Thank you for wanting to help. (Even if you didn't.)

In My Humble Opinion
1

AKA, the thread for talking about well-intentioned people whose desire to be of assistance is welcome, but whose actual contributions can be, unfortunately, annoying.

My wife’s mom came to stay with us just before the holidays. She’s an old-school Middle Eastern woman who needs to feel like she’s doing something productive all the time; she has difficulty just relaxing and letting us take care of her. Host-and-guest culture is a big thing in Iran, but just because the host is doing their best to pamper the guest doesn’t necessarily mean the guest sits down and receives it graciously.

This is especially the case in our kitchen, where I almost always take the lead on cooking and cleaning. (Which was a big reason why my wife originally fell for me, but that’s another story.) I keep trying to tell my wife’s mom, in as kindly a fashion as I can manage, that she’s welcome to sit back and enjoy her grandchildren; that’s why she’s here. Over the years, I’ve successfully convinced her that I am happy to cook dinner; I don’t need her at my shoulder offering to chop onions or stir the sauce.

But I haven’t yet persuaded her that I am also capable of cleaning up afterwards. I’ll run the dishwasher, and then I’ll come in later and find that she’s unloaded and stored the clean dishes. Or I’ll leave a few items in the sink and go to put the kids to bed, and then come down and find that she’s washed them by hand and put them away.

And there is always, always, something I can’t find.

Usually it’s an item she doesn’t use herself, and doesn’t actually know what it is. Like, the garlic press. She minces her garlic by hand (remember, old school). She puts the dishes away, and the next night, the garlic press isn’t where I expect it to be. I look, and it isn’t anywhere that makes sense. I ask her if she remembers where she put it, and she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, because she doesn’t use it and doesn’t recognize it. Two nights later, I find it in another drawer, underneath the pot holders. No idea why.

I don’t complain. She means well. She wants to help. I’ve gently encouraged her to let me take care of things, but she still wants to contribute. I wish she wouldn’t. But she insists, or she does it when I’m not there and can’t object.

So I just go without my garlic press for a couple of days. It is what it is.

2

People holding a door open for you when you’re not burdened with a bunch of stuff, have both hands free, and are nowhere near the door. I appreciate the thought, but you’re just wasting your own time, and you’re making me feel like I have to walk faster now. Please don’t do that. Just go.

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@Cervaise: My new wife and I went around that bush when we merged kitchens. We’re both fairly serious cooks. Although she has far more single purpose useless toys fine cooking necessities than I do.

The short version we came to is if we are dead certain where it belongs, put it away. If there’s any doubt, leave it on the drying rack for the other person to put it away. Works so much more smoothly. By and large we each handle our own cleanup, so this “rule” mostly applies to dishwasher emptying. And to putting away groc or bathroom stuff.

But yeah, that was not the product of a 1 week visit, but the product of daily reinforcement both positive and negative for a couple months. :grin:

@DCnDC: Yeah. You’re just making it harder for me to get through the door. I’d say that’s probably the most common unhelpful helping scenario I see.


The second-most, and by far the most dangerous, scenario I see is the driver who stops for a pedestrian waiting to jaywalk. Please, just keep going; I’ll find my gap in traffic and you won’t get rear-ended, and I won’t get squished when the other lane of traffic doesn’t stop and I can’t see around you to see them barreling along happily passing the fool who’s stopped for no reason they can imagine.

Oh yeah, I just remembered another one. The folks who can’t resist posting in an advice or question thread when they have nothing useful to add. Good thing I threw that last scenario in, isn’t it. :crazy_face:

4

People giving away their right of way piss me off. I’d rather wait for a break in traffic to make my turn. You stopping and waving creates a situation where people behind you are pissed off, and someone is likely going to swing around and pass the well meaning idiot.

5

Related idiocy: when a driver in the right-hand lane pauses to wave at someone exiting a parking lot that it’s OK to pull out to make a turn into traffic going in the opposite direction, not considering that drivers in the left lane won’t have noticed this kind gesture and will continue on, at risk of t-boning the guy pulling in front of them.

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Also related: My one and only moving violation came when a pedestrian had stepped off the curb and waved me through an intersection. There weren’t any other pedestrians or cars in the vicinity except for the cop behind me. Talk about a tight sphincter.

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All these case require a snap evaluation of whether there’s an idiot about to do something awesomely stupid right in front of you. I keep an eye on my mirrors all the time so I know what’s happening behind me so I can stop suddenly for one these fools if necessary. I’ve been in several situations where only deft and rapid handling of my car avoided multiple possible catastrophes.

8

Have you tried assigning her a specific job that she can do?

9

Set up the extension ladder and she can clean out your gutters!

10

True.

Even worse are the people who come charging around from behind you, getting in your way as you tried to reach for the door, because they MUST open it for you even though you would ordinarily have gotten to it first.

I sometimes then stand there determinedly holding it open for them after I’ve gone through. Since people who do this are just about entirely men who have Men Open Doors for Women way too firmly in their heads, some of them have trouble going through a door being held for them by a woman.

11

Here on the North Shore of Boston, people do that a lot, and it really pissed me off when we first moved here a couple of years ago. Then, after a few months, I began to realize that, with narrow, labrythine streets, uncontrolled intersections, and heavy traffic, looking for a break in traffic could mean a very long wait, and this is how people have come to deal with it. Flashing headlights is the usual way to signal you’re letting someone in.

