People like to try to help; they want to feel useful, and show gratitude to those who have helped them. Sometimes that "helping" turns out to be the exact opposite though, and it makes the job that much harder than it would have been in the first place.
Reddit user u/gregory_the_smarmy asked:
"What is the biggest inconvenience someone caused you when they were trying to help you out?"
20.
My two neighbours:
1: Hey this tree on the adjacent corners of our properties looks like it's gonna fall on /u/DoxBox's house.
2: Let's cut it down.
1: Should we take precautions to make sure it doesn't land on their house?
2: No.
19.
Today, my car did not start in my garage. I have had a battle with the dealer as this is the second time with some electrical issues always preceding the completely dead [in battery heaven) battery. T
They had me call the brand roadside service for a free tow to the dealership. My 3rd time doing this so I knew how this all wheel drive car needs towed.
The tow man does not seem to be as professional as who I have had before. He assures me that his way is as good, just different.
I always back my car in the garage, so it is an easy straight shot out. He is hitching using the hidden hook embedded in the front bumper, up the ramp onto the flatbed.
All of a sudden the clasp hook shoots off the car hook, and the car barrels down the ramp and into the back wall of my garage. It embeds a space heater into the wall, cracks the brick exterior from soffit to foundation, bulges the whole brick side of the wall, pulls the brick from the door frame, mashes the hood, bumper, and quarter panel. Easily $15-20,000 damage.
It is 15 ° and going to snow sleet, with openings in the Brick, and that wall has all the electrical panels, and generator panels. I have insurance claims in, but I am waiting for the emergency tarping of the exposed areas yet tonight.
This happened right before 5:00pm, today, Friday.
18.
A neighbor stopped by while I was outside on the ladder painting trim on the house.
He started to hand me an open can of paint (even though I didn't ask for it) and dropped it on the brick walkway.
The gallon of paint went everywhere and flowed along the length of the walkway leading to the front door, getting into all the "nooks and crannies" of the bricks.
17.
Was walking along a floating dock, and my leg slipped between two of the sections. They were pinned together forming a hinge.
Think --o-- with the o being the hinge. So, since I was putting weight on the two sections, and it was floating... it became \o/ and the gap became smaller pinning my leg.
Then my dad comes over (making the floats dip even more, and the gap close tighter)and tries to pull me out, ignoring me when I kept telling him to MOVE BACK YOU'RE MAKING IT WORSE!
Finally he lets go and stands where I tell him on the other end of the section and I can just pull my leg free easily.
**Just because you have good intentions, doesn't mean you should ignore the person you're "helping"**
16.
I manage a restaurant. Super Bowl Sunday our hot water went out. No problem, we know what to do; heat water to 110° and set it up as portable hand washing sinks. Called the plumber and we waited for them to arrive. It really sucked that this was happening on one of the busiest days of the year, but we have procedures in place and can cope. Except...
The chef decided to start flipping circuit breakers to try and reset the hot water heater. There are 8 boxes of 24 breakers each. We are a 2 story restaurant.
There's no way the hot water heater and the POS terminals are wired anywhere close together, yet there chef goes and kills the power for every computer in the restaurant. I get where he was coming from and I was furious, but whatever, I can get over it. Again we have systems in place, so we bust out the hand tickets and manual credit card checks. Super annoying.
The terminal takes 45 minutes to come back on. We can finally start ringing in all the tickets, processing all the payments, and tracking all the orders.
Then 15 minutes later I'm talking to a guest and one of my servers comes up to me and says, "Hey Moolord, the lights in the office just flashed and now none of the computers work." Yeah, he turned it off again.
15.
My dogs try to help me when I am putting my shoes on. I don't know how they think they're helping, but they are definitely making everything much harder
14.
I did a lot of hardwood floor refinishing, and most of that is in refinishing apartments for new tenants.
While I've never had anyone walk in and try to "help" the other tenants would always come strolling into the apartment (had to keep the door open for airflow) just to ask me all sorts of questions and "see if they want to move in" because their own crappy apartment was already torn apart because half the people in this neighborhood live like animals.
Like sure let me just turn off my sander and shoot the breeze with you for an hour so you can ask me questions that I don't have answers to because I'm not the goddamn landlord.
