
My first year of teaching I taught early elementary, but had to teach a single grade 7 options class where I saw the students 2x a week for 40 minutes. I had one student who didn't hand in a project and marked him accordingly. Parent-teacher night came and mom shows up. She closes the door, spends 5 minutes addressing her sons marks and asking about whether he could still hand in the project to which I replied "sure". She then spends 20 minutes telling me her son thinks I hate him and how everyone and I mean EVERYONE loves her son. She went on long rambling stories about former teachers, coaches... etc and how everyone really loves him and I just really need to spend some time with him so I would see how special he was.
I finally told her I couldn't possibly hate her child because I barely knew who he was because I spend 98% of my time teaching on the opposite side of the school (not a smart thing to say, but the rambling stories, that we were 25 minutes into what was suppose to be a 10 minute interview, her passive aggressive nature and the fact that she was so high on her son was starting to irritate me.)
I asked her what type of reasonable solution she wanted and she told me my personality was clearly the problem. She then got up to leave but returned to tell me that though she wasn't a teacher and wouldn't tell me how to do my job but... and spent 5 minutes telling me all the ways I'm personally failing her child.
Anyway, that was an important first year teacher moment. Never again would I let a parent treat me like that.
8.
I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now: Taught previously, but this is as a parent:
Our son, who is 3, is in school. His classmate "Winnie" and her mom "Louisa" are the worst people you've ever met. First, Winnie has a restrictive diet for no other reason than her parents want to try it. They will send a list of "approved" foods and quantities for her with the expectation that all leftovers are to be put in tupperware and given to Winnie to take home. The food is so odd and weird that we wouldn't eat it anyway, but that's the expectation.
If Winnie is at a party, Winnie must win at least 50% of the games, even if there are 20 kids. Winnie must be served first. She must have extra time when playing with children and Winnie must not be, under any circumstances, told what not to do.
The kids of this class have parties and Winnie was invited twice and then not. Her mother flew off the handle and sent a nasty letter to parents about how this was unjust and her Darling Winnifred was crying at being left out. Her daughter has no boundaries, is unruly, rude, difficult and eats what can only be described as pre-vomit. Her mother runs a small "health consulting" business and will constantly try the hard sell with you. It's intrusive, invasive and really tone deaf, but she won't stop continually begging for service. She's awful. Her daughter is awful and they're always at social events.
7.
Once I had a piano student whose mother made him take lessons, even though his heart wasn't in it. For several weeks, he'd come back with exactly the same mistakes as the week before and with no sign of improvement.
I made it comfortable for him to describe weekly practice and his thoughts about taking piano lessons. He said that he had no interest in the piano (or any other instrument) and that he "pretended to practice to get his mother off his back."
I told his mom that forcing him to take lessons was a mistake - that his heart wasn't in it and that it might turn him against music forever to persist. She said, "He's a gifted student and he'd never waste practice time."
I simply said that I have his best interests in mind and that he needs to pursue something he's genuinely interested in, and not be coerced into studying as a result of parental pressure.
The boy gave me an appreciative hug. But his mom looked daggers at me as they walked away.
6.
"We have this kind of meeting every year with his teachers, we know (son's name) can't do multiplication."
He was a freshman in high school in pre-algebra. How he passed 3rd - 8th grade is beyond me besides teachers just passing him to get rid of him. These people had money, they had resources, they could've gotten him tutoring YEARS ago to help him. Instead they preferred we just pass him and excuse his acting out because he refused and couldn't do the work because he didn't have the basic foundation. He couldn't do multiplication so he couldn't do division, and it all spiraled from there. They were so calm about it, like, "What's the problem with that? So what?" I was floored.
5.
I was a TA in a kindergarten classroom and had reminded this little kid (5M) in April (over halfway through the school year) about our rule that we only have healthy snacks at snack time. He started whining and crying about how his mom lets him have cookies whenever he wants.
Anyway, the teacher steps in and mentions that he has a delicious looking apple in his lunch bag. He then gets up, throws a chair and begins to flip tables and tear the class apart while telling the teacher his mom is going to bring a gun and shoot her.
