The Kitchen

"Cleaning the kitchen. No matter how many times I do it, it still needs to be done."

- atapia2

"I love the feeling of finishing the mound of dishes and cleaning the counter/sink, then I step back and admire my work."

"Then I turn around to see the pot and pan I forgot were on the stove..."

- buckut

"I've started cleaning as I cook and it feels like its given me half an hour back every night."

- [Reddit]

"Oh my god, seriously!!!!"

"It’s only my wife and I here and I feel like I have to clean the kitchen 3x a day! Where does it all come from!?!?!!??"

- lenny446

"Kitchen."

"Cooking and cleaning didn't consume that much of time when I was in college. Now as an adult, wtf is this?"

- HotPineapplePizza

The Schoolyard

"Dealing with 'office politics' - and not just at work."

"Stupid me actually thought that the schoolyard bullies, mean girls et. al. would grow up and act like, well, adults. Sadly, way too many adults have the manners and morals of entitled toddlers."

- Nachtjaeger68

"Duuuuude. This."

"I thought people grew up after high school.... Not the case. They're still clique-y, and people are f*cking more mean about sh*t. F*ck people."

- suspline

"Yes! This is exhausting."

"I just want to do my job and go home. No drama please. Hate that I have cried after work related to the bullying."

- Head_Journalist3846

Recovery

"Recovering from work. Sometimes I need the whole weekend to be barely ready for next Monday."

- Can-t-Even

"I can’t recover in a weekend anymore so I’ve just started crying before work as a way to try to physically purge the stress from my system. It’s not going so well."

- finlyboo

"Same. My weekend is literally, 'Laundry for work' 'pack lunches/make meals for work', 'make meals for today'...."

"I get up and I get ready to go to work, I come home, make dinner and go to bed because I need to go to work in the morning. Don't forget to leave an hour before you actually have to show up for work because commute."

"How do normal people do this?! Seriously."

- -Firestar-

Not Nachos

"Deciding what to make for dinner. God, it's the absolute worst thing about being an adult."

" 'I have to eat again. AND go shopping for the ingredients!?' "

"You're a kid and think it's all nachos and Sourpatch Kids until you realize you have to care about nutrition and meal balance."

- Carl__Gordon_Jenkins

"And you have to feed the kids. At least 3 meals a day. Every day."

"They. Never. Stop. Eating."

- Canadian_Decoy

Menial Moments

"Menial tasks such as DMV trips, driving/commuting, doctor appointments, basic household chores."

"I did them as a kid, but as an adult it seems so much more of an annoyance."

"Also, having to pick up groceries or make runs to the store for this that and whatever, fixing broken shit around the house, etc etc..."

- Admirable-Appeal6710

Always On

"Parenting."

"Those little f*ckers are relentless. And they are ALWAYS there."

- MasonJack12

"It never occurred to me that once you become a parent, for the first 5, 6, 7? years you are always on."

"You get up, do your work as a parent, go to work, do your work as an employee, leave work, do your work as a parent, etc etc forever."

"Like there aren't weekends anymore or chill nights after work. It is round-the-clock you, on your game."

"Sure you get moments here and there to retreat and it's all worth it, blah blah, but nobody really prepared me for this existence where life really is f*cking exhausting."

- linds360

"Thanks for writing this."

"Currently wrestling with the fact that even though the smallest now sleeps through the night, she doesn't like to go to bed early, so can be up beyond 9pm. Her older sibling, however, likes an early morning, so is frequently up before 6 am."

"I need 9 hours of sleep to be a relatively well adjusted human. I even went to a doctor when I was in my 20s to check I didn't have some medical issue: all normal."

"So if my smallest is up later than normal, and my eldest earlier than normal, there aren't even enough hours in the night for me to be rested. Never mind the fact that once awake, I am everyone's preferred slave."

"I haven't felt rested in over 7 years. I'm so tired."

- Munchies2015

The Anxiety Trap

"Being trapped into inaction by my anxiety."

- FarseerTaelen

"Oh my god this."

"There's a reason why I'm on reddit right now."

- mindsnare

"I feel this."

"I couldn’t sleep well last night while ruminating on all the things I’ve been putting off, woke up at 5am to have a few extra hours to do things, didn’t do any of those things."

"Circle continues"

- quenual

"I feel this one way too hard."

"Combination of existential panic that I'm a 'real adult' now (mortgage, business trips, what have you) and severe ADHD."

- Carbonatite

Bee-Gees Should Have Elaborated

"Staying alive."

"Cooking, eating, flossing, brushing, exercising, sleeping, dressing, stretching, screaming into the void in existential dread, showering… it all adds up!"

- anaccountofrain

"You can probably combine the screaming in existential dread with the shower to save time. That way you can also stay hydrated at the same time."

- jerrythecactus

Another Part Time Job

"Commuting. At least pre-COVID anyways."

"I spend about 10 hours per week commuting to my job. That's literally 25% of the hours I spend at my job. It's like a part time job in and of itself."

- Flaky-Fellatio

"We are supposed to return to office in March. Managers are terrified about the loss of productivity that will happen."

- diegojones4

"I calculated recently that I was spending the equivalent of 26 DAYS - just shy of a month of the year - on trains and buses going to and from work. It was bullshit."

- RedWestern

"Commuting to work. It frightens me how 2 hours of my day are just wasted sitting in a car and doing nothing. That's 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month, 480 hours a year wasted."

- Estbolbotkzn

Money Money Money

"Budgeting."

"I'm fairly meticulous with documenting the money I spend because I know I badly estimate how much money I have or have spent without having it laid out in front of me."

"I was always broke when I first started working because of that."

"So now I take some time each day to document every purchase I made in a spreadsheet that I've been using for a few years now. It is segmented into six month periods and broken down by pay period."

"It took me a while to set it up in a way that consistently worked, but now I know where every bit of money I spend is going."

"I also have my own little tricks that I can play on there where I'm always saving money, at least according to the almighty spreadsheet."

- HaroldSax

Out To Get You

"Having to worry about what's out to get me as an adult. There's just so many things."

"Is the IRS going to audit me someday on a past tax return?"

"Is my health insurance going to f*ck me over by deciding not to cover something when it should?"

"Is someone at my job going to have a bad day where I'm fired over it? And taking the time, if I care to, to fight for it back?"

"So much bullshit to worry about."

- [Reddit]

Moment of honesty, as someone who has worked from home for pretty much a decade - the commute thing kills me EVERY SINGLE TIME I need to go into an office.

It's so much wasted time! Why? This could've been an email, folks...