9 ms·
No, you're not 'running late', you're rude and selfish
- forgottenpass 11y agoThis post may offend some readers. But only because it’s going to cut close to the bone for many. Well, I don't think I'm going to disagree with the thesis, but it's good to know I shouldn't even bother reading. At least they're making their pre-emptive "I've got you all figured out if you think X" nonsense explicit. It's better than trying to engage with someone who has decided to lie to the audience (and/or themselves) that theirs don't exist.
- UK-AL 11y agoOk then. Fire them. Hopefully they'll find a place that has flexi-time. Some people can try all they want. They aren't going to come in 50 minutes early everyday(Required to guarantee for some commutes), just to make sure they're not going be late. If you don't want to fire them, then you have decided that actually bring in more value, than the value lost by being late. I'm terrible at this, I specifically plan my life around it(Make sure I have flexi-time, etc).
- belltyler 11y agoI am enjoying the comments of people making counter-arguments to this post as they're probably the ones this article is directed towards. Generic Example: "I'm not late to the morning meeting, I just not a morning person." No, sorry, you're still late.
- tluyben2 11y agoWhen shops open here at 9, they often open at 9:30 or 10. When you go to pay at the cash register, often there is no-one there and you have to wait 10-20 minutes. People stop in the middle of the road blocking everyone to chat for 15 minutes, no-one honks, usually people get out and join the convo. Welcome to Spain. And no, I will not be in time and that's not rude; you are just obsessed with something extremely unimportant and overrated. And you'll get heart attacks and strokes from that kind of obsession in the end although I hoped you won't. I'm from the Netherlands and actually my father (a very successful CEO) never has been on time once; it gave him an edge and the former CEO liked it, even when he was just a coder.
- kohanz 11y agoI guess it varies by culture. What would be considered late enough to be rude in Spain?
- tluyben2 11y agoMore than a week late. That's a bit rude. So when I'm meeting a plumber at 15:00 on wednesday, he often comes a week later. You just drink your coffee, wait till 16:00 and go away and turn up a week later.
- aaronem 11y agoSure hope it's not an emergency!
- tluyben2 11y agoHahah, often it is. That's why you often see houses with crap in the badroom for weeks. People are not all that bothered.
- ctdonath 11y agoQuite the opposite here (USA): infuriates us to no end when trying to make an appointment for home service (plumber, wiring, whatever) and are told "will arrive sometime between [insert 2-5 hour range here]". Only reason we tolerate it is, for some industries, there is no alternative - it's a systemic problem which customers hate hate HATE. When you have to take a half (or full) day of vacation just to get your home internet connection fixed (or new sink installed, or air conditioner fixed, etc), and you only have 2-4 weeks of vacation per year, "just drink your coffee, wait 'til 16:00 and go away and turn up a week later" feels like theft, stealing your $X/hr time.
- nl 11y agoThe irony of interrupting the reading with an interstitial ad asking for you to sign up to a mailing list with the title We don't mean to be rude amuses me greatly
- meesterdude 11y agoyeah that was.... i mean did they plan that? fuck that regardless. Guess they're experts on rude!
- anc84 11y agoYou might like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624731 which was quickly flag/sunk when it was submitted despite of the number of points. Quite the controverse topic.
- Anthony-G 11y agoThankfully, I didn't have that issue. I use the NoScript Firefox extension mainly because I have an ancient computer and not downloading and running JavaScript provides a huge gain in conserving resources. I thought it might lead to a less pleasant web experience but so for it hasn't and it saves me from annoyances such as pop-ups and interstitials. Back on topic, I used to be really bad for running late. Most of the time people are too polite and let it go but as I grew older and became more self aware, I came to realise that it is rude and disrespectful - even though you don't intend it to be. A while back, I read Jeffrey Zeldman's Free Advice: Show up early [1] and it really struck a chord. [1] http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/05/free-advice-show-up-early/ http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/05/free-advice-show-up-early/
- Dewie3 11y ago> And I don’t care if I sound old-fashioned, because actually it’s nothing to do with ‘fashion’ or ‘generation’. It’s got everything to do with basic good manners and respect for other people. Everyone thinks there is some fundamental and universal truth to some of their own cultural practices.
