To get irritated at competitive Busy-ness?

[RedAndYellowTulips]

Does anyone else get annoyed at people that always claim to be so busy all the time? And usually when they tell you just how very busy they are it's with a put down/sting in the tail to make our you're inferior to them for not being quite as busy?

One friend of mine is always going on about how busy she is, but in reality she created the busy-ness of her life herself. She likes any opportunity to tell me about how busy she is and to make out I'm not as good as her.

For example:

Busy Friend: Have you seen X, Y, or Z (mutual friends) on the school run lately?
Me: Yes, I saw X yesterday. And Y and Z a few days before
Busy Friend: laughs Oh gosh, I'm far too busy to notice anyone else on the school run. I just drop my daughter and go. I don't have time to even notice anyone else

She also always talks during our meet ups about how busy she is and how she can only stay for an hour as then she has to go to someone else's house, then to someone else's house for tea, and then to drop her daughter at her parents' house as she's meeting someone else at the cinema.

So annoying!

YANBU. See also: competitive tiredness.

Ha, I have lots of friends like this too. I am lucky that I have a great job, which pays well and is not super stressful. I have busy periods, sure, but I don’t generally work really long days. I also have loads of annual leave and my employer allows me to take longer breaks.

In one group of friends, it’s always a competition around who is working hardest/busiest/can’t possibly take any time off. If I say ‘I’m not too busy at the moment’ or ‘I’m taking three weeks off’ I can almost feel their pity: ‘you’re so unimportant and not needed’.

I have other friends who are always so busy, it’s just seen as a marker of success in this society.

As an interesting experiment, regularly ask people ‘how’s work?’ In my experience most will say ‘so busy!!’ (Especially acquaintances rather than friends - friends are more likely to give you more detail if you already know quite a lot about their work life)

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/busyness-status-symbol/518178/

My FIL! He is retired and has been for 2 years now, even then had reduced down to a 3 day week and every time you ask if has watched something or spoken to another family member it is always the same response, he is far too busy. He has been too busy to see his GGS this year or buy a card for anyone's bday. His partner is a bit younger and she still works and she does all the food shopping etc. If you challenge him what he was busy doing it general stuff like mowing lawn, taking dog for a walk etc - like the rest of us do and work and still fit in other things.

Oh god yes, competitive tiredness is fucking annoying too.

Well, I'm not sure that I'd see your school run example as a "sting in the tail". I think you're over reacting there.

Someone who can't make time for her friends because she's over promised and is giving you one hour then zipping off to see someone else for one hour etc IS irritating, I agree. I've never understood people who arrange their social lives in slots like this and it seems awfully rude and disrespectful to me.

Having said that, while I don't do this with social stuff at all, I have had experiences where I've over committed and land up just stressing myself and everyone else out because I said I'd collect DD from ballet, but also accepted a work call for the hour before but also told a friend I'd grab coffee with her on the school run. I've learnt to stop doing that and actually, lockdown has really made me think hard about how to do it even less, but it certainly wasn't ever because I thought I was better than anyone. More because I didn't want to let anyone down - not clients, friends, DC etc.

In one group of friends, it’s always a competition around who is working hardest/busiest/can’t possibly take any time off. If I say ‘I’m not too busy at the moment’ or ‘I’m taking three weeks off’ I can almost feel their pity: ‘you’re so unimportant and not needed’.

As someone who is often genuinely insanely busy at work - I'm self employed and work can go up and down in major ways - I can honestly say that I have never once felt that I am more important or necessary because of my busyness. In fact, usually, I worry it's a sign that I'm insufficiently organised and that I need to do better.

I have a friend like this, She does have quite a lot going on but not more than most people.
She runs her own business but it takes about the same time as a normal full time job. Her kids are grown up now and although they live at home they look after themselves.

I think she suits herself and when something comes up that she's not into she uses her busyness as a reason not to do it. She says she always has lots to do and yet it's impossible to have a short phone call with her, or just to quickly pop in as she is such a talker. She thrives when she has lots to do so she makes things up for herself to do, like redecorating, planning trips, shopping, working on her wardrobe.
She's great and I love her but she is competitively busy and I know a lot of people find it annoying.

@BlingLoving - see I’m sure that many people are really busy like you say, and don’t look down on others that aren’t or feel busy-ness in itself is a marker of success. It’s just when you have a conversation along the lines:
ME: I’m going on holiday for three weeks! Can’t wait
EVERYONE ELSE: Wow you’re lucky you can take time off, I couldn’t possibly take more than a couple of days off, I’m so so busy, I have a massive project I’m working on/work wouldn’t survive without me/the world would collapse etc

Etc.

ME: I’m going on holiday for three weeks! Can’t wait
EVERYONE ELSE: Wow you’re lucky you can take time off, I couldn’t possibly take more than a couple of days off, I’m so so busy, I have a massive project I’m working on/work wouldn’t survive without me/the world would collapse etc

Yes, this is a good example. My version would be the colleagues at one company who were ALWAYS late for work drinks because they "had so much to do I just couldn't get away from my desk."

