To think lateness is the rudest thing?

[slatternlymother]

It says 'my time is more valuable than yours'.

I just don't understand this attitude where it is ok to be late. It's so flakey! And yet it seems that so many people think it's alright.

I feel like there's this perception that it's a little bit cool, and if you pick someone up for it, then you need to 'relax'.

Well, it's bloody not alright. It is RUDE.

Grr.

Er...try to be a CM for 2 UP parents
They live next door to me
I wonder how much more late they could be if they lived further...

Also not read all the posts but thought I'd add my tuppence worth anyway.

Lateness is actually sometimes the result of (often hidden) mental health problems, sometimes mild in that they don't prevent the person from leading a normal life but get in the way of them getting places on time.

I have a friend who is always late by quite a while (40 minutes, an hour, sometimes more). I could never understand it until another friend confided that she has OCD and is tied up in doing certain rituals before she can leave the house. If she messes one of them up she has to start again, hence why she is often very late. If she doesn't do them she is overcome with a fear that something terrible will happen to her or her loved ones. She doesn't tell anyone this though and so everyone just thinks she is rude. It's quite sad really, no idea if she's getting help for it but it affects her work and stuff and she's been in trouble about it before.

While I am nowhere near as late as her, I'm also habitually ten minutes late (of half a hour if I miss the train). My doctor thinks I have a mild form of dyspraxia which just means that I have trouble coordinating things and am prone to lose things at five minute intervals amongst other irritations. It doesn't seem to matter what precautions I take to try to make sure I'm organised and going to get out the door in time, something always goes wrong. Because I'm prone to leaving things behind (and then having to come back to get them thus making me late) I try to doublecheck I've got everything in my bag before I go. But often I'll see my phone, mentally tick it off the list, keep rooting around for my money, and then if I can't find it I'll take everything else out of my bag. Then find my purse, feel relieved and then leave having forgotten my phone is now no longer in my bag. And then have to come back for it thus making me late. And I do this ALL THE TIME! I have tried all sorts of systems to avoid this (and all the other myriad of things that make me late) but nothing ever works - I just have a brain malfunction when it comes to certain small tasks. I went through a phase of leaving myself longer and longer to get ready but that didn't work either and it got to the point I was getting up 4 hours before I had to leave. I'd always mess something up and be ten minutes late! Aaaargh! I really don't want to be rude but I just can't seem to fix this. In other areas of my life I am quite good at problem solving,

carefulobserver my DM has started getting forgetful. Something which helps her with regards to leaving behind handbag contents is having clips in her handbag for the things which she doesnt want to leave behind:

• phone
• purse
• keys

Each has its own clip attached to her bag. Until something is on its clip it isnt in her bag.

Also she has stopped carrying so much crap stuff in her hand bag. Over the years she had accumulated more and more stuff in her bag to the point where she had started carrying a backpack (I shit you not!).

Into this pond of crap things like the 3 key items above could be lost without trace.

Have you tried an approach like this?

LaQueen

I know exactly what I mean. After many times waiting for my ex housemate I said to him, "we need to leave at 11.00, that means that at 11.00 we will be walking out the door with coats and shoes on, not starting to look for something to wear"

My parents will not tell me what time they are leaving when they are visiting me. They live two hours away. My mother claims they may be delayed, yes I understand that but they have been as early as midday and as late as midnight.

She does just doesn't get that I might want to eat, go to the shop or 100 other things.

Last time she arrived I wasn't here, whe was not happy.

rude

Yes it is rude! I have friends who are habitually late and seem to think it is ok. One actually turned up an hour late to a restaurant meal blaming her husband as she had rowed with him ( you could have told him you didn't have time as you were meeting me instead of indulging yourself in a row!). Then told me she thought of getting a taxi to meet me as she was late but decided that she would only be doing that to spite her husband (due to cost)and so got the bus instead!!!!!!! And then looked at me in a way that made clear she expected me to praise her for being such a good person! When I didn't she repeated the story as if I failed to praise her because of a lack of understanding. In fact, this person turned up to another meal an hour late and then announced it was my fault for not having a mobile. how would that have helped? I knew she was late by the fact she wasn't there: I don' t need her to phone me to tellmethat.
Yes, lateness is rudeness. Definitely.

I loathe it. Have actually stopped inviting habitually late friends to things which is a shame but it upsets me so much it's not worth it. A friend once told me she was always late because otherwise she would have to wait for someone. Errr

A psychologist would say that subconsciously you are saying 'I don't value or like you enough to pay you the courtesty of being on time'. Being on time is a simple courtesy implying you value , like and appreciate those you are on time for .. Again subconsciously someone may have a need to 'feel important' so by making others wait they feel it gives them higher status ... (Marilyn Monroe's explanation to her Psychologist on why she was famously 3hours late for him and everyone else: it made her feel valued and important. She stopped being late for him - but no-one else). Bit of relevant trivia !

Depends on the reason for lateness

Blimey, what is this, Flamethrowers Anonymous?
[checks asbestos jacket for holes]
Don't worry, I'm not looking for sympathy on here just putting out a different POV to give the judgey pants majority verdict on here, but those of you who do understand, thanks. You can be thinking of your friend every minute you're getting ready, but that pesky clock is speeding up and doing a different thing to your brain.

