AIBU to hate when people ask where I find the time?

[LilaJude]

Does anyone else find it infuriating when people say ‘I don’t know where you find the time!’ when you do something a bit extra or fancy?

For example, I hosted a dinner party and made a floral centrepiece - nothing fancy, just a rectangle of oasis foam with foliage and supermarket flowers, but it looked pretty. One of my guests (the new DP of DH’s best friend) announced ‘oh my goodness, where do you find the time for something like that!’

Similarly, I often bring cakes in to my office for people to share, and one of my colleagues will always say she wishes she had the time to do the same but she’s just soooo busy.

I am probably being oversensitive, but this irks me a bit. You don’t ‘find’ time for things like this, you make it! It’s not that I have hours in the day they don’t have. I know it’s probably not the intention, but to me it devalues the effort put in to do something nice by suggesting it’s only because you have so much more leisure time than anyone else.

I know people who have much more reason to be busy than me (e.g. they have kids where I don’t) but who still make time to do extra things that I don’t (like my manager, who with her kids hand made little valentines for all 49 children in her kids’ classes), and I’d never imply it’s because they have more free time than me. I recognise that it’s about what’s important to you, and what you’re willing to prioritise.

Does this annoy anyone else or AIBU?

They're feeling defensive and insecure, like you've shown up their laziness or lack of imagination or thoughtfulness.

It is a sneery slight not a compliment. If someone wanted to compliment you they'd just say "how lovely/talented/thoughtful etc

obviously doing better with their time than I am.

This is definitely a factor. Let’s not forget that some people work faster and better than others. No judgement or anything, it’s a fact. I am rubbish at decorating. Takes me years, but my DM can still paper a room in a day. I, on the other hand can cook a roast perfect to timing when she can’t - I am not fast, but I am a plodder and can work to a time scale.

I definitely have the time to do things like that.... but I probably spend that time in front of the telly. I’ll go through phases when my evenings are filled and phases where I’m completely lazy. If I saw someone else doing those things and commented (which I’d be unlikely to do generally, not that sort of person!) then it would be coming from a place of envy. I think some people can be envious nicely and for some people it turns into a nasty emotion. Hence the sneer I think!

givemesteel you comment about birthday cake made me chuckle. I can and do make quite nice celebration cakes for close family and friends. Some are fine but the odd requester will completely overlook how long these things take! “Just whip up little billy this four tier cake with four different flavours and each decorated differently and with each paw patrol dog recreated in icing.... by three days time?”

Without being rude, I don't think it's always those with more time who get things done rather those with better time management.
For example my dm has always done her own decorating. I too carried on this tradition and managed to decorate whilst working in a demanding job and having a baby and a toddler, with no help at all. My house was always clean and tidy.
Nowadays I'd rather mn and chill!!

I used to hear couples with one child moaning about how they can't possibly decorate because they had a child to look after.

If I said this to someone it would be as a compliment as they clearly are more organised and efficient than me.

Be proud.

@LilaJude
I think if you’re on parenting website complaining about receiving compliments re your baking and floral artistry you definitely have too much time on your hands.

Sorry- but it annoys me, I take it as a thinly veiled ‘ some people have too much time on their hands’. I have very little spare time, and if I shift things around and make a massive effort for someone, I don’t want praise, but I certainly don’t appreciate the inference that I’m that idle I search for things to occupy the empty hours that stretch out before me. It’s jealousy that they’re either lazier or less organised with time, and it’s definitely a little dig

Yes, I don't blame you for being irked by it. They are relating something you've done, back to themselves, in a slight;y passive-aggressive way.

They could just say 'that's a gorgeous flower arrangement/lovely cake. You're very good at baking etc.' But they're choosing to say something that deflects and minimises something nice you've made. Nothing you can do though! Maybe just say 'I think the words you're looking for are 'thanks for the cake.'

The thing is, you can't be responsible for what people think, and say. Not your circus, not your monkeys. Let it go.

I think it's a phrase that can be taken either way, and probably depends on how well you know the person saying it.

Could be that they mean "I'm really impressed you spent time on that, I'm too lazy to bother" or "clearly you've nothing better to do with your time. Personally, I'm too busy solving world hunger to make a cake".

Or they could just be repeating a well-worn phrase without any real thought at all.

It probably depends entirely on how it's said.

I don't know how you find the time to post on internet forums, OP...

Seriously though, life is too short to get upset imagining that other people are trying to get at you. Most of them - like you - are too worried about how THEY appear to actually care that much about you or what you do.

Well. Generally people without kids do have a lot more time than people with kids

I sometimes have this said to me and I didn't used to like it either -especially when I finished my part-time MBA (with the OU). Somehow it implied I was luckier than them to have so much time - despite the fact I work FT, have 2 DS, a commute etc so it's was just a priority choice. I now reply in a vague way "Oh.. well I don't watch TV, so that probably helps".

I totally agree with you OP, this is patronising and undermining. I exercise a lot and am frequently told by others they don’t have the time. It’s important to me so I get up at 5.30 am to go for a run, before a very long day at work - they could do the same but choose not to - they are no doubt moe sensible but they certainly don’t have any less time than I do. I don’t have kids but I do have a fairly big job and was told by one woman she could have a ‘top job like you’ if she didn’t have her children. I felt like saying I didn’t climb the career ladder just by sitting around not giving birth, there was a bit more to it than that, but instead I said ‘oh yes of course you could’.....

"Well, I make time"

End of

People are jealous & snide. I now tinkly laugh & say “Luckily for you I’m Superwoman “ 😉

IME a lot of passive aggressive cake-baking goes on in offices - with the same 3 people bringing cakes in regularly of their own volition, insisting everyone in the office eats the cakes and showers the bakers in thanks and compliments, and then seething with self righteous indignation that other people in the office don't 'make an effort' in kind. If this sort of thing goes on in your office then yes, people are probably being snide with their comments about 'how do you find the time' - they may mean 'back off with the emotional blackmail cupcakes'.

But if this is not what's going on, they could mean anything. Just ignore them!

I would love to work in an office where passive aggressive cake baking is going on. I would just enjoy eating all the cakes.
In reality I have never come across this in my life. I have worked one place where one person occasionally brought in things they had made.

I've worked in 2 offices where the cake baking politics became totally unbearable. Now I'm in a place where there is a rota and bringing cake once a month is mandatory! I must have made some strange career choices to keep ending up in such cakey places.

I am slightly envious. I have never worked somewhere with cake baking politics. And I love cake.

eh what? this is a problem?
I think you have a teeny bit of a misinterpretation issue here.

YANBU OP, I must admit if I said that to someone, it would be my pass agg way of saying 'what a monumental waste of time' Just being honest.

this is like the men who respond to the #metoo movement by saying they’re not allowed to even talk to women now

Jesus. It’s not.

If you are doing nice things and enjoy doing them then maybe you genuinely don’t have anything better to do? Of course having children or other dependents makes a difference. Lots of people lose time for their hobbies once having young children