Why does life admin overwhelm me so much?

[Lamont77]

Anyone else sometimes feel completely overwhelmed by general life admin that seems to be non stop and never simple.

Here I am, awake since 4am because I renewed insurance over the phone yesterday and checked the policy this morning (was working til late) and some of the details I asked for are incorrect. So I'll have to call again at 8.30. Such a small thing, and hopefully easily fixed - but it does bog me down that routine things never seem simple.

Also made worse by the fact I can't get anyone on the phone most of the time. Another example is the Dr's still haven't given me medication despite receiving letter from hospital in October! I've called 3 times and they tell me they will action it and call back ??? I've ended up just buying it online but I'm pretty sure that's not safe.

Gas fire broke, gas fire man apparently came on Tuesday but no phone call and didn't hear the door. So that's been rearranged after chasing it up twice.

I could go on 🤦‍♀️ but yes, life admin sucks and often drags small things out into larger, annoying things, and I generally hate dealing with it and if I was rich I'd most certainly get a PA

Because the majority of people working in offices here are slack, misspell your name, misrecord your details, don't call you back, don't leave a record for the next person to deal with your file, etc.

Trying to administer the estate of a dead family member. Timelines to register death fly out the window when the coroner takes two weeks to send the paperwork to his colleague in a neighbouring county. The tell us once service was then stymied because the registrar managed to misspell the deceased's name (!) and fuck up his address to boot. And now the executors (lawyers) have disappeared and left no trail... the phone numbers don't work and the internet is littered with unanswered queries about them.

This country is a clusterfuck and nothing is ever anyone a responsibility.

It's a massive faff I agree. I have a running list in the back of my diary of people I am in dialogue (or more often argument) with.
Where possible I communicate with companies online so I'm not hanging on the phone, but yes it takes up so much head space.
I've had the wrong sizes of clothes delivered, a faulty item sent, an order fail to go through but payment taken, all in the last few days. None of it life threatening, but just more to add to my list of jobs.
I wish they'd all just fuck off and get it right first time.

I feel your pain. We’re five weeks into trying to get a faulty pushchair fixed. It’s the same fault we had a few months ago so I was crystal clear the one thing we didn’t want was for the same part to be replaced. Of course. No problem. Completely understand. They’ve ordered us the replacement part we said we didn’t want, it’ll be with us in ten to fifteen days.

And EVERYTHING is like this. I increasingly feel I can’t trust anyone to do anything unless I’m literally standing over them.

Yes life admin pisses me off big time. You’ll have people along soon to tell you life admin isn’t a thing and it’s not hard to ‘just do it all online once a year’ but I find it really hard to keep up to. My husband and I both work full time in quite demanding jobs and have a toddler and I hate giving up precious family time to deal with shit like tradespeople that can’t be arsed turning up when they said they will or chasing prescriptions or returning clothes I bought online because I never have time to go to the shops.

Can you email the doctors and ask them to reply back when they have received your mail.

Anything with workmen is a nightmare so I totally understand that.

Don’t worry about the insurance, that’s a 5 minute call this morning and you will have all the info next to you this time.

My advice is get a list, and start crossing off what you have done. I use KANBAN on my phone. You are actually doing loads, be nice to yourself!!

I was fine with my own admin, working full time, but get overwhelmed with DC related admin, because obviously there’s just more admin, and DH doesn’t do a fair share.

Yes as hidetheicicles says, the “it only takes 5 minutes” brigade will be along soon. Insurance is the one that makes me grind my teeth, people claim it’s super quick to do online. Maybe if you spend loads- but if you’re trying to find the cheapest deal and actually reading it to make sure that you’re covered for everything you need- that your breakdown cover isn’t some one man band with a terrible reputation, or that any valuable items are up to date on your home insurance, for example- or if you have anything remotely complicated like a flat roof on your house or a named driver who’s had a speeding ticket - then it’s really not quick and easy!!!

Rant over

'Only five minutes.'

'Do it all online once a year.'

LOL.

It's every single fucking day. Something needing sorting every single fucking day, especially when you have children. Today I apparently need to buy a Secret Santa present for a kid in my DD's class who she has never even spoken to and it's not clear what the spending cap is or when we have to have it done by. No communication from school to parents via the app or whatever (and don't even get me started on the app, messages from school - often unclear or conflicting - pinging on that all the time including weekends). DD 'thinks' it is £2 but isn't sure. However she's pretty sure the deadline is tomorrow.

Yes, it's only five minutes for EACH AND EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TASK. Of which there are many, every day, without end.

I hear you! The only thing that helps me is to list it in order of importance. Although, nursery emailed the Christmas signing invitations last night and my son has been missed off so this morning will be spent trying to catch the manager when I have other things to do!
Solidarity!

I feel your pain

Most recent example - you can't even renew AA breakdown cover online you HAVE to call. Wtaf

Also - my remortgage went through for £3000 too much because the solicitor sent excess funds back to the mortgage provider but provider hasn't reflected that in the amount... been chasing for 3 weeks...

Having to call people is soul destroying when you already work 60+ hours a week and you need to find time in between somehow bc lines are open 8-5 or whatever.