I am dealing with this; the kids can now get to school in good time without me yelling at them, I do get plenty of housework done in the day, and I've not annoyed friends by being late for some time now. But I do think of it as a work in progress. I'm not there yet. Timers help a bit, so does realistic scheduling, and resisting the urge to fit in just one more job.

Just to say, I did get to the meeting on time. I was cutting it to the bone, though, which I have a very, very bad habit of doing, when I'm feeling tired and icky like I was yesterday. And as for the Internet, well, that for UP people is like a biscuit tin to a bulimic.

(Timer beeps). Time to go!

Lots of people saying that hate people being late and yet so many people do it. When a lunch appointment is 1300 that's what it means especially if others are coming too....

And they always blame the children.....

Come on - who is one of the many many people who always turn up late for appointments. You know who you are...

Is it really you are disorganised and couldnt care....

My DH always makes us late when we're going out. He manages to get his clothes ironed, shower, ponce about and dress himself in time, but he always, always finds that he desperately needs a poo, just as we're about to walk out the door.

My mum is habitually late, she's known for it. I don't think she's disorganised, or thinks her time is more important than others'. I genuinely think she has no idea of the actual physical length of time. She will think it takes eg ten minutes to go and pick up Auntie (who is not very mobile) from the other side of town, drop her off in another town 4 miles away and come back to her house. How can that be so? Simple physics will tell you that journey is not achievable in ten minutes.

Either that or she is just eternally optimistic.

Can't stand it. It is Rude, Rude, Rude!!!

I have a friend, whom I utterly adore, but he is ALWAYS late. I never arrange to meet him unless it's at his house (in which case he can't fuck it up!) or at my house (in which case I don't put dinner on til I know he's "10 minutes away" - meaning I have about half an hour to get things rocking and rolling). It's only because I value him as a friend, and know that he values me that I put up with it. He just is useless when it comes to knowing how long things are going to take. I've learned to accept it with him, but only cos I love him to bits.

Otherwise, if they do it to me too many times, they get dumped. End of. Years ago I had a friend that was perpetually 3 hours late, and this happened on a couple of occasions when I was meeting her at tube stations in London...SO rude. She got dumped!

Unless there is an utter emergency I am always on time (or a bit early). If I'm going to be late, I call and let people know. Unlike said friend above, who never called to say she was going to be late and if I tried to call her, her mobile was always straight to answerphone....GRRRRR! Makes me want to spit just thinking about it!

Oooh...rant over, sorry!

I too am one of these terminally late people; well, late for work and often school, not for meet-ups or appointments. I find it acceptable to be 5mn late for work - but then I don't mind not taking the half an hour break I'm entitled to in my 12-hour shift if it's busy, and i don't check to make sure I'm paid overtime if I stay 2 hours behind helping others with their stuff; So it's more like flexible working really (although there isn't such a thing in place, and I AM supposed to be on time.) I don't expect to be pulled up for being disorganised, when in return I'm quite helpful. My employer and I, we are not petty There would be no reason to take it personally because I myself don't mind waiting. I seem to be waiting all the time, at the doctor's, late trains, kids dragging heels on the walk back from school... It's not convenient, yes, and practically I can understand one might want to not organise things with people who turn up hours late, but still I can't see a point in feeling insulted. Unless the behaviour is being accompanied by general thoughtlessness...in which case, lateness or not, the friendship was always going to be short-lived. I wouldn't want my friend to worry about being half an hour late to meet me, actually. But I guess if my friend looked like she didn't care, then it probably would be because she doesn't I don't have such breezy people in my life, though.

This is going to be discussed on Matthew Wright tomorrow.

Oh God. I hope he doesn't mention DH's need to poo.

My BF was always late when we were going out on a Saturday night, so if we had to be somewhere by 8pm, I would tell her that she had to be there for 7.30pm.

Roll on a few years, I have DD and she doesn't have DC yet, so I'm getting my own back... With the best planning in the world, I am normally still finishing getting ready to go out when she gets here and she seems to have managed to get here on time EVERY time we go out!

I wanted to explain about my previous job. I could do the job fine and was never late for work but a few times a year we had to go for training at HQ and they moved HQ to a different city after I started.

To get to the training I had to drop of DS at his nursery at 8am which is the earliest they could take him, drop DD off at daycare near the train station which cost a fortune but her regular carer couldn't take her before 9am, then rush to catch the train which I couldn't miss as there wasn't another for 30 minutes. Then I had to rush across town to get another train at a different station and walk to HQ in an unfamiliar city.

One time there were roadworks between the 2 train stations so I had to go a different way and got lost so missed my connection. When I arrived at HQ 10 minutes late the guy had locked the door to the meeting room and wouldn't let me attend. He also refused to refund my train fare ( which they usually pay for training) or pay my overtime as I didn't attend. I definitely wasn't the one on a power trip that morning!

I couldn't afford to lose the job but I hated going for training after that because no matter how organized I was I just used to lie awake worrying I had forgotten something or if something would go wrong. I'm so glad I don't work there anymore. In other jobs my bosses have always said they appreciate my positive attitude and ability to be flexible.

Just seen on Facebook that this very topic is to be discussed on the Matthew Wright show tomorrow...

LaQueen, why didnt you just eat? You all could have eaten the food and left the cake until he came out.

My husband also arses around at dinner time but we just start without him. He comes pretty quickly then.