When your family treats household chores like an IT help desk
Applying formal corporate ticketing workflows and incident management terms to household maintenance turns everyday domestic chores into bureaucratic friction. This dynamic creates household tension and frustration when family communication gets bogged down by technical jargon instead of practical problem-solving.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Using helpdesk software like Freshdesk to track home tasks
- 2Buying spare equipment and establishing disaster recovery tests
- 3Bribing the household dispatcher with chocolate
- 4Buying a robotic lawn mower
- 5Doing the chores yourself
- 6letting the puppy wander nearby while working
- 7putting the puppy on the porch or in a custom outdoor trailer playpen
- 8ignoring the puppy's whining
- 9putting the decorating or projects on hold
- 10using a crate with a cover and a frozen kong
- 11doing short training bursts of disappearing for 30 seconds and returning with a treat
- 12using color-coded notes apps
- 13building custom software applications
- 14relying on pen and paper on the kitchen counter
- 15setting recurring calendar events
- 16Using multiple synced digital calendars and setting alerts for all events
- 17Buying an apartment or home with a dishwasher
- 18Saving up for a new dishwasher when the old one breaks
- 19Scrubbing toilets or ironing underpants instead of making the bed
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am the crazy lawn lady and he was not doing it often enough to my liking.”source ↗
“Wife submitted a ticket about the dishwasher not working properly. Suffice it to say, after much swearing, I couldn't fix it. Her comment on the ticket was "technician was surly and incompetent. Would not recommend or use again."”source ↗
“I need to get projects done around my property/ house before winter and to puppy resist it. How are you managing to get anything done with a puppy around?”source ↗
“I bring him and let him wonder and he gets into stuff he shouldn't, I let him stay on the porch for some outside time and he whines nonstop, I even tried to turn a small trailer into a puppy play pen and bring it where I need to go at the time and if I take a few steps away it's repeat of the porch and breaks my heart again.”source ↗
“Dishes! I have done everything else in my house today, and here I am looking at my dishes that have piled up after a crazy work week 🥲”source ↗
“Hubby and I bought a home, and our dishwasher broke down a few months back. So we are currently saving for a new one... I miss my dishwasher DEEPLY”source ↗
“i actually don’t mind dishes as much as putting dishes from the dishwasher away…. now that is truly evil 😰 probably my least favorite task in the whole house! that and the baseboards lol”source ↗
“Mopping. Love the results but hate the effort. Also folding & putting away laundry.”source ↗
“Omg I absolutely HATE making the bed. I will literally scrub toilets and iron underpants before doing that.”source ↗
“Our group chats get so full of messages that anything important gets forgotten or ignored in the end.”source ↗
“How do you organize chores, grocery shopping, school pick-ups, family events and so on while keeping everyone in the loop and trying to include your children into it?”source ↗
“My pup would scream like I was abandoning her forever if I stepped three feet away.”source ↗
“We got a puppy 2 weeks ago and are also in the middle of a load of decorating. Whilst the decorating is slightly on hold we do plan to start again in about 2 weeks when he settles a little.”source ↗
“Between groceries, bills, chores, things we're running out of, appointments, subscriptions, random things that need to get done around the house... I feel like everything ends up scattered across different places, or I just try to remember it 😅”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to optimize household chores when living alone
- 4Handling childcare and bedtime routines completely alone while working
- 6How to track appliance warranties and maintenance between tenants
- 2Why is it so hard to do small cleaning tasks?
- 2How to delegate repetitive tasks without giving too much system access
- 5How to keep track of routine maintenance tasks around the house