To despair at how helpless some people are

[ThankYouVeryMuch]

You see it on here all the time, poster says they’re in a difficult situation and lots of people respond with sensible advice and details of organisations they can call for help and there’s always a reason why they can’t ask for help.

I saw a job at a local hair salon advertised on Facebook, 1 person posted “interested” underneath so the salon owner responds with their contact details (that were in the ad) and asks for a cv and the person responds “I don’t have a cv, nevermind” or someone else put on my local Facebook group saying she was new to the area and asking if there were any new mums in the local area, so I responded that there was a lovely, free mum and baby group in her village the next day and I knew the organiser so if she wanted to go along I’d make sure she got a warm welcome, and the response was “I can’t go to a baby group, what if none of the other mums speak to me”

Some people just seem as if the world owes them something and they should get what they want without putting in any effort.

[StrangeLookingParasite]

Strangelooking - are you going to stay your mother's child for ever. No one ever told me I was good at anything either. But the past is the past. Move on

So compassion. Much kindness.

[EstrellaDamn]

In the UK @AynRandTheObjectivist it drives me crazy!

[Trills]

I know how to pressure boiler thanks to Youtube

Me too.

When my brother held his friend's newborn for the first time, everyone was very impressed with how competent and confident he was. He said he youtubed it!

[OftenHangry]

Look at the positives. Tradesman will be loaded in few years with people not being "able to" (willing to) do basic stuff . Time to retrain to something like a electrician! And I am really not joking.
So many light bulbs needing change.
On the more serious note, I fully agree with the posters about how we now have aaaaaaall the knowledge we need or want for accessible in seconds and yet people just won't use it properly.
And it's often so easy! I know how to pressure boiler thanks to Youtube. It always fascinates me when people come and ask me questions about basic stuff and when I send them link to some website which explains it well, for future references, they just ignore it and soon ask the same question or for me to do the task again🙄

[Lethaldrizzle]

Strangelooking - are you going to stay your mother's child for ever. No one ever told me I was good at anything either. But the past is the past. Move on

[AynRandTheObjectivist]

Estrella, may I ask where you live? I don't know a single 30-something who's that underdeveloped!

[EstrellaDamn]

I work with people like this. They're all early 30s, but they could easily be 19.

They all live with their parents or have only just moved out. One lives next door to her mum. They're into YA fiction, Pokemon, all things I'd consider kids interests really (although I know I'm a bit unusual in that regard now!)

We went on a work trip recently and two of them refused to go unless we set up a buddy system in case they got lost or scared. I absolutely refused. One of them has the chance to go to Rome for work but is too scared to go alone in he gets on the wrong plane. He's 32!!

[StrangeLookingParasite]

would.

Blast.

[StrangeLookingParasite]

I don't like the smug "well I can do x, y and z so anyone who cannot is pathetic" vibe coming through on here.

I don't think it's that, as much as some of these things really are basic life skills.

I also have an unfortunate habit of thinking everyone can do the things I can do - mostly because my parents, and my mother in particular, regularly told all of her children they were nothing special. This means I actually think that if an idiot like me can do something, anyone woud be able to.
I do try to stop this line of thinking, but still find saying anything positive about myself extremely difficult. My mother never complimented any of us to our faces ever.

[ralfeesmum]

I've come across a fairly solid and valid piece of advice in one of those Self-Help book that I'm a real sucker for:

ie:"self-discipline is having the moral strength and character to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. If, on the other hand, you dither about waiting until you're 'in the mood' you'll be waiting forever."

[Badbadbunny]

This is the difference in some people who say they can't do something when in fact they could if they wanted to and made the effort to find out how.

This is what really annoys me with some people. Today's generation has access to every imaginable bit of information at their fingertips. They're happy to watch endless youtube videos of animals doing funny things or porn, or to spend all day on Facebook, but can't be arsed to do any proper research or watch any of the millions of instructional videos on youtube. We've never ever had such easy availability of facts and demonstrations yet we seem to be getting more stupid and incapable, when we should be the most intelligent and capable generation.

