Is this common behavior? Is it symptomatic of anything?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m going to be a little vague on specifics of who, what and when in the following, but I think I’ll still be able to describe this pattern I keep encountering with certain family members.

Since they’re family, and occasionally I need a little help with some run-of-the-mill issues while I’m living overseas, I’m given constant assurances that they’re available to help me whenever I need. It’s not that I’m asking or requiring anything, it’s the family members who are being proactive in offers to help out.

OK, so I do need help with one issue. It’s something I could easily do myself if I were back home, and asking someone else to do it might take twenty minutes of their time at most. Predictable pattern follows in our e-mail exchanges:

Stage 1:
Q. (me) Would you mind helping me with such and such?
A. (family member) Absolutely! No problem at all! I’ll do it this weekend, would that be all right?

Stage 2 (two weeks later):
Q. Did you have time to do such and such?
A. Oh, geez, it slipped my mind, I’ll do it first thing tomorrow.

Stage 3 (one week later):
Q. Did you have time to do such and such?
A. Uhhh, yeah, I did! Haven’t you seen it yet? Maybe give it another couple of days, I’m sure you’ll get it by then.

Stage 4 (another week later):
Q. Did you have time to do such and such?
A. [Never responds to my e-mail.]

Stage 5 (another one or two weeks)
[Completely different family member calls or e-mails]: Look, you really need to get off A’s back about your such and such. He feels really terrible that he hasn’t done it for you, he’s had all this stuff come up, and you need to be grateful for the fact that he’s willing to do you this favor, just who do you think you are?

:smack:

Why do people do this?

2

Because they’re selfish jerks who want the bonus points for volunteering but don’t want the work of following through with it.

3

When my mother complains about the need to occasionally remind Littlebro of things like “you’ve eaten the food too, therefore cleaning the kitchen is your job too”, I remind her of one of Jesus’ parables. Paraphrasing, a man had some fields and two sons; he asked the sons to go work in the fields; the first son said “oh yes Father, I’ll go tot suit!” but then he got distracted with something else and didn’t go; the second son said “damnit Father, stop bugging me” but then he went and worked in the fields. Q: which is the good son?

Middlebro is the first one. Littlebro is the second.

As for why Middlebro and your own relatives do it, they’re being irrealistic about their own helpfulness and availability. The part that really bothers me is that, once Middlebro (or my other “helpful” relatives) have offered to handle something, I’m expected to wait until their asses get 'round to it - usually I could have done it a lot faster or would have spent a lot less time and money by paying a professional to do it for me.

4

Family members have an odd lack of culpability when it comes to doing things for other family members. It’s somehow second tier and never a first priority.

A) Ask little bro to do something, he really wants to do it, and has every intention of doing it.

B) Little bro has a girlfriend who wants to do such and such in the exact time frame that he needed to help you out…Which do you think he will choose to do and why?

5

People ask me why I do everything myself. “Why don’t you delegate?” they ask. It’s for this reason: even if I delegate to someone to whom I clearly have the right to delegate things, and the person accepts and understands the assignment, it never gets done, and I’m left like a moron without the thing I absolutely needed to have happen.

6

Because some people are people pleasers and would rather passive-aggressively yank your chain than simply be honest and pay you enough respect to just say, “No, sorry, I can’t help you out with that.” in the first place. They think you won’t like them if they tell you no. What those people don’t realize is that I despise people who don’t have enough backbone to say no. Give me one bullshit passive-aggressive nonanswer and I will never respect you again, or trust you to do anything you say you’re going to do.

7

I think they want the atta boys for being nice and stepping up, without the actual work involved. IOW, it feels good to want to help. It is better to actually well, you know, HELP.

I can’t stand people who do this and I have too many of them in my life. I make a point of only agreeing to help when I can (and want to–amazing how those 2 things are rarely together).

It reminds me of my mother, and it makes me see red.

8

Unfortunately, way too many people, whether family or “friends”, enjoy being asked to help with something; it shows they are needed, and they can feel good knowing they are helping someone in their time of need.

Then you have to go and ruin it all and actually ask them to DO something.

It’s similar to walking past someone in an office, saying “How ya doing?”, and walking right by because you’re just expecting to hear “Fine, thanks, you?”, and then you can say “Fine, thanks”. and the world is wonderful. Just make sure you don’t tell them how you REALLY are, because they aren’t interested :frowning:

Sorry I got off on that tangent, but yeah, when I let someone know I’m available to help them, I’m there to help them, even if it’s inconvenient for me. I mean, I did say to ask if you needed help, didn’t I?