At this moment a threat has been issued so we bring in the principal. She gets there and begins an effort to talk the student down to no avail. He just keeps going on and on about how his mom has a gun and will shoot everyone at the school and if we call the police she is going to shoot them too.
The mother is then called... No answer. Of course.
So we send this kid with the principal and go about our day.
After school is over the teacher, principal and I start putting together an email to the parent. The kid was in after school care so we couldn't have a chat after school. We just hit the major points of defiance and handling his anger in a more positive manner.
I get to school the next day and the teacher shows me the response. The first line read "Why didn't you just let him have the cookie?!" and it went on to say that "you as educators are not doing our job if her child is getting as angry as he is. It is our job to keep him from getting mad and we failed at it today."
That day he came in and told us that mommy bought him a new Lego set...
4.
While I've never been a traditional teacher, I did give swimming lessons for a short time while in high school.
Most of my students (and their parents) were very appreciative of how I conducted my classes, but there was one woman who seemed utterly convinced that I was doing her child a disservice. The boy in question was afraid of putting his head beneath the water – which is a common-enough problem – so we had been slowly working through various ways of helping him overcome that fear. Unfortunately, every single time that his mother was nearby, she would scream about how I had "no right" to "force" her son to do anything, after which she would loudly address him as though nobody else was within earshot.
"Are you okay, honey?" she'd ask. "You remember what Mommy said, okay? You do not listen to that man. You are perfect, and you do not let anyone tell you otherwise! Okay? Tell me that you hear me."
The poor kid would mutter his acknowledgements, then sulk near the edge of the pool until his mother finally left. The good news is that the woman would almost always disappear not long after dropping off her son, leaving me to start undoing the damage. I'd like to think that I still had a positive impact on the boy's life, but something tells me that someone had mistaken swimming lessons for a particularly wet babysitting service.
TL;DR: In which I take on the role of a monster in the pool.
3.
I taught at a school in a mega-affluent community. Colossally wealthy families that lived in castles; very powerful and influential people. Most of the kids were lovely, but there were plenty of brats, and some were just downright unbelievable. It wasn't the kids' fault, mind you - they were just spoiled to the point of being devoid of common sense and reality. One particular boy, who we'll call Francis, had basically given up on school. He knew he was set for life and put zero effort into anything. His grades were so poor at one point that his parents - completely aloof and dependent upon Francis' team of au pairs (Francis called his parents by their first names, mind you) - proposed buying passing grades so that Francis could move on to the next grade. Basically, dad pulled out the checkbook and asked for the amount.
Looooots of Francis stories.
2.
I taught 6th grade at a private school. Since we're private we have a specific testing week every spring to assess our students. I sent home an informative sheet describing the rigid schedule we have and when our tests will be administered. Doors have to remain closed and no disruptions were allowed (a little harsh, but it's what we were told to do by administration). If anyone was late, I assured them they can make the test up, but they would have to wait in the office. This kid asked to go to the bathroom, obviously as a teacher I can't say no.
I told him he had 5 minutes until the test and he will need to be quick. Needless to say, he was not back in time, so he was sent to the office until the testing time was finished. I received a L E N G T H Y email that begun with, "What is your issue with my child?" They never read my weekly newsletters and just believe whatever their child told them when they got home instead of asking the adult for their perspective. He's an only child with a single parent. He's everything to her. I get it, but was a real tough year.
1.
First year teaching, I gave a kid detention. Kid was talking too much in class, wouldn't stop, and school policy was to give detention if a kid acted up after a verbal warning. Detention wasn't much, about 30 minutes after school, but since it was a middle school, giving after school detention means I have to contact the parents, since the kid won't be on the bus (yes, there were other transportation options at this school). Now, he was talking to another kid, so that kid got detention too.
So, throughout the day, the kid is begging me not to give him detention, but I remain firm. He broke the rules, I followed school policy and it's my first year, I'm looking to other teachers to be a guide and they say I should stand firm. So, I call mom.
Mom is totally crazy. The kid is Indian, so she accuses me of racism, but that's not so bad, I can understand where she's coming from. That's not what makes her crazy. She then assumes that there was no way for her boy to be talking in class because he is, and I will remember this quote until the day I die, "a perfect, Christ-like child." Kid was perfect, you see, so anything he did wrong, I had to have made up. Here's the worst part, I was a traveling teacher which means I have to use other classrooms while that teacher is on plan. It sucks for both of us, but it also means, I don't have a classroom phone. If I call a parent, I have to call using my cell phone. She spends the rest of the year harassing me.
