To Hate people who constantly faff.

[1980sChick]

I hate being in the presence of them, sadly my dp is 1.

I was upstairs cleaning the bedroom and changing beds when he popped up to inform me that he and ds were getting hungry and what did I have in mind for tea... because that's obviously my domain. I said if he went and cut the chicken up with a bit of veg we could have pasta bake.

That was 5 o clock, it's been 45 minutes. I expected the pasta bake to be in the oven by now but no, instead I'm greeted with dp who has nearly every bowl we own out in front of him ( when he cooks it's like he's doing his own cooking segment on tv with all the bits in the bowls). He has taken to sharpening the knives instead of using them and is now finding the perfect song for his cooking experience andwhen I comment that he's taking too long, I'm the unreasonable 1.

It's like this with everything, this morning his mum called round and we had no tea bags, he said he'd pop out to get some, he disappeared upstairs for a shower 1st then ironed a outfit, spent 10 mins on his hair then appeared downstairs to ask which brand to get, his mum had left 30 mins before he came down.

How on earth do you live with people who faff, there's no sense of urgency at all with him and it drives me mad!

I couldn't live with a faffer, reading these posts is giving me rage.

I'm getting enraged just reading this thread! Faffing and Dithering are my 2 pet peeves. JUST GET ON WITH IT FFS! This is why I end up doing 99.9% of things myself.

Our house has a creeper growing over it. I like it (but not to excess) but DH hates it.
One year he decided it HAD to come down. I thought that was a shame but didn't feel strongly so thought I should let him get on with it.
He spent hours on the Internet looking for ladders. Because he would need a ladder to climb up and tackle all this horrendous foliage. He regaled me frequently about this ladder for blah de blah pounds but there was another one that was more expensive but had 20% off etc etc yawn.
This went on for months.

One day, on an impulse, I pulled the whole lot off the wall and shoved it in the garden wheelie bin. It took about 15 minutes.

Three wels later the ladders arrived.
It has now all grown back and oddly enough he has not mentioned getting the ladders out to cut the creeper back.
He is the one who wants the creeper cut back. I am the one who doren't. Yet I am the only one who has ever cut it

You know the good thing about being a NON faffer? There's so much more time. What takes faffers a day to do takes me 30 mins

We had some friends we'd often go on day (usually half a day by the time we actually got moving) excursions or weekends away with. So help me, the number of times I came close to murdering her and hiding the body. They'd say be at ours at 10, we'd be there and by the time she'd finished dithering it would be afternoon by the time we got on the road. Which shoes should she wear? Would we be walking a lot? Was it too cold for sandals? Needing to put food down for the dog and make sure the cat wasn't locked in the cellar, checking her adult dc had everything they needed, phoning her dad to let him know we'd be in a poor reception area in case he had been going to call her and spending half an hour talking about his neighbours' new car. I'd be screaming internally "ring him from the fucking car ffs". We'd get as far as the car and she'd be running back in to leave water for the dog and bring the coat she'd decided against bringing an hour earlier. Then she'd start mithering on about stopping at Starbucks and getting coffee for the road. You don't want to know how long she could fuck about deciding what she wanted and what would be the best pastry to go with it. In the end we just used to tell them to meet us wherever it was we intended to go.

I'm a former faffer. Actually, I'm a natural faffer who finally realised that I was one and made myself change. I'm not even sure how it happened but it seems that I was born like this, when my DM recounts stories of my childhood it always involves how they were waiting for me to do x/y/something totally unnecessary and 'how they all laughed'. I used to just think these stories were funny, but it all started to create a bigger picture when I met my now DH. He got to the point of stabbery when I kept him waiting until 9pm for a night out, the rest of our friends had gone out at 7pm. The problem was that because most of the people around me were exactly like me I just didn't see the problem.

DH's family are all like him and since we had the DCs my faffing has become more and more irritating to the point that I've had a complete overhaul of my way of going about things. I used to leave getting ready until 30 mins before we needed to leave the house when it took me an hour on a good day. I'd set off 5 minutes before I needed to be somewhere, regardless of the destination, it wasn't intentional but things used to come up and I definitely didn't know how to prioritise. I used to remember that I needed to paint my nails right before I needed to get in the shower, I'd pack bags on the day we needed to have them packed in advance. Other things that spring to mind are leaving present buying until we were on the way to a party (so having to buy wrapping paper, scissors and sellotape too), buying clothes for a night out on the way to our weekend away (!), trying a new hairstyle whilst already late and making important phone calls when I'd only have 15 minutes or so to deal with them.