But most of the previous examples aren't good ones.

[Also, I have to admit sheepishly, that I get jealous of people taking long holidays because the BEST thing about being self employed is flexibility and freedom but the WORST thing is how hard it is to take more than an afternoon off without worrying about masses of lost income].

gabsdot45 I used to work with someone like that. She'd pick up a job then spend the next 45 minutes on the phone to various departments telling them all about the job and what needed doing when all she actually needed to do was phone to book a meeting room or similar. Used yo drive me mad. By the end of each morning I knew more about all her jobs that were making her so busy? than I knew about my own!

I have a relative like this,everything is a competition and a dig.

She phoned me and asked what I have been up to.
Told her I had been to my hobby the previous night.
Sounds interesting she says,tell me more.
So I told her all the ins and outs about the class .
She asked could she come and met me there.
Everything group leader said was met with a huff and an eye roll.
Afterwards relative says don't think I will be coming back I just haven't got time for all that faff,I don't have time to do things for myself.
I have this and that to do ,its ok for those with nothing better to do.
Inside I was screaming why the hell did you come then and also kicking myself for every mentioning it in the first place.
She has always been a martyr.

Yes and unfortunately I work with one! They are insanely busy, just cannot ever possibly stop! First in at 8am and still there well past 5pm when everyone else has gone home.

I do actually feel sorry for them because I can see it comes from insecurity. Our workload plummeted and we had a kind of 'shut down' over lockdown. The look of sheer panic on their face that work was drying up was obvious! It is also sad because they see themselves as far more proficient, do a better job than everyone else etc, go above and beyond etc. In reality, management are questioning whether or not they are capable when they are taking twice as long as everyone else to do half the amount of work. The rest of us are actually being given more work because they don't think this person can cope!

Oh I know someone like this. She’s the wife of a colleague, is a SAHM to three children- two of whom are adult children living away at uni and the third of whom is 16 and still at school. This woman never stops talking about just how busy she is, how she’s organising so much all the time etc, really she has made a full time job of the stuff so many people manage to fit in around a full time job. Her WhatsApp tag line actually is “organising things!!!”. She’s always the one with the phone out on the dinner table too. Couldn’t possibly have it in her pocket or bag.

It's a sign of shit time management in my opinion.

Being so so busy

to make our you're inferior to them for not being quite as busy?

to be honest, how YOU feel and react is up to you. You chose to feel inferior - or translate it as a dig to make you inferior.

Most of us ARE busy or wasting time on MN. Some of us are more disorganised than others. Posters on MN who claim they are too busy to do anything magically find time to be on here - why would that make anyone feel inferior?

Nothing becomes a competition until you chose to join in.

I find it annoying too. My parents (mother in particular) were always insanely busy, and to be fair achieved a lot, but I find it annoying that mum seems to think I'm lazy purely because I choose not to fill my life to the max.
I've chosen to live a calm, rhythmic sort of life, where I work as much as I need to and no more. I keep things simple (fairly minimalist) so I don't need lots of money.
I'm glad that DH is the same.
My adult children are much the same. All capable of a day's work, and all have decent social lives, but downtime is really important to us all.
We all love a nap and freely admit it. My mother is horrified. She thinks it's decadent.
We don't care 😂

I think people like to be needed and feel important. Like the busier they are the more in demand they are.

I also think that some people have very poor time management skills and that's not necessarily their fault, but it doesn't help their feeling of being busy either.

I deliberately crafted my life to just not be that busy so I think I just can't relate to the need to be busy. I like to do things but I don't like to feel like I'm just spending my days working through a list of obligations. I also don't have kids so I imagine that factors in too.

I have an acquaintance who is the same age and works in the same job as me and shes a bit chippy that I got a certain job when we were at the same company even though she'd been there way longer. Whenever we see one another she makes sure to tell me how very, very BUSY she is at work and how many HUGE projects she has on. I loathe being busy so in my head I'm like, "that sounds awful. I would hate to be you".

What really gets my goat is people who insist that they have to leave gatherings early all the time because they're "so tired".

I have an old friend who I hardly see any more who insists that she has to leave evening events by some ridiculously early hour (like 9pm latest) because she has to have eight hours sleep every night. Like she'll turn into a fricking pumpkin. I haven't had eight hours sleep for about a decade. Woman up.

If you have the energy to get out in the first place you can make it to pub closing in my view. I get that if you have very young kids or a hideous commute and an early start its a bit different but sometimes I think its just martyrdom for its own sake.

Yes I used to have an annoying friend like that. She was so busy she used to keep me talking on the phone telling me all about herself then always without fail someone else would ring and she'd say "ooohhh I'm getting beeped" then she'd fuck off without even asking me how I was. All got very dull n boring. Notice I said "used to have"...