Kid gets a B on a test that was written for all of the 7th grade English teachers and done on a scantron? Impossible, he needs to get an A. Kid gets in trouble in another class? Calls me to complain about how he couldn't have done anything wrong. Kid has to do homework in my class? No, that's not acceptable, I'm targeting him. Kid gets detention again? Couldn't have happened, he's perfect. He's Christlike. I had so many 30-40 minute calls from this woman that I had to have the Principal intervene because it turned into harassment.
The worst part was, I really liked the kid. He was a great kid, he was just a 7th grader in a class that had all of his friends and was too big. Also, for some reason, lunch for 7th graders was at 1 pm, which was freaking last for some dumb reason, and his class was the one just before lunch. Kid was hungry, tired, overworked and all of his friends were in class, I totally got it. He just couldn't disrupt class.
Also, when I say "talk in class," I don't mean whispering. He and his friends were pretty loud, they would interrupt me and other kids and, I was a first year teacher, too. Like, I made a lot of mistakes, especially with that class. So, I'm not exactly blameless in this scenario.
Important Lessons People Have Learned The Hard Way
Reddit user IndianaC0NES asked: 'What’s an important lesson you learned the hard way?'
We've all had to learn something the hard way or at a super inconvenient time.
But because we're always learning new things, of course there will have to be some things that we learn later, rather than sooner, no matter the consequences of learning it too late.
Redditor IndianaC0NES asked:
"What's an important lesson you learned the hard way?"
Money Management
"Do not spend like there’s no tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and it won’t be pretty."
- cpu5555
Permanent Partner
"Never have kids with someone you don’t want in your life forever."
- pntszrn74
Make It Official First
"Money doesn’t exist until the deposit hits your bank account, and business promises mean nothing until legal documents are signed."
- FriscoFrank98
Know Your Limits
"Learn when to stop drinking and call it a night."
- Gadrilor
Trust Your Gut
"If something feels wrong, it likely is."
- drzed47
"This is closely related to, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'"
- remag_nation
The Importance of Dental Health
"Dental care is expensive!! Never be lazy with oral hygiene."
- the_rice_life
"And dental problems are EXTREMELY PAINFUL."
- Next-Confection3261
Be Careful Who You Share It With
"Not everyone has the same heart as you do."
- Accomplished_Hat2770
Be Wary of Bullies
"Not everyone is a good person. Some people actually want to see you fail. Stop oversharing. These nasty people will use it against you."
- Ko_ogs72
"My brain still can't comprehend someone being a d**k for no reason."
- Arny520
Recognize the Red Flags
"Don't let love blind your eyes, red flags are real."
- Fxk07
"And: No one is worth sacrificing your self-respect for."
- Waltzing_Methusalah
"It sucks when you’re halfway to learning this lesson before you even realize it. It’s so important to know your boundaries and respect yourself with the diligence required to walk away from people creating toxic patterns in your life, even or ESPECIALLY before you have the full picture to work with."
"We all know it’s heading south long before these things have terrible consequences on oneself/life. At a certain point, it’s too late to escape unscathed. Self-respect and what amounts to the ‘sunken-cost dilemma’ NEVER go together in relationships."
- brashbabu
The Likelihood of Success
"It's possible to make no wrong moves and still lose."
- Tropicsenshi
Family Ties
"Your family doesn't always have your best interest at heart."
- OhMyGodBearIsDriving
"Sometimes, family are just a bunch of bad people who are biologically related to you."
- noorofmyeye24
Wear the Helmet
"WEAR A HELMET."
"It's an easy safety precaution you can take when rollerblading, biking, skateboarding, scootering, etc. And it can literally save your life."
"I went all through the 90s thinking helmets were lame... I Fell while rollerblading in my 30s and got a subdural hematoma. I wasn't going fast but the momentum from how I fell just slammed my head into the concrete."
"HELMETS SAVE LIVES."