Whew… so, yes, it’s too common a behavior, and it’s symptomatic of trying to look like a good guy without actually having to be one.

::looks for off button and hits Submit Reply::

9

I’ve been that person a couple of times, and I hate it.

People have come to me and asked me to do something because they know that I’m smart and capable, I like to help, and when I do the work, it’s good work. Unfortunately, even at the age of 36, I am still learning my limits and how to judge when I’ve committed to more than I can do. I also have a really hard time admitting that I’ve misjudged and will not get the damn thing done.

This past year, I have flat out said “no” on more than one occasion, only to have the person asking me resort to all manner of passive-aggressive persuasion to get me to say yes. I’ve stood my ground, but come away feeling battered and bloody from the guilt trips.

And, in my defense, if I screw up, I take the blame, apologize profusely, and do my very best to make up for it.

10

So they don’t have the stones to tell you no, but they bitch to someone else about how demanding they claim you are. That’s a whole nother level of passive aggression. Is there any pattern regarding the As who promise and the Bs who defend the As?

11

Oh, yeeeeah, I have a friend that does this. I’m a single mom, he is my BFF and knows all about cars and such. This is a common scenario between us:

Me: Hey, my car’s doing <such and such>. What do you think I should do?

Him: Oh, I’ll come look at it this week. Don’t worry about it.

::two weeks later::

Me: You know, that thing with my car is getting worse. I’m getting worried. Are you going to come look at it, or should I take it to the mechanic?

Him: Oh, yeah, I’ll come look at it tomorrow. Don’t take it to the mechanic, I’ll take care of it.

::two weeks later::

Me: That thing with my car has gotten really bad. I’m taking it to the mechanic.

Him: NO! Do NOT take it to the mechanic! I’ll come look at it, I promise!

::two weeks later::

Me: I broke down on the side of the road. Can you come get me? My car had to be towed to the mechanic.
GRRRRRRR!!! I feel your pain.

12

And God forbid that you neglect to help them when they need it. Owls has a similar relationship with his family–he no longer asks for help because he never gets it, but if they want something they give us the whole guilt trip. Hell, they’ve tried to guilt us into helping them help us :smack:

13

I actually have the opposite problem. I have friends who really, really want us to organise a working bee at our place so they can help us pave a patio area, or whatnot.

Now, making a patio area IS on my 5-year plan, but I don’t want to make a working bee of it. I’m happy to wait until I can afford to pay someone to come do it. It’s not because my friends would make a bad job of it (they’d do a lovely job) it’s just that I hardly get to see them as it is, and I don’t want our get-togethers to be anything other than relaxed.

They don’t get this. :frowning:

Part of it, I think, is that they genuinely don’t understand that I can be quite happy to wait for five years for something I think is fairly trivial in the scheme of things (I don’t use my backyard, so a patio is low-priority), part of it is that they’re very creative types who are bugged by the fact that it’s STILL (after 8 years) a blank canvas out there, and part of it is that they’re just really, really, really nice.

But yeah, I’m in the kind of weird position of having to *stop *people from helping me.

14

Yeah, that’s the thing that gets me, along with the flat out lying about whether such and such was done.

As for patterns, whoo boy, you have no idea. The other thing that gets me is among these three family members, almost any one of them can be playing role “A” or role “B” depending on the situation.

15

:confused:

16

We make promises according to our hopes; we keep them according to our fears.
~La Rochefoucauld

Yes, people love the brownie points for volunteering but do they follow through? Some will only do so if they fear a shitstorm of retribution.

The key here, I think, is to demote the individual in question. That is, his credibility rating drops and you never ask him to do anything for you again…or at least, don’t assign an essential piece of the job to be completed. They need to grow up and you need to note their non-performance and not buy into it next time.

17

Tout de suite, meaning, as you know, right away.

18

tout de suite = at once.

Wow. Those 5 years of French finally paid off.

ETA: Darn you, Alice! :stuck_out_tongue:

19

I think she was refering to a local hippie bakery, Toot Sweet.

ETA: Wow, you guys are fast.

20

I’m 52 and have been working hard at this for decades. The fact is, I know very few people who give an honest no when asked for assistance by a friend. As a consequence, I almost never ask for help, which is both anti-social and self limiting.

But as the responses to this post attest, “helping out” very often gets you tangled up in a hairball of obligation and guilt (I now have a firm policy of refusing to fix ANY “quirks” on friend’s computers).

I’m still a sucker for plumbing problems, however. I’ve really got to stop that.