This is exactly why I've detested mining from the start.
"When it comes to actually using these skills, all that off-screen book learnin’ feels like a complex distance-learning commitment by comparison. That mining I mentioned earlier, for instance. Want to mine some ore in Glitch? Well, for that you’ll need to have a pickaxe. Tool in hand, walk along until you find a big hunk of rock. Click on the rock. Wait for a full twenty seconds while you watch your character stand motionless next to the rock, a floating pick axe icon chipping away in the air in front of him, the chipping sound out of synch, a progress bar being filled up. You cannot do any other task while this happens. You can’t even sort your inevitably heaving, twisted, nightmare of an inventory, spread hopelessly between bags and containers and pouches and spice racks. Just sit there, mindless, watching the pickaxe go up and down, up and down, up and down. Then, when you’re done, do it again. Heck, that rock’s got enough ore in it to withstand around a half-dozen 20-second operations, and your mining speed isn’t sped up by mining with other players. It’s like torture."
I would LOVE to be able to access my bags or do something while I wait for the axe to finish clinking.