- Shortiie5115
Proper Eye and Ear Care
"Here is my PSA about eye protection. You only have two eyes and many injuries are not repairable. I have a completely s**t vision in one eye because of an injury and I'm constantly paranoid about something happening to the good eye. Wear safety glasses folk, it's important."
- ipsok
"And ear protection. You do not want Tinnitus."
- farmerofstrawberries
Love Your Loved Ones
"Always take a chance to tell someone you love them. To give them a hug."
"Never end a conversation with a harsh word."
"Both for the same reason. You never know if you will get to see that person alive again."
"I learned both those lessons from each of my parents."
- Edgezg
Self Advocate
"Stand up for yourself. If you get in the habit of letting people walk all over you, it'll be extremely difficult to reverse. Even if you're not confident, just fake it till you make it!"
- MISTERDIEABETIC
As humans, we will never stop learning and taking in new information, but there are, of course, some things that we wish we could have learned sooner or through an easier path.
But at least now that we've learned these lessons, we can share them with others, so they might not have to take the same path we did.
From a young age, we've all had it drilled into us the importance of finding a good job that we can work at for the rest of our lives.
But sometimes those jobs don't work out for one reason or another, and sometimes all of the fault gets pinned on the employee.
Redditor DankGamer135 asked:
"What one mistake ended your career?"
A Scam Order
"While working at a builders’ merchant's, a customer called to place an order over the phone (not unusual) and wanted to give me the card details, there and then (red flag)."
"I initially refused, but another member of staff vouched for them as they were regulars. I put the order through, knowing that whoever came to collect would need to come into the office for their paperwork before loading, so we would have them on CCTV if it did turn out to be suspect…"
"Except the yard crew didn’t follow the process. When a van turned up for the goods, they loaded it all up and sent them away without asking for any kind of ID or manifest."
"The payment card was later reported as stolen, and the staff member who vouched for the customer denied even being in that day, which was a f**king lie as she never took time off. I got fired and everyone else got to keep their jobs."
- Shas_Erra
"That sounds like a setup. They should’ve been easily able to verify whether the person that vouched for them was working that day (check her clock in/out times, CCTV, etc)."
"At the very least, someone on the yard crew should’ve gotten fired too because they didn’t follow procedure either (and it’s even worse because if they had, it could’ve been stopped dead in the tracks)."
"I’m sorry, man."
- princessleyley
Lifting Wrong
"I lifted wrong. 14 years of arboriculture coming to an end now, and I'm not sure of the next job."
- Spaghettitrees
"14 years might be enough to move into a supervisory/managerial role if one exists in the field. It would allow you to still utilize your experience to some degree."
- srentiln
A Screaming Match
"I worked retail pharmacy for 10(ish) years. One day in the drive-thru, we had a belligerent patient. The guy's doctor sent his script to our other chain about 1.5 miles down the road. We were on the same street, and addresses get mixed up all the time. No biggie, give me 10 minutes and I'll have it ready..."
"But the dude just starts laying into me for no reason. Calls me an id**t. Calls me incompetent. Says he knows where his doctor sent it and I'm a lazy, lying piece of s**t. Etc, etc."
"After a few MINUTES going back and forth, with this guy yelling loud enough in my drive-thru that other staff inside the store can hear him, I tell him he needs to leave and find a new pharmacy."
"The guy lays into me again. Refuses to leave. I tell him, 'F**k off or I'm calling the police.'"
"Apparently, that was over the line for my company. No interview with HR. No discipline. No suspension. They just straight up fired my a** about three weeks later after an 'internal investigation.'"
- frithjofr
Physical Space
"One of the Directors wasn't happy with some work I'd done and started poking me hard with his finger to punctuate his comments."
"I punctuated back considerably more forcefully."
- jonnymars
The Angel of Death
"I called the HR lady the 'Angel of Death' to a coworker on chat. (HR was in a different state, so any time they came to town we all knew it was most likely to lay off people.)"
"The Angel of death came to get me shortly after, lol (laughing out loud)."
- michaudra2
"I once worked in a company as the help desk tech that would come collect tech while people were in with HR getting fired. I got the nickname Grim Reaper, because if I showed up with my cart and nobody in that department called, then one of their colleagues wouldn't be coming back from their meeting with HR."