- rday 11y agoI think the universal truth is that people have their own lives going on, and you need a way to sync up in order to accomplish goals with other people. That's why we set times for meetings. If you are late for a bus, it leaves. The plane will take off. The walking tour will have walked away. But I'm supposed to make my wife handle dinner with the kids because 4:00pm really meant 4:25pm and now we'll all be stuck in traffic heading home? Normally I just listen to audible or finish some work when the other party is late. But when it starts to impact family life I get mad.
- laichzeit0 11y agoYeah that's the biggest issue for me. When you schedule something for a specific time and the other person is late, without letting you know they're going to be late, it's them essentially saying "My time is more important than yours; fuck you, deal."
- fnordfnordfnord 11y agoWhen is a 4:00pm meeting ever a good idea for an office that closes at 5:00?
- rday 11y agoI agree :) We don't really open and close though. Some people get there near 8 and leave near 5. Others 9-6. Very flexible, but one of the downsides of flexibility is concrete scheduling I suppose.
- Dewie3 11y ago> I think the universal truth is that people have their own lives going on, and you need a way to sync up in order to accomplish goals with other people. That's why we set times for meetings. What is not universal is how much value people put in a schedule. And how lax these schedules are. If there even is a schedule.
- normloman 11y agoChronically late people just have a poor sense of how long things take. They don't intentionally hold up your time to be a jerk. Chill out.
- laichzeit0 11y agoNon performance plus a good excuse is still non performance. Chronically late people need to make an effort to be EARLY if they're so bad at estimating how long things take.
- icebraining 11y agoSome actually do; they still fail. Making an effort is, unfortunately, not a guarantee of success :)
- normloman 11y agoYou miss my point. We can all agree that being late is bad. But why villianize late people as selfish, when in reality, most are just absent minded.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- snowpanda 11y agoI agree, this also struck me as a very judgmental article. I understand that some people are late because they lack respect. But that doesn't mean EVERY person that's late, does so for the same reason. One of my old professors was usually a bit late, but he had a heart of gold and really had no intention of being rude, he was just extremely disorganized in every possible way. But at the end of the day, he would often stays hours after class helping people without getting paid (on a Friday). I learned so much from him because he genuinely cared. Society is so quick to point at people and make judgements. Like normloman said, ... this article needs to chill out a bit.
- 11y ago
- gil 11y agoCulture.
- elros 11y agoExactly! > Why do people, invited for a dinner party at 7.30, think > its cool to arrive at 8.30? It’s rude. It’s inconsiderate. If I invite you to a dinner party in Brazil at 7.30, I'm expecting you around 9. If you show up at the actual time, which has happened to me when I moved to Germany – and didn't realized the expectations were different – the food won't be ready. As a matter of fact, I won't even have started cooking! :-) I now tell my German friends X and my Brazilian friends (X - 2) hours.
- fideloper 11y agoNot a great comment, but absolutely spot on. Cultural differences in attitude toward punctuality is well documented in how varied it is. Here, let me google that for you. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=cultural%20differences%20in%20punctuality https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
- forthefuture 11y agoI mean if you boss lets people come in late, they will. This has absolutely nothing to do with being "rude and selfish" and 100% to do with what you are able to do without being fired / reprimanded. Seriously, just reading this I have no idea where the Employer is. Are they allowing people to come in late, and you're just mad because you feel like they shouldn't? Are you too afraid to bring it up to your boss? Is your boss late too? If you're the boss, why the fuck would you let people come late. Lock the door. Treat people like children.
- sageabilly 11y agoThe lateness as it pertains to business is just bad management all over. Lateness in personal life is something that an individual has to decide if they will tolerate or not* but lateness in business is something that can and should be controlled. * Example: I'm having dinner tonight with a friend of mine. I expect there's a 90% chance he's going to be late. This is typical behavior for him, and I understand it, and that's why I very rarely do anything with him that is time sensitive- but he's otherwise a good guy, and so I work around it.
