I was out one morning, I ordered my coffee but noticed that the waitress forgot to hand me a straw, not a problem. I go to the bar to receive one directly, I go up to the bartender and I say, “hello, do you have a straw?”. now of course, I obviously knew they had straws, but this is simply how I decided to ask for one at the time. there’s better ways to ask for sure, like “hello, I’d like a straw please” but it just didn’t cross my mind to think about my answer so deeply at the time
so anyway, the bartender responds “what kind of straw?”, to which I reply back with a slight chuckle, “like, a straw, what do you mean?”. the other dude working there must have thought I was making fun of him because of the chuckle I guess? because he went on this REALLY obviously passive aggressive rant about how “of course we have straws, what kind of bar doesn’t have straws? just like how there’s bathrooms in every bar, there’s also straws” or something along those lines. I didn’t say anything back other than an awkward “…yeah” while leaving with my straw, because in my mind engaging any further with that dude would only make things worse
it might not sound that bad but the guy looked really damn offended and hostile, did I do something wrong?
4 comments
No. From how you wrote this, it sounds like he was just being an asshole.
It’s possible he was just having a really bad day, completely unrelated to you or anything you said. I get passive aggressive when I’m not doing well and I hate that about myself but I’m working on it. I really try not to do that at work but every once in a while I get like that with some coworkers and I always regret it. I don’t go on long rants at them but I’ll make annoyed comments.
Do you go there often? Is he normally like this?
He probably hates his job. Doesn’t make enough money and is bitter about his station in life, or more than likely, he is just an AH. Sounds like, he was ready to snap on the next person he interacted with and didn’t need much provocation to go off on them. I used to worry all the time about the people who were nasty to me. I’d examine and reexamine my role in the interaction and would continually blame myself for their rude unprovoked behavior. I must have done something to set them off. It also doesn’t help when you come off as shy or quiet. Certain people, will see that as an opportunity to attack you, knowing you will present little resistance. After being around enough people, I figured out people are just jerks sometimes and you are not to blame. If anything, they should feel bad but don’t. They most likely feel relief after being able to take that out on you.
I’m an over thinker so I might get some hate for this. Reading what you said it kinda sounded like you were being a little condescending. The way you said it was weird, “like, a straw, what do you mean?” kinda sounds like “umm, are you dumb?” You replied with a question as if the bartender didn’t understand what you meant. Then you chuckled too. Some people don’t like to be laughed at so maybe the other guy didn’t think anything about it was funny when you chuckled, could be why he responded the way he did because he thought you were the jerk. As for the bartender asking you “what kind of straw?” it was a legitimate question because there are different types of straws (like the skinny black ones for alcoholic drinks or a regular drinking straw) and it seems like you were trying to make them seem foolish for asking you that question. The fact that you said you think the other guy probably thought you were making fun of the bartender because of the chuckle shows that you’re very aware you probably did something wrong. Being a “paying customer” doesn’t mean you can be condescending towards someone serving you. Now should he have jumped in and responded like that? No. But I don’t think he was being “hostile” for no reason, just returning the same energy you were giving. (I’m just guessing)