- Houseplantkiller123
Home Sweet Home
"I built a castle out of Christmas chocolate biscuit boxes in the warehouse of a major retailer on a night shift and proceeded to fall asleep in it for a few hours."
- masontraining
The Wrong Recipient
"I sent a scathing email about my boss directly to my boss. It wasn't meant for him."
"To this day, I still have no idea what possessed me to put his name in the address bar. I noticed his name the exact moment I hit send."
"You have never felt that much panic."
- Happy1327
A Brand New Car
"I was a part-time intern making $9 an hour (USD) and my boss asked if I had any plans for the weekend."
"I had said I was going to buy a new car (very much old and used as that's what I could afford) and he asked if I was buying a brand new car. My response was that my budget isn't big enough for a new car."
"A couple of weeks later during my one-year review, my manager said they didn't have the work for me and that I was disrespectful for telling the boss I didn't make enough money."
"At the time I was living comfortably as a college student who just needed different transportation. I tried not to be disrespectful but apparently I was."
- Kulee43
Fired in Retaliation
"I got security responsibilities added to my duties as a sysadmin at a small university. I was asked by my boss' boss, the IT director, to do a security audit. He asked me to report on the audit at a department meeting."
"I asked if I could present my results to him privately instead and have him present at the meeting, but he insisted I could take care of it."
"My report showed major security holes, demonstrations of tests of said holes, and recommendations for patching said holes. Many of the patches were at the level of 'change the administrator password from 'password' to something less obvious.'"
"As my political acumen was near zero at the time, I didn't realize how the report on major security problems made the IT Director look completely incompetent in front of the entire department. He had built and configured the campus computer system pretty much on his own, at least in his mind, and was quite proud of his accomplishment."
"He suspended me on the spot, demoted me, and tried to convince the university to fire me and try to bring me up on criminal charges for hacking into the university's computer systems."
- firelock_ny
A Terrible Accident
"I had a workplace accident, a fall from an extreme height. I didn't get fired but broke enough bones that I'll never work in that industry again."
- Malromen
Out of Context
"I was opening my packages in the mailroom, using a pocket knife to slice open the packing tape. The secretary came in and chatted. We’re both Italian so we gesture a lot while talking."
"Sometime after the conversation, the Ops manager came down from his office and escorted me out of the building. I had forgotten the knife was in my hand while talking with the secretary, and she made an accusation that I had threatened her with it during our conversation."
"I was fired three days later."
"I had worked with this woman for almost a decade. I helped her children with their homework, etc."
"Years later, I learned corporate wanted to take down my boss and started the process by going after his biggest supporters. I was the third domino to fall. After I was railroaded, almost 40% of the branch’s staff left the company. I guess the secretary was in on it and leaped at any excuse to take me out."
"Shame. Really loved that job. And got fired when my first child was due in only four weeks. It was very demoralizing for quite a while."
- Bokuden101
Stolen Cigarettes
"This isn't about me, but a guy I worked with was caught stealing two cigarettes from a colleague's bag. He was on a six-figure salary. Not anymore!"
- Rude-Scholar-469
"How can anybody be so dumb? Especially as a smoker, he should be aware how other smokers are very likely to share their cigarettes with you if you just ask them."
- SherifGames
The Stolen Lunch
"This didn't happen to me, but I remember a coworker of mine getting fired because he put laxatives in his own lunch bag. Some d*ckhead kept stealing parts of our lunches. Turned out, it was our supervisor."
"I'm not too keen on the specifics since that coworker and I weren't exactly friends or anything. I just kind of had simple conversations during lunch and whatnot."
"Apparently, it is illegal to poison food with malicious intent. And some of my friends who worked there said he got into some legal trouble because of it. Nothing came of it from what I heard. But that's about all I know."
- DeicideandDivide
A Slanderous Date
"I went on a first date with a girl who turned out to be a horrible person 20 minutes in."
"I did what I could to get out of it because she was telling stories about crazy things she’d done and was proud of. I didn’t pull anything to get out of it, just dodged land mines and asked a ton of questions about her so I could get out of it sooner."
"Then I said I wasn’t feeling the connection and I wanted to be honest so we didn’t waste each other's time."