- forthefuture 11y agoTotally agree. Which is why I don't really understand the article trying to make this out as some epidemic. People are late because whatever they were doing took longer, and it would cost them more (not in money, in mindshare) to have stopped what they were doing earlier to be on time. It's a completely rational action. However, this happening in a work environment is like going to work with no shirt on because it's hot outside.
- ponyous 11y ago> People are late because whatever they were doing took longer... I am wondering why can I always be on time and others don't? Don't let other people wait for you.
- jonlucc 11y agoIn my company, my direct reports are spread out over several buildings, so we expect them to be in on time. We do very little checking in on them, and we rarely have issues. These are mostly students directly out of college, so it's not an age thing, but I think the culture is probably significantly different from the article's.
- Nursie 11y ago>> In recent years it seems that a meeting set to start at 9 am There's your problem right there. 9am is a terribly antisocial time to organise a meeting. Have it later on. Not all of us are morning people.
- akerl_ 11y agoYea, except for meetings where the organizer puts it at 9am and then is late themselves. If you schedule me for a meeting in a time range where I can't be available, I'll tell you. That's true for timezone issues / conflicts / bad-time-of-day.
- minikites 11y agoThat leaves 10-11 and 2-4 as the only acceptable meeting times, accounting for differing lunch times and the people who can leave at 4 because they showed up to work at 7:30 or 8.
- Nursie 11y ago10-12 and 2-4 has been the rule at several places I've worked. These have been considered core hours, and the best time to set up a meeting. Meetings at other times would still take place, but you would check everyone was OK with it first.
- Otik 11y agoI'm not a morning person either, but you can always ask the organizer to change the time. If you've agreed to meet at 9, stay true to your word.
- vetler 11y ago> terribly antisocial No... no, it's not. Terribly antisocial would be to have it at lunch time. Let's not make it worse than it is, 9 o'clock can be inconvenient for some, but it's not "terribly antisocial".
- raverbashing 11y ago- Sometimes it's not their fault (accidents on the way, etc), still, yeah, for let's say, 80%, it's because they simply don't care - Meetings are also a major waste of time and resources, so sorry, depending on the subject of the meeting it goes from mild annoyance to less productive than sending everybody home early
- revelation 11y agoWe have a rule that if you are >5 minutes late to a meeting, you have to bring cake next time. Its pretty effective.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- trimble-alum 11y agoThe way to be more productive when the reality of actual unforeseen circumstances hits is for the 10 people to bring their work with them and/or not get sucked into unnecessary meetings or any meeting lacking an attendee relevant agenda. (No agenda, no meeting). Wasting time is a choice on any side of the table. Blame games are bikeshedding, signalling a likely lack of valuable industriousness. ("If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know.")
- littletimmy 11y agoIn the case of a dentist making you wait it actually makes sense and is to be expected. Some patients take a lot longer, or someone might have an unexpected issue come up during a root canal or whatever. What's the dentist supposed to do? Just leave the other patient to make time with you? You just aren't paying enough to justify the cost of making you not wait. Same is the case if a bank makes you wait a long time on automated machine before they take a call. You just aren't important enough. If you're a billionaire, pay your dentist for a whole day. Get a private banker. If not, get in line, you aren't important enough.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> In the case of a dentist making you wait it actually makes sense and is to be expected. Occasionally, perhaps, but if it's a regular occurrence, they need to schedule better. My wife's usually the first appointment of the day with one of her specialists and they're very regularly 30+ minutes late. No earlier patients to use as an excuse, and they have a hypocritical "7 minutes late = reschedule" policy for patients.
- roel_v 11y agoSome dentists are always on time +/- 10 minutes, and some are always late. No, this is not the nature of the dentistry business - it's poor planning, and not caring enough to change it.
- meesterdude 11y agoI'm sure you have all the facts available to you when making such an assessment of dentists. However, I would argue that the world is not black & white; and what you perceive and what is factual are not always one in the same. Which isn't to say that there aren't going to be lazy dentists out there, of course.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoIf a dentist office always runs on time, that means that quite regularly they're sitting around doing nothing. The no-show rate for a typical office is around 10%. Like any scheduling problem, the amount of slack in the schedule is crucial. Most schedules work a lot better with a little bit of slack, but a lot of people see slack as a horrible inefficiency that must be excised at all costs.
