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.

[FrankSpenser]

Your preaching to the choir here LaQueen, I know, I know.

I told my friend off (in a light hearted way) for the time she made both of us late in leaving a shopping centre to go pick up our kids from nursery.

I stooopidly believed that if she travels in my car, then there was no possible way she could dawdle and waste time as she would be running on my time

But no. Despite repeated text messages, impatient phone calls, beeps on my horn out side the shop, she rolls up to the car at the time when we should bbe in the vicinity of the school. (20 mins minimum away)

My rant to her was about 'taking into consideration'. She honestly believed she could cram her "quick stop" into the Vodafone shop, get what she needed to, pay for it, get out back to the car, get settled into the car all within 10 mins. She was 45 minutes

She did not take into consideration:

The walk getting from the shop she was in, to the phone shop. (opposite ends of the centre!!!)
A large queue in the store
That an assistant would be available to serve her straight away
Her baby in the pushchair would stay asleep and not wake up and fuss.

Pretty much all these things happened, and my point to her was that if she had thought to herself before hand, "hmm, what if there was a queue. No way could I be served and back in the car within 10 minutes.." then she would have reasoned to forego it for another time.

The icng on the cake was when she told me as she was getting served the till computor froze . It always happens to her!

And yes, I know I sound sooo bloody sanctimonius 'telling off' my friend , but this happens nearly everytime we make arrangements, and each time I bit my lip and 'low it. It's dawning on me that I'm enabling her, I think.

[FrankSpenser]

Oh yes, that sounds familiar.

[andratx]

I hate constant lateness. I think everyone makes allowances for people with very small children and babies.

But I have a friend who was always very late before she had children. And now she uses them as an excuse for being horribly late. She had been very late on all eight or so of our meetings. Final straw for me was when she was an hour and a half late for a play date, keeping me and my small children waiting in a playground. We were meant to meet at 230pm for 20 mins in the playground, but even when I phoned her, she lied about where she was and eventually turned up at 4pm...and then moaned that it was too cold for the playground because the winter sun had gone down. Grrrrrr. I refuse to see her now.

[tigerdriverII]

Ooh, I really get this. If I am running late - which sometimes happens for a variety of reasons - I get really stressed and have to stop en route and send lots of grovelling emails etc.

One of my pals is always chronically late for everything, she is a SAHM so doesn't have business things getting in the way, and there is never a good reason, honestly. I just say to her - look, I am picking you up at 7.45, don't be late, then I turn up at 8, and we get away at 8.15, and as the thing doesn't start until 8.45, we're fine, but it's a pain doing the maths to get us places on time!


DH always but always has to go to the loo for 20 mins when we are on the way to the airport. I just lie about the flight time, he never checks

[WorriedTeenMum]

I have seen it expressed as being either relationship focused or task focused. My DPiL are entirely relationship focused.

Take a typical example:

DPiL are coming to see us, we live 30 minutes away from them. A random acquaintance arrives at DPiL's house 5 minutes before DPiL are about to leave 5 minutes before they are due at our house.

DPiL dont say 'lovely to see you but we are on our way out and are already late'. Instead they invite random acquaintance in, ply them with warm beverages, biscuits and conversation.

At that moment the relationship with the random acquaintance is more important than the relationship with us.

Eventually random acquaintance leaves and DPiL set off to see us now 2 hours late before they set off. Do they phone? No. They arrived and are deeply upset to find that we are frosty.

At that moment they are wanting a relationship with us but we have other things to do and are running out of time to get them done (DH & I are task focused)

[tallulah]

My DH is late for everything, all the time. He has absolutely no idea of time and never takes into account how long it will take to get anywhere. I am the opposite and get really panicky if I think we are going to be late. When we go somewhere together we are always late, and I hate it.

He used to pick me up from work every night. I finished at 5pm and could never understand why I'd still be standing there at 5.15. Over time it became clear that he was leaving home at 5pm for a journey that took 10 - 15 mins. So of course he was never going to be there in time.

We had karate tonight, which starts at 6.30. At 6.15 I was ready to go. He was having a nap. At 6.20 he thought he'd start getting ready and we finally got out of the house just after 6.25, when DD then faffed instead of getting in the car. We were late, as usual.

I leave for school at 8.40 at the latest. It should be a 5 minute drive. He leaves at 8.45 to walk even though we've never done it in less than 20 mins. Then he is surprised that he is late . He told me he is never late, yet we left just after 3pm the other night and didn't get to school until 3.25 - 10 mins late. He said I didn't walk fast enough, despite the fact he was trailing behind me the whole way.

Sadly DD (5) seems to have inherited his laxadaisical ways and I'm nearly being driven demented trying to get her moving.

But I think you are wrong about the mind-set. He doesn't believe his time is more important than mine/ anyone elses. He doesn't consciously think about it at all. He just doesn't seem to be capable of working backwards to leave in enough time.

[MrsExcited]

I agree with early votes, my mil has been known to turn up2 hours early!!

[tigerdriverII]

tallulah. Honestly, just lie about times you have to be places. My ex-h was like this, it was innocent but absolutely irritating. And DH can get time but has this going to the loo thing....

Truth is an overrated concept when it comes to timekeeping, I find.