"I found out a week later that she contacted my previous employers, because she found my LinkedIn, told them all stories about how I talked a ton of s**t about them all. And now I can’t get a reference from my previous three jobs… and people I was on good terms with."
"All because I went on a date with a psychopath."
- FirstFlight
Taking Sides
"I sided with the peeps under me as their manager."
- ThunderClap449
"It's more important to have the back of the people you represent. In my experience, you get better production out of people who know you go to bat for them. Then your numbers and team performance look good and they figure, well, he must be doing something right."
- A_Vile_Person
While it is always terrible to lose a job, these stories make it clear that sometimes we lose jobs for reasons that really should be no fault of our own. From fraud to accidents to false charges, people have been fired for things they certainly shouldn't have been.
And for those who were fired for reasons that wholly were their fault, well, at least that was a learning experience.
Emotions are high at weddings, with the bride and groom going through various stages of anxiety and excitement.
During those stages, seeing how well a newly wedding couple interacts with each other as well as with other family members and friends under pressure can indicate how well they work together as a team.
If professional wedding photographers had years of experience capturing one of the most monumental milestones for couples, they would be able to identify if a couple can make it for the long haul.
Curious to hear from them, Redditor Arknight40 asked:
"Wedding photographers of Reddit, what was your 'they're not gonna last long' moment?"
Some marriages had problems before saying "I do".
The Last Session
"Bride looked visibly miserable the entire ceremony. While photographing the men’s 'getting ready' portion, the groom repeatedly kept joking about killing himself."
"During the toast, the bride ran off to the bathroom for about 30 minutes and came back wiping her tears with her eyes red and puffy. Neither of them had any chemistry at all, it made no sense why they were together to me. That was the last wedding I shot."
– Majestic_Storage_563
Groom's Wandering Eye
"I'm a videographer and the groom called me a couple days after the wedding. He wanted me to make sure I didn't include any footage of him checking out the women at the wedding."
– Tim0281
Party Bride
"One of those hotel venues that can run two weddings at the same time. Bride from our wedding is found in a hotel room with the groomsmen from the other wedding doing drugs before the first dance. End result was we got paid and were told no need to edit or deliver pics. Safe to say It didn't last the night."
– mysticsika
Red Flags Galore
"The engagement session."
"The couple was in from out of town because she had just taken the bar exam to become a lawyer. At the end of the session, I gave them a prompt to share with each other what they were proud of each other for. He couldn't think of a single thing."
"Somehow they still got married, complete with: the groom drinking 11 IPAs + several shots before the ceremony, mother of the bride so drunk for family photos she pretended to strip, and the groom and all the groomsmen wearing camo hats with neon orange letters that said 't*tties and beer.' For the entire wedding day. Including sunset couples photos where he refused to do anything I suggested, nearly spat chew right on my feet, kept farting on purpose, and loudly complained about how all he wanted was to go have sex."
– V-Savage
Demanding clients indicated how difficult they might be as a spouse.
Once More From The Top
"Wedding was on a golf course. Bride had a vision she wanted of her husband driving up on a golf cart to see her for a first look."
"He got one look at her from the top of the hill and vaulted the cart, ran down the hill, picked her up and twirled her around to tell her how gorgeous she was. We caught it all. It was the best first look ever."
"Once he set her down she straightened herself and looked back to us. 'Okay, I don’t want that. Let’s do the golf cart now.' And she sent him back up."
– Pancakes_Whisperer
More Photoshop Please
"I did a wedding for an acquaintance and her husband. Day goes great, I’m really happy with almost everything I took, everyone was feeling it and having fun. But, (and this is one of the reasons I quit photography) the bride sees some of the photos I had sent her, and immediately is calling me. 'I need you to do the editing magic and make me look skinny, John was saying I was going to look too fat in my dress and wanted me to lose weight but I knew you could just edit it, so haha I didn’t'. So I have to explain (this is like 2010) I can only photoshop so much, I.e. I can make you look a tad slimmer in certain photos without making it noticeable. But I can’t do it to all of them, and if I was to, the editing would be noticeable, and I will have to charge you a lot of money to edit you in all the photos. She tried to convince me to edit hundreds of photos for a couple hundred bux, and I have other jobs going and had given them a great deal already so explained I couldn’t. So she insist I do at least some of her main pics, I tell her when people see the rest of the pics they will see the difference, she didn’t care and insisted more. So I do, and a couple weeks later when I thought it was all done and history calls me and leaves me a voicemail of how I ruined her wedding, her new husband is upset at how she looks in the pics and keeps making remarks about her weight. So didn’t seem like they were in a great place from the get go."