- kohanz 11y agoBeing late every once in a while is not something I'll hold a grudge for - we all are late at one point or another for various valid reasons. It's those that are chronically late, to the point that the only thing you can count on is them being late, that to me are implicitly disrespectful. They are basically saying "Your time is worth less than mine", just not to your face. It doesn't matter whether it is "intentional", because it is a relatively easy flaw to correct, especially given how many opportunities there are to practice getting better at it. So the lack of effort to correct it makes it basically equivalent to intent. I wouldn't expect punctuality from a teenager, but by the time you are an adult, you've had plenty of time to figure out a strategy that works for you, whether it is setting your watch ahead, catching the earlier bus, waking up earlier, etc.
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago"It doesn't matter whether it is "intentional", because it is a relatively easy flaw to correct, especially given how many opportunities there are to practice getting better at it. So the lack of effort to correct it makes it basically equivalent to intent." Could not be more wrong.
- mildbow 11y agoLarry. Dude. Get off your lawnchair, you're going to be late. again. Anyway, why do you think he is incorrect? Time-management is a skill: why would this specific case of it be un-learnable? Also, every time you decide that something happens to you/is out of your control, you are giving it power over you. Would you rather beat this minor time-management issue or decide that the universe is constantly and inexplicably throwing your day out of the loop? Which stance one gives you power vs taking it away?
- mapt 11y agoUnless the problem is not with an unusual preparation regime, but with a cognitive / personality defect. Hyperbolic discounting, moment to moment procrastination in task-switching, and difficulty managing time estimates and proceeding through a preparation process is a trait associated with adult Attention Deficit Disorder. The subject can feel all the guilt and fear in the world about wasting other people's time and looking like an imbecile, without it necessarily adding up to a durably effective scheduling regime. They're constantly checking the clock, and telling themselves "Well, I made it last time, I can spend another 2 minutes in the shower / under the covers / eating breakfast", and establishing a reliable habitual routine that follows a set pace is very difficult for them. It gets especially bad when this trait touches their sleeping habits, leading very often to sleep disorders, in the form of a psychogenic non-24 syndrome from putting off bedtime until they're ready to drop. I find it fairly likely that adult ADD traits, sometimes summarized as 'attentional indiscipline', are linked to modern multitasking (or Internet / gaming addiction, if you like) in the same way nearsightedness is linked to childhood literacy. *Childhood ADHD seems to be a broader category, extended beyond these classic traits into any reason a child might not enthusiastically embrace the American K-12 educational system
- IanCal 11y ago> My dentist kept me waiting 50 minutes not long ago > Sure she was “busy”, another patient took longer than she expected, blah blah. Imagine if you had to do 10 short coding challenges, one after another, without knowing the full scope beforehand and had to say exactly when each one would finish. Now on project 9, your client shouts at you for delivering late because they are your CUSTOMER and you must not take them for granted! Did she have to stop in the middle of someone else's appointment to deal with you? Any story that goes "it happened for years without me saying anything then I got angry" would probably have been handled better for everyone if they'd talked about it to start with. Can't wait? Tell them! Many people might have a spare half an hour and overall everything goes faster if occasionally the last person needs to wait 30 minutes so that typically more people get seen during the day. But no, because you have a requirement you've not specified, everyone else needs to deal with the consequences. Or tell them when you make the appointment that you will have to be out by a certain time, there's likely to be a better place to be in the schedule.
- edvinbesic 11y agoIf you have been doing 10 short code challenges a day for 15+ years, I would assume you would have enough experience to estimate properly and take into account some margin. He's not saying your not ever allowed to late, ever ever, but that if you are systematically late all the time, then you are doing something wrong.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoSo you know that most take about 10 minutes, but 5-10% take an hour; you just don't know which ones. Now you have two choices: put enough slack in the schedule so that you regularly sit around waiting for the next challenge, or take enough slack out that you regularly start challenges late. No matter what you do, somebody has to regularly wait. Would you pay ~50% more for an assurance that you usually don't have to wait? You might, but most people wouldn't. And if you want an absolute guarantee then it would be a lot more than 50% extra.