The cooking thing definitely resonates with me because I have massive difficulty with cooking something. The prep I'm fantastic at and I really enjoy it, the cooking is just disastrous and never works out. I'm convinced this is all due to being unable to prioritise and feeling a bit crap about it, if everything is prepared then it looks great so subconsciously I spend ages doing it. For Christmas one year I got the diary for procrastinators - it was really funny to everyone and I'm lucky to have such understanding people in my life but it hit a nerve.

I now write lists, I have lists for everything with timings on them so I can look at them the night before I need to do something and work out my timings. I have a diary/organised folder and everything is written in there. I use my phone alarm all the time to make me switch tasks etc. The irony is that I've held down a very professional role for 12 years but they say that I'm the absolute stereotype for my profession which does make me feel slightly better.

I see the same traits in my eldest DS and I'm trying my hardest to give him strategies to be more productive. Sorry for the essay! I thought another perspective might help as it's not always deliberate (but definitely a very selfish personality trait).

Oops. My DH reckons you all must actually be married to me....in my defence I will say that I like to be on time for things BUT if there's no deadline then yes it could easily take me all day to get ready to go somewhere / do something. Are there no other female faffers out there??

Same here. So much so that the act of faffing has been termed 'film flam' and he is mocking called 'the king of flam' ..... or .... sarcastically 'the time lord' in that he has a total inability to manage time.

Today was a good example

Me: can you just paint that little bit above the stairs I can't reach.
Him. Hmmm yes. I'll put that baby gate up to stop the dogs running up the stairs
Me. (Bites tongue and thinks just shut the door surely?)
Him. Troops off to find baby gate. Returns and proclaims new house stairs too wide.
Me. Ah. Well just shut the ......
Him. Have you seen my tape measure
Me. What???
Him. I'll make a wood 'chuck' for the gap
Me. Just shut the door?
Him. Nah we'll need it put up sooner or later
Me. Yes but if you could just do that little bit of painting I can get on for now
Him. {{flinging tools everywhere}} where is that tape measure
Me. sigh
Him. .... then I can 'find' some wood from the back field, then I'll try out my new mitre saw in the garage.
Me. explodes! 31 weeks preg wondering how painting half a foot of stairway has turned into a full on DIY project involving a work bench, power tools and measuring and combing acres of land for fucking wood ?!!?!?

Sympathies OP.

I often use the example of a great bit in the Red Dwarf novel. It involves Rimmer, who has exams looming, spending loads of time creating a revision timetable rather than doing any actual revision.

It's called Not doing it in a "doing it" sort of way.

Which I think sums it up perfectly. (My DH and the ladder research rather than just pulling the bloody creeper down is, I think, a perfect example.)

I now write lists, I have lists for everything with timings on them so I can look at them the night before I need to do something and work out my timings.

Mt faffy DD loves lists. She spends all bleeding day making colour co-ordinated, beautifully decorated lists of what she needs to do that day. Then she declares her hands to be tired after all that list making so she buggers off to watch TV, getting nothing on the list done. Arrgh....The rage, the rage!

I line manage a faffer. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!

My husband is like this.

We have guests coming for dinner so I asked him to find this dish I like to put food in once it's cooked.

He decides to clean the cupboard. Every single dish, pot, plates we own are scattered all over the worktop with 45 minutes before our guests arrived and I still had to set the table and he still had to shower.

I ask him to get our son a pair of pjs from the ironing pile...he decides to start folding the stuff and put it away resulting in piles of clean clothes everywhere.

It drives me nuts!

Just reading this thread is making my blood pressure soar.
DH is not a faffer unless he's in the kitchen, when time apparently ceases to have any meaning. I once watched an entire episode of EastEnders in the time it took DH to arrange mushrooms on top of a pizza. I can toast and put peanut butter on 2 slices of bread and make a cup of coffee in the time it takes DH to put some cereal in a bowl and find the right spoon. This is why he's not allowed to cook.

Op, this really made me laugh. My DH is very similar. Never in a rush to get anything done. I'm actually trying to embrace it. Perhaps my 100mph attitude isn't the best approach either. I like to think we balance each other out.

DH is faffeur extraordinaire in this house.

Call him for dinner - perfect time to go to the toilet and then nip down to the shops for a bottle of wine!!

If we are hosting any family gathering then apparently the night before is the perfect time to begin doing all of the zillions of DIY jobs (virtually rebuilding the entire house).