– Jadedsatire
A Secret Arrangement
"While shooting video, I attached a microphone to the groom for audio and proceeded to prepare for the ceremony. Just as I was about to adjust my audio settings, the groom stepped into another room with a friend. As I put on my headphones, I overheard the groom confiding in his friend, describing the wedding as a 'wedding of convenience' and reassuring them not to be concerned about what would happen in their relationship."
– NoodleMaps
The best man shouldn't have too much to drink. They might overshare.
Cold, Hard Truth
"Went to a wedding during college to my friends that got married who graduated 2 years prior to me. They had a beautiful wedding on a boat off the Keys and as the best man gave his speech, he was really drunk by this point, just shouted out, 'You don't deserve her, you literally got a bj from a stripper no make that two strippers at your bachelor party. Peace out.' He dropped the mic and tried to do a dramatic exit but by this point we were all stuck on this boat in the middle of the ocean. It took an hour to get back to port, and it was the most awful and awkward hour of our lives for everyone on that boat."
– breakitupkid
A Harsh Roast
"in another life, i worked catering shifts. loads of saturday weddings. i'll never forget the best-man's toast of the groom. it was a shameless roast. he spoke openly about the groom's willingness to shag anything when he's drunk. he then went on and on about the groom's deadly gambling habit and his short fuse when he doesn't win. he asked the stone-faced groom 'how many thousands of dollars in golf clubs have you destroyed or lost in countless ponds?' nobody was laughing. the bride had tears in her eyes and the groom's parents sat in stunned silence."
– dys_p0tch
Some people aren't marriage material.
Disasterous
"This was 15 years ago or so, I left wedding photography a few months later."
"The reception was at their home, they didn't want photos at the ceremony, and didn't want wedding party/family photos between the ceremony and reception triggering the first raise of the eyebrow on my end. At the reception the groom didn't want his brother, the best man, in the photos. Other eyebrow goes up. The mothers of both the bride and groom both scolded me to let them be and told me to eat instead of take photos. The groom and the best man got unholy drunk and had a weird by play of brother making way too many toasts and the groom making grossly inappropriate speeches of what he's going to do to the bride on the honeymoon."
"As the newlyweds were making their grand departure the bride tosses the bouquet, everyone cheers. The groom shouts 'I knocked the b*tch up so hard she's got two babies in her c**chie"' Guest react in various ways of shock and happiness about the pregnancy test but the best man lunges at the groom shouting and swearing. Family holds the best man back as the couple runs out to a car. The groom flipped off the spectators, and pulled out of the driveway. Two houses down the car stops, the groom gets out and pukes on a neighbor's lawn, the bride gets in the driver's seat and takes off, leaving her husband yurking into a flower bed, and the best man ran down the street trying to flag down the car."
"Divorced four months later."
– OmicronPerseiNate
These are but a mere sampling of weddings gone wrong or couples that should never have gotten together in the first place.
Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
We've all found ourselves in a position where we simply couldn't contain ourselves and found ourselves putting someone in their place owing to something they said which was either wrong or just plain stupid.
When it comes to the latter category, though, it's often worth taking a minute to wonder if fighting that particular battle is even worth it.
As many people who are about to shoot down their current conversation partner might take a minute and really examine the person they're talking with before remembering the old saying: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
Sadly, some people remember this conversation too late, and find themselves falling down a conversational rabbit hole from which they may never escape.
“'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.” What's your best real life example of this?"
They Literally Won't be "Shut Down"
"When I tell people to just reboot your computer and it will fix all their problems and yet they won't because they said if you wait long enough it will shut down, when in reality it only goes to sleep."
"Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did."
"I tell them it seems like it but it only went to sleep."
"They argue back."- niallaa
Some People Just Don't Get It...