- gtf21 11y agoI think that the point was that she had been routinely this late for a decade. At that point it's not something "running over" but rather bad time management/lack of respect for your customers. > Now on project 9, your client shouts at you for delivering late because they are your CUSTOMER and you must not take them for granted! This would only be a reasonable analogy if your late delivery had, literally, kept them waiting unable to otherwise occupy their time.
- dimino 11y agoProfessionally? Completely unacceptable. Talk to your employees about the importance of timeliness, and act if they don't respond to suggestion. Personally? Chill the fuck out. There are a great many things in life more important than having a few drinks with you, or coming to your party. If there is no specific time pressure (e.g. a movie start time), then recognizing the distinctly lower priority of precision in socializing is pretty fundamental to a successful interaction with others.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- basseq 11y agoIn my experience, I run late because I let other people take advantage of me. The doctor sees you late; your client starts the meeting 15 minutes late and wants to stretch the meeting past it's allotted end time; your mother calls as you're packing up to leave; your boss blows through meetings. It's hard to put your foot down and stand up for yourself, like the author did with his dentist. But that's what you have to do to solve the problem.
- zamalek 11y agoThere is usually a polite solution, though: * The doctor: if your time is important that day it probably means you aren't taking sick leave. Politely cancel the appointment on the spot and book it with another doctor. * The client: bill them for the 15 minutes that they were late, bill them for the extra time. If they want to extend the meeting make them sign for the extra cost before proceeding. * Your mother: I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking the phone call later in the day, unless it's absolutely urgent - in which case the rest of your day is likely a write-off in any case. * Your boss: after every meeting show them the result of this equation: <your hourly salary> x <number of people in the room> x <length of the meeting>. Sometimes it doesn't work. My sister still calls me during office hours to chit-chat - having exhausted the polite option I am forced to rudely terminate the conversation after 5 minutes: "I can't chit-chat at work." That being said the polite option not working is a very rare exception.
- basseq 11y agoOh agreed, but it's tough. And yes I have control over it: I chalk it up to weakness (inability to say "no") vs. being rude and selfish. Arguably, I'm not being rude and selfish enough!
- whyimlate 11y agoHowever... I think before we judge people, we need to find out if the routinely late people are using excuses to create a cover for a health issue. You see, this "late" person is me. If I work for you. If I have to come to your office for a meeting. Anything. I'm late. But it's because I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). I make up excuses for being 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes late. I blame the kids, the traffic, the car, the plumbing. It's exhausting, but it's just easier and less embarrassing than saying I had to go to the bathroom 7 times just to be able to get in my car. Plus, you don't want to hear that. Do you really want to sit across from the guy who can't stop sh*ing because the SMALLEST deals in his life give him anxiety??? This can happen for ANYTHING I have to be on time for. Like a scheduled phone call, meeting a friend somewhere, just knowing I'm going to be outside for a few hours, etc. As I go through life, and I spill my secret, I am constantly meeting people with issues like Crohn's and IBS that deal with similar issues, and most of us don't have a good solution. So, leave earlier right? My body tells me I can't stop until the last possible second. The earlier I try to get somewhere, the worse the problem is, and the later I end up being. So, anyway, maybe it's not rudeness, but a nightmare.
- laichzeit0 11y agoInteresting. Is the "go to the bathroom 7 times just to be able to get in my car" an exaggeration or an actual number? My asshole wouldn't survive all the wiping if I shat that much in one day, never mind just getting to the car.
- hvs 11y agoSpeaking for the OP, that number is not uncommon with IBS.
