"Cheri" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Julie Bove" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "janet" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> In article >,
>>> says...
>>>>
>>>> On 2014-07-23 5:42 PM, Pete C. wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Honestly, how much time does the pre-cut stuff actually save you? I
>>>> > know
>>>> > I can chop up a mirepoix in about 3 minutes max.
>>>>
>>>> How about snipping beans. I can do it in the time it takes the water to
>>>> come to a boil.
>>>
>>> Ha, but you do things in the right order.I have met countless people
>>> who do every
>>> piddling little task (not just in cooking, but other work) in such a
>>> wrong and
>>> inefficient order it takes them two or three times as long as it should.
>>>
>>> Janet UK
>>
>> I know someone like that. I always want to step in and do whatever it is
>> for her just to get it over with.
>
> It doesn't really bother me since I imagine people are capable of deciding
> for themselves what the right order is if it only affects them, the
> workplace is different of course.
>
> Cheri
I don't work with this person. But... She used to tell me to meet her
where she worked and we'd go out to lunch. Or to come to her house and we'd
go out to dinner. So I would show up when she told me to and then it might
be 2-3 hours later before we left because... She would say, "Give me two
minutes. Just TWO minutes!" And then she would proceed to do something
that seriously would take me two minutes. But she was always getting
distracted by other things.
For instance, she would decided that she needed to wipe down the kitchen
table. She was always wiping it down. If I was sitting there having a cup
of coffee, she might wipe it down three times before I finished the coffee.
She seemed to think that germs were lurking everywhere and yet she used that
nasty cloth on anything and everything. But before she could use it she had
to rinse it out and wring it out in a certain way and then unfold it and
place it just exactly so on the table. But then she would notice something
in the lazy Susan that was on the table that she had meant to take
downstairs.
So she would go down there and notice things wrong. Like her son's laundry
that didn't get washed. So she would put that in the washer and while
there, realize that it had been a while since she cleaned out the big
freezer.
Perhaps an hour later she'd come up with some stuff to put in the small
freezer and then this would always involve some rearranging of stuff in that
freezer and the fridge. Then she would remember that she started out to
wipe the table. And she would start all over again. Rinse out the cloth,
arrange it just so on the table and...
Oh my! She would see the stack of magazines under the window and would
start going through them to weed out the old ones. Then she would run them
outside where she would run into the guy from Schwann's. And then she would
have to come in to write him a check. And in looking in the drawer where
the checkbook was, that would lead to more tasks that had to be done then
and there.
Eventually she would get to wiping the table.
If she was at work, the task could be as simple as mailing a document. But
in order for her to do this, not only did the desk need to be wiped down,
but everything on it needed to be put back in its proper place, even if that
meant only moving it a fraction of an inch. Oh but she also needed to wipe
down underneath everything while she was at it. Then the envelope had to be
placed just so on the desk and while she was grabbing a pen from the cup,
not only did all of those pens need to be rearranged, but she ought to
refill them too.
Invariably something would come up that prevented her from addressing the
envelope. A customer would come in or the phone would ring. Then start all
over again with cleaning the desk and putting everything in place.
I finally got to the point where I didn't want to make plans to do anything
with her, especially if it was dining. I'd be starving by the time we got
there and many times if it was going out to dinner, the restaurant would
have closed by the time we got there. If we had reservations, she often
would call 2 or 3 times and make the reservations for later.
This person doesn't cook. And I can see why. I don't think she would ever
make it to the end of a recipe.