Why can't they just get it right the first time

I agree, as fast as I tick these things off my lists more pop up, even if they only take 5 mins each it adds up to a lot of time. So often you can't finish them at the first attempt and have to wait for someone to get back to you, or need a bit of information that you haven't got immediately to hand (eg a letter this week from the pension scheme of a job I left many years ago asking me to re-confirm the date I left that job). Also yes to the "flat roof" problem with house insurance, we also have the medical condition problem with both travel and car insurance meaning none of it is as straightforward as the adverts for comparison sites make it sound.

You can't even pop to the tip here without remembering to spend 5 mins booking it online a week in advance now. Does my head in.

Yesterday an HOUR trying to work out actual prices for gas and electricity for elderly friend who had stroke last year. Company trying to sell her a fixed rate deal, just give a general 'quote' of annual cost, so misleading. Every barrier you can think of thrown up: we have to have an account number, or a postcode, or permission, we have to give you a quote, no we don't publish prices etc

Because life has so much ‘stuff’ now and ‘stuff’ comes with maintenance, insurance etc. Cars, phones, white goods, electrical appliances… on top of bills, doctor’s appointments, restrictions, finances, kids admin, birthdays, christmases, family duties, renewing various memberships, then there’s our actual day job… I’m never on top of it either OP.

YY Op.

I am sick of admin in December, DS has an event every fucking day at school to remember. Work is manic for DH & I. DD is isolating due to Covid. We have work being done on the house and no one can get an answer out of the joiner, the water company won’t answer the god forsaken phone and I need to get an answer from them. The dog is on deaths door and the vet calls every other day.

Then there’s presents left to sort and I can’t get hold of UPS, random people popping out of the woodwork to ‘catch up’, and fucking WhatsApp admin.

I hate this stuff. Genuinely makes me feel sick. I've lived alone in my twenties and dealt with it but since then I've relinquished it all to dh... probably not the most feminist thing of me to do but it makes me feel ill.

Yep. I live alone, no kids, but it's still overwhelming at times. My car breakdown insurance recently came up for renewal, so I followed the link to the online portal only for it to not recognise my details no matter how many different combinations I tried. So now I have to ring them. Trying to sort Christmas with a family who just say "oh we don't mind what we do/eat/where we go, we're easygoing" easygoing doesn't make decisions! I've tried to pin them down but bloody hell it just adds to my workload.

Same here! At the moment I'm trying to get a GP appointment, chasing a missing item in the post, waiting for two refunds, trying to contact someone who did a bad job on decorating and is now ignoring me, sorting out a balance transfer and putting off electric and gas readings. This list is quite short because I got lots done on my lunch hour this week.

None of those things relates to Christmas, which is a whole other thread.

It feels never ending.

I was thinking about this the other day, totally agree and it’s not made any better by so many shit processes and products made today.
Everything seems to break and when it does it’s a slog to sort it out - shit experiences recently:
RAC (broken down car in middle of roundabout, they want me to report by app instead of having a person to talk to and then a 4 hour wait for RAC to come out)

Radley (strap broke on 3 month old bag, 3 weeks for an email response)

NHS Surgery (Ring on day for appointment, no queuing system, if you don’t get through then tough, try again another day)

Visit Britain (Bought lotto tickets for discount on London Eye, right saga! they refunded me in error, sent multi emails saying they are looking into it, now they don’t respond at all so I’ll be ringing the bank (oh joy!) to do a chargeback)

Absolutely. Yesterday the towel rail / heater in the bathroom stopped working. It's freezing in there. Add that to list of other random DIY tasks of broken things that need doing which I have neither the time, knowledge or tools for. Try getting a reliable, not-a rip-off tradie to do work at any time in London, less alone 3 weeks before Xmas.

Remortgaging - what a palaver, savings accounts to set up online and move to better rates (ooh an extra 0.1% how exciting), keep an eye on bank accounts in case of identity / card fraud. Follow up with bank about dodgy transactions. Wade through god knows how much security levels (no I don't remember my secret bloody security password/PIN I've never used in 10 bloody years), Try to get a doctor's appointment - hours of fun.

All the STUFF. Drowning in it. Hate it. If I win the lottery I'm hiring a PA.

I thought it was just me!

I hate life admin . It stresses me out and I never get it all done. I don’t think DH fully understands the huge workload of life admin I have snd I’m drowning in it

Add on the top of it Christmas admin and I'm about to explode with it all to be honest.

Plus two December birthdays- no fault of the people of course - but I am drowning in jobs and I don't break up from work until the last minute before Christmas and schools here don't break up until the 23rd.

We use an insurance broker. Started decades ago as DH's DF had used them.
They email with info when insurance is due etc and find us the best option, car etc we probably pay more for this but I don't know how to compare - we have loads of DH's hobby stuff which is valuable so house insurance is high. We pay them when they send the invoice and don't think of it otherwise.

Thanks for all your replies, nice knowing I'm not alone in my hate for life admin

Oh god I'm dreading when the remortgaging time comes!!

I also agree about refunds, returns, and chasing tradesmen - all a pain in the bum! And 'public' services that are only open 8-5

And YES about Christmas just making December the most life admin-y month of all. I too had a secret santa gift to get, which they raised from 10 to 20 spend this year, which just added to my long list of gifts to sort out