- err4nt 11y agoI have two family members with IBS so what I've seen is: - long painful morning poops no matter what - certain foods (red meat, pasta, garlic, etc) cause pain or cramps - eating a meal requires a trip to the bathroom after - later in the dsy, depending on how many coffees or what food they ate, there may be a poop demon that needs to be exorcised before bed - the feeling may strike at ant time and not give them much warning to get to a toilet so they have to stick close to a bathroom sometimes I'm not talking about acute symptoms or if you eat something that triggers it, just their daily routine. Imagine if eating the wrong thing wrecked your insides, but eating the right thing only gave you tremendous pain, cramping, and poops. That's what you hope your day will be like :/
- jkyle 11y agoThis is largely a cultural thing. I've been on both sides having lived in the South East U.S. where being late is considered the rudest thing you could possibly do and on the West Coast where everyone lists their dinner party 1 hour early and if you show up "on time" you're the only one there...and the host is surprised. What I've learned is the rigor of adherence to punctuality is directly related to the difficulty in being punctual in that area. For example, in most places in the S.E., Midwest, etc. it takes about 1 hour to go 60 miles. The only thing that slows you down getting across town are red lights and stop signs. That's it. Even in large cities "known" for horrible traffic conditions, I've been able to get across the entire city in a reasonable amount of time fairly consistently. In other words, it's trivial to be punctual. And so punctuality is taken as a sign of respect. On the West Coast, this isn't the case. It can literally take 45 minutes to an 1 1/2 hours to get 5 miles in L.A. by car. And that's during normal traffic conditions. If absolutely anything happens on that route, you could walk faster. In fact, my wife and I have done just that on a 5 mile commute in L.A. when traffic would lock up. Park the car, get out, and walk. Take the early bus and pick it back up in the morning. Let that sink in for a bit. You've got a meeting. It's only 5 (or god forbid 10) miles away. Anything even slightly irregular happens, and it could take you hours to get there. Starts making "minor" delays of 5 to 10 minutes or even 30 seem pretty trivial. Cancelations happen much more frequently. Sorry, buddy, someone had a flat. Can't make it today or it'll take me 3 hours to get there. That's why out east, companies would dock workers if they clocked in 5m late. Out West work hours are more like "ohhh, sometime between 8:30 and 9:30 is when so-and-so shows up." It's not because they're lazy or inconsiderate or rude. They're probably getting up at 5am just to make the commute.
- ctdonath 11y agoWhile people understand & accept (to varying degree) others being late, the standard fallback is: start on time. If you tell me X starts at Y:30, and I'm not there at Y:30, I'll get the message if you start at Y:30 anyway - and stick to doing so. "Acceptably late" becomes acceptable because people accept it. Don't get mad, just start on time.
- venomsnake 11y agoDinner arrival - culture. Meetings - in 90% of the cases the most productive way to attend a meeting is not to attend it at all. I still think that they should be optional and people that really have to be there will show up. Dentist - deal with it - how much a procedure will take is not exact science. She cannot cut procedure short just to make the next patient feel cozy and respected. If you use any kind of transport - being late is also expected. We live in a system in which time waste is unavoidable.
- mildbow 11y agoAh Greg. I would love to work with you :) Another aspect of this is that people who are chronically late train you to be late. I definitely only leave for meetings 10 mins after the meeting start time for some people and I still beat them there. There are a few clients who I will have a specific meeting time for, promise to be there on time, and then something comes up. Invariably, it's the chronically late people who always manage to have stuff come up. So what have I done? Cheaper chronically late clients => Fired them. It's not worth stressing out about this stuff. And I do stress out. Lucrative clients => Increase my rate to a point where I am happy to sit and wait for them as long as required. Now i don't think "they are wasting my time", I think "thanks for paying me for just sitting here :)". Social meetings => Since there isn't a way to incentivize chronically late friends, I just try to aim to be 30 mins late (still not the last one in). Yeah, I'm being part of the problem in this case :(
- jordigh 11y agoThere definitely is a big culture component to this... to the point where arriving on time can be considered rude! I have been away from my native Mexico for a while, but I recently flew back for a wedding. As I was with my family getting ready to go, timing everything so we would be at the ceremony at the time indicated in the invitations, I was truly exasperated to see how slowly everyone else was moving. It soon became apparent that we would not make it on time at all. We finally arrived there 40 minutes late. There was almost nobody there! And the few people that had arrived all seemed in good spirits. The groom and the bride were relaxed and eager. The actual ceremony was in fact scheduled for one hour later than what the invitation said. Everyone expects this, including the hosts. My mother said to me, "Jordi, you really have forgotten how things work around here." Even for dinner invitations, you will be invited one hour before dinner is actually served. It is considered rude to arrive earlier, because then you may burden your hosts with having to entertain you prematurely while they prepare dinner. Of course, generally the expected lateness only applies to social occasions, but sometimes it spills over to business settings. It is less accepted in such a circumstance, but still common and tolerated.