So now I will usually accept such an offer, and once in a while I will make one, too. When in Rome…

12

Trying to help but not really helping is pretty much my wife’s MO in life. She has a hard time letting things go, always feels like she needs to step in. We frequently have this exchange in our house:

She: I was just trying to help!
Me: And how does that usually work out?

13

My husband retired last year, and now has time to help in all sorts of ways. I hate emptying the dishwasher and I’m pleased he does it for me. But…

If you don’t know where it goes, just leave it out! Like Cervaise’s garlic press, my lemon squeezer is never where it belongs. I have learned, however, if Mr Rebo doesn’t know where it goes, he puts it in the island drawer. He also puts non-plastic utensils in the plastic utensil canister. And puts plastic in the wooden spoon canister! Can you believe it? It’s terrible! :wink:

Mostly I just appreciate that he’s trying to help. But I feel your pain, Cervaise. Right now I have a missing dishcloth. I suspect it’s in my visiting granddaughter’s room in her laundry. Or maybe it ended up at her boyfriend’s house! (It was new for Christmas, from my other granddaughter.)

14

Trying rephrasing it as “it would be big help if you watch the kids.” That’s what I do with my in-laws.

15

I was once a passenger in the car that did the t-boning. Exact situation you describe. We were traveling in the left lane, not too fast, and a car just appeared in front of us. I’m pretty sure the car we hit was a Subaru XT. The turning car’s insurance company paid for all of the damage.

Exiting my work parking lot sometimes puts me in this situation, and occasionally the person in the right lane will wave me through. I do not go unless the left lane is also visibly stopped and leaving me a gap. Usually, if the waver had just proceeded past the driveway, I could have made my turn soon after.

Why do people wave me through stop signs when it is clearly their turn?

My wife and child are very skilled at holding the door for me in just such a way as to block me from actually using the door. I appreciate the thought, but now get out of the way.

I used to get upset at guests helping to clean up in the kitchen, but I gave up and just let them now. I’ll tell them they don’t have to, and mean it, but if they want a battle of wills over who hand washes the roasting pan, I’ll let them win.

16

This, a thousand times this, if I hadn’t been going a little slower because the sun was in my eyes, I would have hit a little girl and her dog one time.

I do this😳
I try not to, and I manage not to at least as much as I do it, but I’m guilty. I’m sorry everyone.

17

THIS! I hate it when (usually a man) holds the door open in such a way that I have to squeeze past him to get in the door! Either stand outside and hold the door by the outside handle, or don’t do it at all!

18

It’s worse if you are driving a truck. The mantra for a truck driver is forward planning and observation. As you approach a turn, you are planning position, speed and gears in relation to the approaching traffic. (note that trucks have a lot of gears to choose from.)

So, from my superior height, I can see a suitable gap to make the turn and slow down, ready to select the appropriate gear. Then Mr helpful stops at the junction and waves me through. Now I have two problems - I am in the wrong gear and Mr H is preventing me from swinging as wide as I would like into the turn.

If I make the turn in front of him, I will likely have to stop first to engage a gear, and then I may have a problem with traffic emerging from the side. If I wave him on, the gap I say is now gone and he thinks that I am some kind of ungrateful idiot.

19

Unfortunately this would be a violation of the host/guest cultural framework I mentioned. There’s a thing in Iran called tarof which governs social interactions in situations like this, creating a whole ritual dance of manners.

In the host/guest relationship, the host takes care of the guest, and the guest relaxes. If the guest wants to help, this is appreciated by the host, but the host can’t simply assign work to the guest. First the guest asks if there’s something to be done, and the host has to demur and deflect — oh no, please don’t trouble yourself, etc. Then the guest observes briefly to see what needs to be done, and makes a specific offer — I’ll just bring the silverware out to the table, say. The host thanks the guest but gently repeats the objection. Back and forth for a bit, as the guest and host negotiate the guest’s contribution without ever saying directly that’s what they’re doing, and then the guest does the thing even though the host never said yes, do the thing. If done properly, both parties are happy.

If at any point in this I were to simply say, yeah you can clean the cilantro, or whatever, every Iranian in a thousand miles would knock on my door to complain about my lack of manners.

In my particular situation, first, she’s not very good at knowing how to help me. Part of the art of tarof is carefully observing the situation and properly perceiving where one can assist, in a way that is actually assisting and not interfering; this requires both parties to be comfortable in the situation, so the guest can instinctively understand how and where to contribute. So when she offers to help, she’s adhering to cultural expectation, but then she doesn’t know how to take the next step, because (1) I’m a man doing the cooking, which is abnormal in her culture so she’s already thrown off-center a bit, and (2) I’m cooking Western dishes she doesn’t know, so she can’t easily slot herself into my routine.

And second, when she comes along later and “helps” without telling me, she’s actually being mildly rude by her cultural standards, because she’s not giving me, the host, the opportunity to do the polite-refusal routine. But in her mind she’s making up for the fact that she wasn’t able to help earlier.

Really, it’s all fine. I enjoy her and I’m happy to have her around. I just wish I knew where she put my garlic press.

20

My mother-in-law is a very nice person and I actually like her. Shortly after I got married, my wife and I moved to a new city and my mother-in-law was helping me as I moved our stuff into the house. I left the front door open because I was moving boxes from the U-Haul into the living room and she kept closing the front door.

Me: Sally, just leave the door open.
Sally: You’ve got the air on.
Me: I know.
Sally: All the cold air is going out.
Me: I don’t care. It’s going to be open for a little while as I move boxes into the house and I’m fine with that.
Sally: Okay.

That lasted for a few minutes and out of habit she’d just start closing the door behind her again.