Being late

[blackpup]

There was a discussion recently on TV about people being late. The people chatting explored why people are late and they went into many different reasons and they lost reasons like:

• it's a control thing
• it's a lazy thing
• it's a thing where people lack the capacity to add up time

I was listening to it and it annoyed me because often I am late.

It's never intentional by me.

There is far too much of a pull on my time from every direction - from work and my aging parents. Somebody seems to want a piece out of me every day and it's non stop. Sometimes work holds me late too and some days are long and just exhausting.

I am o my human and I need time for myself too and if I am working all week and sometimes late, I am going to need to get time from somewhere to do some basic tasks like hygiene. Like I was working all of last week, no issue there. I was booked to babysit for Saturday and no issue there and I was busy all day Sunday. Then I was dragged into work on Monday morning and I was kept late. My hair was greasy and I needed to wash my hair.

I was supposed to be in work early this morning but i didn't fancy going into work and working all day long time whatever time I am let go at. Probably 8 or 9 at night and not knowing when the f*ck I will be able to wash my hair. So I washed it this morning and I also took the time to dry my hair too before making lunch for the day and leaving. All this time my phone was hopping from my work too and I had to make the decision to ignore my phone or I will never be able to get out the door and be physically in work.

I see that aspect was never brought into any discussion. When you're working full time it's so hard to go and get a few minutes to yourself. Every day is a migraine for me now.

Also I have an underlying condition and I get sick a lot and sometimes sickness hits me at the wrong time but I can't ig ire it and I have to manage it with medication and sometimes that slows me down. Again it's not intentional. I also see that was never factored into their discussion. Sometimes people are late and it's not intentional.

I know how annoying it is when people are late and it seems it's every time and it seems intentional because I had that done to me. I remember a patch of time where I would go to town with my mother and we would agree to meet at a certain location for whatever time. Over and over and over again my mother was always late and it was never by 5 or 10 minutes. Sometimes 15 or 20 minutes.

I remember a time where we agreed to meet and I turned up to the location on time and I waited around for about 10 minutes and again she was a no show and at that stage I walked away and I never returned back or met her. She was always doing it. She never did again to me after that day turning up late. It is annoying when people are late.

However, sometimes there are circumstances beyond someone's control too.

Got to be the case because I love my hair just makes no sense on its own.

What are your contracted working hours OP? Is there a reason why you're being kept late at work? Is it because you arrive late in the morning?

Not normal.

You may love looking after your hair but I’m guessing that won’t pay the bills! Very few jobs will let you rock up hours late because you wanted to wash your hair.

You sound like hard work, OP. I can't abide lateness and have been known to simply leave and never speak to the late person again if they are over 10 minutes late with no explanation.

I have Multiple Sclerosis, Epilepsy and I've had a Stroke 6 months ago).

I'm never late.

The thing is, we all have pulls on our time. Most of us on here are working mothers and some of us have caring responsibilities or health issues too. I work 50 hours a week running my business and have teenagers who still need running about. My dh works more hours than me, but we juggle everything between us. I'm very rarely late. I don't over commit myself, I'm reasonably organised and don't make promises I can't keep. I say no when I need to. When people are late for appointments with me it throws my already busy schedule. It's infuriating when late arrivals pull the "oops, aren't I naughty, laugh laugh" face when they walk in, holding a fresh takeaway coffee, pretending to apologise. Its rude and it tells me that they think their time is far more important than mine.

@Tempnamechng

You're not wrong if that's the scenario - people genuinely not caring & intentionally being late

But this:

I don't over commit myself, I'm reasonably organised and don't make promises I can't keep. I say no when I need to.

Is something many people do struggle with. Like me! I do over-commit - in part because I'm a single mother to 3, no help,a busy job & busy kids (sports every night); I'm organised but often not enough; I don't say no anything like I should (working on it).

That's not an excuse to be late, but it does mean I've to work very hard sometimes to be on time.

Being late is rude. It is sending the message that your time is more important than the people you are going to meet.

I used to be a doormat and just let people turn up on their time. No more. I have done lots of group therapy where if you were late, you were told to go home. It was not fair on the other service users. I did a college course for adults, and anyone late was also turned away and had to get a note from the main reception to be allowed back in class.

Depending on your job, being late can fuck up things for the person you are relieving from their duty. That is not fair at all... and has the knock on effect of them being late for things they later want to do.

Yes, lateness can be a sign of things like ADHD, but the people I know with it know time keeping can be a struggle so they work hard to not be an inconvenience to other people. There are strategies and apps about to help with this.

Sorry, but taking pride in your hair as an excuse is pathetic. Use some dry shampoo.

Yes but you're not neurodivergent. That is neurological disorder on how the brain pathways develops which is entirely different to what you have.

So if the op is neurodivergent, your comment makes no sense. This isn't a, I've got all this and I'm still not late. It can literally be that the thinking and planning process of the brain is entirely different.

Hence the later comment with the op obsessing over their hair rather than focusing on the comments about being late. It's clear to me that the op has a different way of processing their priorities because most people would think sod the hair but something trivial to us, may cause a great upset to someone who is perhaps, autistic or audhd. Because it is part of their routine and they cannot change it. As it can cause meltdown.

I am assuming a lot here but I can almost see the cogs going as the thought process is happening there.

How can you not see that you decided to be late? You could have been on time, but you didn't manage your time well (shown by your comment that time got away from you) then you decided your hair was more important than getting to work. Regardless of how you justify that to yourself the long and short of it is you choose to do your hair knowing it would make you late. It's things like that that wind those of us who aren't late right up and highlight the selfishness of those who are regularly late