[EBearhug]

or by googling it.

To be fair, that wasn't an option in 1991. But there were still Delia Smith books and so on.

[falang]

Ebearhug. He didn't know how to boil an egg. But he would have been perfectly capable of doing it once he knew how either by being told or by googling it. This is the difference in some people who say they can't do something when in fact they could if they wanted to and made the effort to find out how. I know someone who says she can't book things online, she always manages to find someone to do it for her. She is perfectly capable of doing it, she just doesn't want to.

[The80sweregreat]

ebearhug, I did teach my son about cooking and all the basics long before he left home for Uni - his brother is much more hands on and practical and between us we went through everything and made him cook some dishes/ boil an egg etc.
He still chose not to bother that much and pretty much gave up by the end of year 3. He did keep up with the washing/ changing beds and general things, but cooking was hit and miss from what i can gather!
you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink.

[EBearhug]

I think it's not that people can't boil an egg etc, it's more that they won't.

Sometimes, they can't. I was in one house at uni with a boy who had literally no idea how to boil an egg. Or heat a tin of beans.

I did feel judgemental about his parents. I could run a house by the time I went to uni, and they hadn't even bothered with the most basic stuff.

[Trills]

I've just remembered the existence of Beth in Little Women, who was unable to go to school for ill-defined reasons of "being too delicate".

She was not a PITA about it, but many others in her position would have:
a - not been such paragons of virtue
b - not been visible to anyone outside their immediate family

[falang]

I think it's not that people can't boil an egg etc, it's more that they won't. Entirely different things.

[The80sweregreat]

Leth - I admire women that can do things such as DIY. I took tiles off the wall once and that was good fun - hard work though!

[Lethaldrizzle]

The80sweregreat - I taught myself diy cos I was a single mum. Necessity is the mother of getting good at stuff you previously thought you were crap at!

[Summerscorcherisjustsummer]

Not read thread and I agree with ops first premise. I will say however sometimes people try and be helpful but sometimes people are stuck in situations with no easy obvious way out. Many people have tried all avenues suggested so they may try and nod at the helpful person.. Who is being lovely and they feel awkward.
Because it's obvious what's being suggested and it may not work!!
Also remember people can be totally proficient in one or some aspects of thier lives but are actually inept in others.

Fil is big business man who can't boil an egg or feed his dc if Mil not there and can't do basic DIY and is emotionally inept.

He may get frustrated with his son who is not capable of deal making and hard negotiation. But his son is very adept in the kitchen and with his dc, wife and deeply emotionally intelligent. So it's swings and roundabouts...

[crunchymint]

Oh god I used to know someone who always asked for directions to places we were meeting. Just google it.

[QuinquiremeOfNineveh]

This is a minor point, but if you know the best way to a place the rest of the group has never been to before, I think it's a bit mean to just tell them to google it. Why wouldn't you share your knowledge and help them to avoid a detour or a wait for the less convenient bus? Sometimes it's just nice to be nice.

Sometimes it is. But if you're always the person who makes arrangements, finds out information, gives directions, and no-one else ever makes any effort, you begin to feel taken advantage of.

I worked with someone like that once. She would ask me every time she needed to know something, even though she had the same access to the information as I had. She wouldn't look things up for herself, or make the effort to remember or write things down once she'd been told. She'd worked there longer than I had, so it wasn't that she was new and needed help. She was just mentally lazy, I think.

[The80sweregreat]

I look everything up on the internet. They always show opening times of the shops for example. It’s a great tool to use.

[raspberrysuicide]

Also people who put on facebook what time does Asda/Tesco etc close?

[raspberrysuicide]

It makes me cringe when fully grown adult men phone up their wives/partners etc in the supermarket asking them what to buy.
I feel like shouting MAKE A BLOODY DECISION!