"I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids."
"She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point and she would say 'I never said that' or 'that’s not what I said'."
"Absolutely impossible to argue with someone who will just deny having said things that could hurt their argument."
"Also, trying to change the course of an argument if they feel like they are 'losing'."
"A coworker once called me an idiot for doing something 'incorrectly' when I was actually doing it the right way."
"When I politely explained to them that the way they suggested doing the task didn’t actually work, they started asking 'why are you getting so angry?? I was just trying to help' etc."
"So now we’re arguing about whether I’m angry or not instead of the right way to complete the task."- themightypianocat
Facts Are Facts...
"Arguing is pointless if you do not agree on a set of facts."- niallaa
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphyYou Can't Have It Both Ways...
"For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc)."
"There was a staff only sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level."
"Usually if someone from the customer side comes in, they said, 'Coming in' before opening the door, so they didn't hit anyone, but of course customers didn't know that."
"So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him."
"He said, ;You should really put a sign up'."
"We showed him all the signs, and he goes, 'That seems a bit excessive'."- GreyFoxHound1
So Wrong.
"Had an employee sign an NDA about an upcoming art installation that had investors."
"He told everyone."
"He argued with me the NDA only meant he couldn’t disclose anything with the people in the company."- BosskHogg
He Knew What He Was Talking About
This was best said:
“'Never wrestle with pigs'."
"'You both get dirty and the pig likes it'.― George Bernard Shaw"- Zerowantuthri·
pigs GIFGiphySome Outdated Inventions Are Definitely Not Missed...
"I’m showing my age here but I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments."
"Our primary method of communication was fax."
"One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper."
"No problem, I said, one of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour, I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you."
"We then had an almost 20 minute long argument when they kept insisting 'NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER, IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE'.”
"It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree."
"Difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing."- BettieKat
Very Few Hills Are Worth Dying On...
"I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater."
"Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd."
"When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her."
"Met every point with a solid 'I don't think that's true'." or 'That doesn't make sense'."
"Eventually she gave up and never tried it with me again."
"It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument."
"But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith."- kitskill
IS The Customer Always Right?...
"Working retail."
"Especially when I worked in the tech shop or a computer store."
" Trying to convince someone their $500 laptop is never going to be a gaming system no matter how many of the very few replaceable parts we throw at it can be exhausting."- MOS95B
happy episode 7 GIFGiphyEducation Only Matters If You Learned Something....
"Was arguing with this dude about something math-related."
"He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. claimed he was in multiple AP math classes."
"Tried saying that I 'probably don’t even know basic integration'."
"Gave me a common integration problem."
"He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable."
"I pointed it out and he edited the comment to make it correct."
"Told him that some people can see when you edit comments."
"He claimed that he just capitalized a letter. on and on and on."- SaturdayNightCity
Good Legal Counsel Might Be Worth The Splurge...
"I asked a representative from the Friend of the Court to explain something she said and she told me that I understood what she was saying."
"I replied that I wouldn't have asked her to explain if I had understood."
"She said if I was going to be difficult, she would hold me in contempt."
"My X chimed in that she didn't quite understand what she had said and was greeted with a smile and an explanation."
"From that point on I always disagreed with the Friend of the Court on EVERYTHING, so that I could be seen by the 'Actual Court' and a Judge."- PURPLEPEE
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySore Winners Are No More Attractive Than Sore Losers...
"Once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking fights."
"He'd start an argument over the smallest thing."
"If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something."
"The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition."
"One day he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app."
"He got all offended, because his weather app said it was a couple degrees warmer."
"So he decides we're going to have a weather app competition."
"He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner."
"And the loser would have to start using the winner's app."
"To which I said, "What is your f*cking problem?'"
"So, yeah."
"For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off."
"This started on a Monday."
"He gave up after Wednesday."
"Either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not give a f*ck about weather apps."
"Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment."- originalchaosinabox
Im Always Right GIF by ZionGiphyIt should perhaps be said calling someone an idiot, or even thinking it, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
Even so, if you're tempted to do so when you're in the presence of a particular individual, probably best not to provoke them.
After all, if you're so determined to "win," does it really make you any better than them?