As for when we are at the airport to go on holiday, I'd better not even get started there!! It is almost like having a large toddler who I need to keep on reins or he wanders off.

He drives me nuts.

My faffer is a nightmare in the kitchen!

YANBU. I think it should be state law that everyone goes about their day as quickly as they're physically able otherwise they get an immediate fine

I adore MIL but going round for lunch or dinner is a nightmare. I don't know how one person can take so long to prepare a meal. We wait for hours sometimes. She once made a ham salad - consisting of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, ham and boiled egg - took 60 minutes to make it. What is she doing?!

We went for Christmas dinner just gone for the first time and she actually started cooking at about 4pm on xmas eve so she must know what she's like!

Mine is both a faffer and a chivvyer.

When DD was younger he would loiter around until the very last moment, followed by a loud and unnecessarily show of faffing and getting ready. Then he would saunter through to the car casually asking "Are you ready yet?"

There were a few terse conversations, along the lines of FOTTFSOFAWYGTFOSM. Finally, he learnt that I expect him to participate in getting DD ready, and being ready himself before the ETD.

Oh god

This is my DH

ha! my mother.
there was a memorable incident when I lost it and left her at the theme park because she 'quickly' wanted to browse the gift shop...
oh god, that was liberating

My ex husband is a faffer. He takes a shower for half an hour -why? ???? Going out was torture, we were always late. The kids now tell him to pick them up/come round/meet them an hour before he needs to!
He had a friend who we used to pick up on Friday nights for a drink. EVERY BLOODY TIME we'd go to his house (late of course) he'd go in to get him, his friend would never be ready (another bloody faffer !) and his dad and I would be sitting outside in the car for a good 20 minutes / half an hour. I told the ex to gee him up as it was unreasonable for me and dad to be sat waiting in the cold but he said his friend couldn't be hurried.
However, one day his friend was right ready and came straight out, I broke into a spontaneous round of applause and his friend took offence, said if that was gonna be my attitude he was going back in! Result! X

On the subject of faffing friend, apart from his annoying habit of being late every week, he would get out of the car when we dropped him off, say thanks to my ex and never thank me, even tho I drove him home as I didn't drink. Gave me the rage.

Totally lost my shit one night, told him he was rude for not ever thanking me and keeping us waiting every bloody week, told my ex I wasn't driving his friend home ever again so he'd have to not drink and do all the driving and I meant it. Seven years I didn't drive him home, seven bloody years!

I daren't let DH even attempt to cook!! My nerves would be in shreds.

He once stood in the kitchen while I was grilling some burgers and fretted that he was sure his was about to absorb all of the fat which had dripped into the grill pan. Needless to say, he came perilously close to finding his burger shoved up his arse.

The stories are sort-of entertaining, and sort-of enraging, simultaneously.

The PIL. Jeez Louise.
They missed the start of our wedding, of their son, their only child, because FIL forgot his camera, so they went home to get it, of course with out actually telling anyone they were going. We walked in to the room we got married in (civil ceremony), to see two glaringly empty seats, right at the front.
Bought them tickets to see something; They leave just before the start as MIL thinks she left something on the stove.
My mother's funeral, the very last thing they will ever have to do for my family, they were hugely late for, complaining that I hadn't told them the exact church. No, having flown across the world a week before, being jetlagged to shit, and frantically working on the orders of service the night before, maybe I missed it. Perhaps you could have called us, or even your son?

I'm glad we live a long, long way away. For all their protestations about us leaving the country, they only saw us once every six months when we lived there anyway.

Ooooh, I might have been sitting on that for a bit too long...

My friend when she drives her car. Jesus fucking Christ ! I could drive there and back by the time she gets round to even starting the car!
She walks up to the car , I am already in the passenger seat, she sods about in her bag for a tissue to wipe a mark off the window , looking at it from all angles to make sure it's gone. She gets in and spends fucking ages adjusting the rear view mirror by millimetres ( it's your pigging car the mirror hasn't moved since you last drove it you plank). Then she does this really irritating slow flick thing to get her hair out of the way . Then it's another root through her bag for a polo mint. She puts the bag in the footwell . THEN realises she needs the car key which is in her bag , more bleeding rooting through it, finds key puts it in. Then starts the process of adjusting the mirror AGAIN. She finally starts the engine and adjusts the seat , back a bit , forward a bit , back a bit !!!!!!!!!
JUST FUCKING START THE CAR AND DRIVE !!

I want to drag her out the car by her hair and drive over her.