And as soon as one person leaves another neighbor comes in to snoop.
And that aside from that I can't let these bastards out of my sight for an instant or my damn tools go missing.
I had to become a real hardass and be a real jerk to a lot of people just so I can keep doing my job and get paid.
For the hundredth time Frankie, I know that your unemployed and lonely and bored as hell, but we're not friends and I can't just "take a quick break" to hear you complain about your doctor taking away your painkiller prescriptions that you would turn around and sell four times a damn day.
13.
A random guy helping me jump my car battery hooked the cables up wrong and blew the side of the battery right out.
12.
Sometimes when my partner does the laundry he doesn't hang certain items up flat (shirts especially) so they dry all crinkled and I have to either iron them or wash them again.
11.
They emptied out the dishwasher and managed to put literally everything in the wrong place.
My friend's husband will throw out anything he can't identify or does not know where to put when he unloads the dishwasher. He says since he's never seen it before, it's not really something she uses so they should de-clutter. IT WAS IN THE DAMN DISHWASHER, so obviously she DOES use it, Dave. His name's not really Dave.
10.
I used to make everything bread based for a Mexican restaurant. One night we had a fixed-menu function, and due to reasons outside my control I was running behind on the prep. One of the kitchen hands was sent to help me make tacos (we needed ~120). It's worth noting that I didn't want his help because I knew he wouldn't do them to standard. But I was outvoted. Most of his were too small; only about 4 were usable. So not only did I still have to cook those 60 extra tacos, but it threw off my dough balance for the rest of the night, which of course ended up being busy.
09.
I'm a nanny. You have to let kids do things for practice, and of course you have to let them mess up. They have the best intentions (sometimes...) but are clueless. Common ones are:
"I want to help you cook!" opens 450 degree oven
"I want to help you clean!" wipes crumbs off table onto the floor
"I want to brush your hair!" rips a comb through my hair
"I'll push the stroller for you." pushes stroller at the insanely fast speed of .01 mph
08.
Bought a house. Previous owner filled in nail holes where pictures used to hang. Touched it up with the wrong paint and I had to paint every wall in the house.
07.
My sister pulled out all the keys on my keyboard and changed the order from QWERTY to ABCDEF.
06.
I demonstrated my complete lack of finesse by going to hold open a door for someone coming out the building as I was going in. They weren't paying attention to me, so as they reached for the door, I yanked it open and they tripped coming out and went sprawling. I helped them off the ground like a champ though.
05.
A random guy helping me jump my car battery hooked the cables up wrong and blew the side of the battery right out.
04.
My husband is a good cook, and I am average, but we share the cooking. ALmost every single time I am cooking, he tries to help. Problem is, he either micro-manages what I am doing, or just gets in my way. One time, famously, I am making lasagne. He claims he doesn't know how to make lasagne, but stands over me, telling me how much garlic to add, where to place the lasagnes sheets, How much mince to put in each layer etc. One sheet of lasagne pasta ended up getting wet in the sink. He thought he could help me by putting it in the lasgane anyway because 'it was wasteful to throw it out'. I said it was a 30cent sheet of lasgane, we weren't on the bread line and I don't want half soggy pasta. I ended up throwing it on the floor and shattering it, then storming off in a huff to get him to leave me alone. I like to do one one load of dishes all at once. He likes to wash things as he goes. So I'm trying to bake, using bench space, and having to move around him each time i go from side to side, because he is 'trying to help by doing some dishes"
03.
Every time someone tries to help me put on a coat. What? No, now I have no idea where to put my other arm! Go away!
02.
A friend of mine stayed at my apartment to care for my cats while I was on a short vacation. I suffer from depression and am visually impaired, so my place is usually far from spotless; this occasion was not an exception to that rule.
As a favour, my friend cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, including inside my cupboards and refrigerator. It was very thoughtful and super sweet.
Unfortunately it didn't occur to her that I'm visually impaired and was used to the loose organization as it was. A whole bunch of my groceries went bad because I couldn't see to find them. I couldn't find my cleaning supplies. I was basically lost in my own apartment for a couple weeks.
01.
My landlady tried to dig my brand new (black) car out after a snowfall.
She used a corn broom. Managed to scratch the hell out of my roof and doors. I'd had it for 3 months.
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