
I am equally appalled and intrigued by the phenomenon I’m going to tell you about.
My boss is a great boss. Every day she sets an agenda for me at work. Her meetings are swift and productive, her email inbox is empty, she is a model of efficiency.
But, turns out I’m not the only one she’s managing. Because on the weekend I spied her husband’s Facebook post:
My boss is setting KPIs for her husband on the weekend.While her hub wants to sleep in and stay in pyjamas and eat Cheezels on the couch, Jamila instead manages him into productivity.
Weekend KPIs include showering, dressing baby, going to post office, going furniture shopping, etc etc.
So I sat down with Jam. I confronted her about it. Here’s how it went down:
MB: What the f**k is wrong with you?
JR: *hysterical laughter*. Nothing is wrong with me! I genuinely do not see what is wrong with laying out a plan for the day. When you have a plan, then you make the most out of the time that you have available. What could possibly be wrong with that?
MB: OK but what about his plan?
JR: He doesn’t have a plan. MY HUSBAND NEVER HAS A PLAN. If left to his own devices, he wouldn’t get out of bed ’til 11am, it would take hours to shower and get dressed because he requires the perfect soundtrack, housework would never be completed and we won’t get breakfast until 2pm. It would be a wasted day.
MB: Aren’t weekends there to be wasted?
JR: No. I don’t think any time should be wasted. Look, it’s not like I’m only scheduling in tasks and activities with an outcome in mind. I also schedule time that is purely about enjoyment. Going to the pub with friends, catching up with family to meet someone’s new baby, heading to the beach — that is scheduled time for friendship, for discussion and enjoyment of other people’s company.
MB: This is so convincing!
JR: I have this conversation EVERY Saturday. Why? Because my husband is a faffer. He is a professional faffer. He procrastinates and takes his time doing the things that don’t really matter and then bemoans why we didn’t get to catch up with someone or why he isn’t up-to-date with work.
Me? I like my leisure time to be as efficient as my work time and so I have to give some… instructions.
MB: It sounds a little bit bossy.
JR: I stand by it.
MB: Does he resent you at any point in this process?
JR: Oh, absolutely. But we’ve been together three years now so I think he has accepted his fate. It’s part of being married to me. It’s become a running joke, so we ham it up now. He will deliberately take a painstakingly long time to get dressed, insisting on me seeing endless YouTube videos and that allows me to launch into full dictation mode.
Top Comments
Ummm this sounds awful. My husband is a bit of a "faffer" but he's also a full grown adult. If I want an equal partnership I'm going to treat him like an equal partner. My husband works really hard and if he wants to be slack so be it. Being with her sounds exhausting and like it's all about her. I hope she appreciates how much her husband loves her to put up with that.
I can empathise with Jamila. My husband is a faffer too! I takes us SOOOO long to get out of the house and at 47, he still grossly underestimates the time it takes for him to get ready. My point of difference is: I don't set him a 'to do' list because there is no point! It's less stressful that way :)