- iamcurious 11y agoYes, instead of seeing time as a point, there is a culture of seeing it as a range. The range is derived from context (how pissed people will be if you are late/how informal is the event). The range might even be different for different people according to their roles. This gives you a buffer to handle many unexpected things. It also allows you to disassociate urgent from important. There are plenty of important things that get done at the expense of arriving late. True, sometimes you have to wait for other people to arrive, but that is expected, so you can arrange your day around it. And when the time comes you know it is okay for them to wait you. It is efficient once you get the hang of it. It is even more efficient now that smartphones are ubiquitous, you can coordinate the range in real time!
- mdip 11y agoThis drives me absolutely bonkers. Perhaps it was my upbringing -- my dad owned his company and was the face of it (sales, marketing and "doing"). Being late to a customer meeting is a sure-fire way to blow a first-impression. As a result, our family was on-time or early with rare exception. I look at it this way - I have a busy schedule -- 4 kids, sole provider with a software development job that directly contributes to the revenue the company I work for receives and private developer of software that my customers enjoy. I even waited for a moment where I'm blocked to write this reply. If I schedule personal time with a friend or family member, it's being done at the expense of something else. I've decided that my time with that friend is more valuable than my core obligations. I value that time immensely and wouldn't want it reduced as a result of my tardiness. When the person/couple I'm meeting with chooses to be excessively late, I assume that they didn't really want to come at all and that they were simply being "nice" or fulfilling some sort of family obligation[1]. And it's not limited to friendships. I owned a gym membership and I'm an early riser (5:00 AM most days). The gym -- Bally's at the time -- opened up at 6:00 AM according to the sign and paperwork I agreed to when I signed up for a three-year commitment. In the first month, I showed up right at opening time only to find out that three out of the four days the opener arrived 30 minutes late. That's half of my workout on those days. As a result, I was receiving 2/3 of what I was paying for -- I'm directly paying for time to access a building and its equipment. The first month I prevented the automatic payment from processing and wrote a cheque for 2/3s of the bill along with a note explaining the situation[2]. This went over like a lead balloon. If I received 2/3 of what I ordered at a restaurant, I would have either had it resolved or left them with the bill after explaining to the manager. [1] From the opinion of someone who values punctuality and my own time: Showing up late to an event because you feel obligated to appear there is far worse than saying "I can't make it" or even "I have more important things to do". I can respect that. There are certainly times when obligations related to a relationship can't be missed -- obligations you may or may not want to go to, but think about that for a few minutes. And what's wrong with saying "Well, that time is a little early and I have another obligation -- I'm OK with it, but could we push it a half-hour later?" If you don't want to go, why is that? Should you, perhaps, shed yourself of that relationship if devoting time to it is resulting in you wrecking it anyway due to your tardiness? Are you too passive to simply assert yourself with that person? Is there some way you could suggest to change that event to invoke the necessary willpower to show up somewhere near the time you're expected? Are you too selfish in thinking that your attendance is so important that you can just show up whenever you want -- despite everyone elses' schedules? [2] I ended up successfully breaking the contract after filing a small claims action (that would have never been won).
- EugeneOZ 11y agoBest way to teach people how to not be rude is write rude article and add popup window to make it even more ridiculous.
- mildbow 11y ago"Write article" is actually a great idea: it fosters debate. Just checkout the apologists in this thread to spot all the chronically late people who are in denial. The popup window is funny and here's why: it's an article about pepole being rude, but the popup is rude nudge nudge. Yeah you get it. It's funny right? right?