[flangledoodle]

Some people just can't get their shit together and are not being malicious. I have been donig the same job with the same start time for 10 years and still have to work out what time to set the alarm. I just found out yesterday that a colleague is sent mad by people not putting things back in a cupboard in alphabetical order, he just can't understand it and it drives him mad. I only found out yesterday that it's supposed to be in alphabetical order - had never even noticed.

[midastouch]

I hate late people, i have a friend who i meet in town for coffee with our DCsevery couple of weeks, im always early but she is without fail always over an hour late, then i get a text saying im just popping into ... shop 2 minutes!! Thats just taking the total pee isnt it?!

[Beaverfeaver]

I think it's more rude to be early

[Beaverfeaver]

P.s: to clarify- I also hate lateness.

Which is why I keep perfect timing, all of the time !!!!

[luanmahi]

As a perpetually late person myself, I would like to defend myself against some of the accusations by saying that I do NOT think my time is more important than other people's and I genuinely try to be on time but really struggle. I set all the clocks in my house fast, have alarms not just to wake me up but at various times throughout the day to let me know when I've got half an hour before I leave the house, when I'm due back to work after lunch, when I need to feed baby, etc. My problem is I don't have the ability to measure time in my head. For example, if you told me to stand on one leg for 5 mins (it could happen), unless I had a clock to time me, I literally wouldn't have a clue when 5 mins was up.

As I've got older, I've got better at managing it but I generally tend to be on the last minute, rushing round and getting places with no time to spare. I always feel terrible when I've made someone wait for me and would never dream of not apologising.

[ClippedPhoenix]

I can sort of relate to you luan. I have that thing going on and all of a sudden it's on me to get somewhere, the panic sets in and im doing a thousand things at once, or so it seems, which is weird. I still always manage to be early somehow????

[GreenLeafTea]

I admit I can be late. I really struggle with judging time so for me I genuinely think that I can run into the supermarket grab a few things and pay in 10 minutes. Sometimes in the morning I do a couple of things then look at the clock and 30 minutes have passed. I have no idea how it could have taken that long. I do find my satnav helps a lot as it predicts the time it takes to do something. I wish I had something like that for real life!

[GreenLeafTea]

Ps I'm the sort if person who is 10 to 20 minutes late. My sil is often 1 to 2 hours late. That does amaze me a bit. The last time she came for lunch. She wanted to come at 1pm which was late for our lunch as my kids are small. I ended up just feeding them at 1.30 because theyvwere starving. My husband thought I was being rude but they didn't arrive until after 2.30pm.

[detoxlatte]

Greenleaf in your supermarket example, do you think this is because in your head, stopping in to pick up a few things is just 'a little thing' which shouldn't take long? Ie it's just a small task in a day of more interesting and pressing stuff, just needs to be got out of the way quickly so you allocate, say, 10 mins to it?

I ask because your paragraph really resonates with me in the context of a friend. She is always, always late and it took years for me to figure out that her concept of time was based on what she wanted her day to look like rather than what it did actually look like.

In her case it was also coupled with a somewhat misplaced sense of the level of glamour in her life, which at the time was actually no less mundane than that of the rest of us!

[ChaoticisasChaoticdoes]

Why McNewpants? If you plan your journey and check the timetables you should not have to be late!

I waited 35 minutes for a bus that runs every 15 minutes once. Although that was a longer time than usual I've often turned out for a bus only to find it turns up 10 to 15 minutes after the alloted time, usually followed by the next bus.

Despite that though I still manage to be on time most of the time, I hate been late. I'm lucky in that my friends tend to turn up on time so if they are running late there usually is a genuine reason for it. That doesn't bother me, it happens to us all but someone who was constantly late would really annoy me.

[Murphy0510]

Oh cry me a fucking river, those of you that are posting on here admitting you are persistently late and that you can't 'gauge time' or you 'can't help it'. It's rudeness and you should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves and grow up! Why should everyone else have to make allowances for you because it's 'just the way you are'

I agree with everything laqueen has said. Late people think the world revolves around them and that they can merrily plod along doing as they wish, when they wish, bugger anyone else. It's those same people that then tell everyone how 'busy' they are and think their lives are harder than anyone else's.

I had one friend that got later and later every time we met. 90 minutes at our last meet! The problem is that we'd always meet with the kids at soft play, and my kids were excited and wanted to play, do I couldn't just go home when she didn't show up. She is now an ex friend; as well as lateness she is a very selfish person in many ways.

[luanmahi]

There's no doubt selfish people do exist and I myself have an ex-friend who is ex because se was very selfish and she was one of those people who was always on time for everything. They are two separate personality traits. As I said, I have a number of ways that I "trick" myself into being on time as I hate the feeling when you're the last one to walk into a room and everyone looks at you and I generally am on time now (although I was terrible when I was younger) and the only person I inconvenience is myself. My ability to gauge time isn't any better but my ability to manage this about myself is. I think to presume that because someone is disorganised that they're also self-centred and bad mannered is a bit much. Some people very well might be but one is not necessarily a symptom of the other.

[Murphy0510]

Luan, every habitually later person I have ever known has been selfish and self centred, creating dramas and obstacles constantly. The friend I mentioned up thread is selfish in several ways; persistent lateness with no apology and almost an incredulous attitude when she realises others haven't waited for her before buying drinks/ordering a meal/going into a play centre (yep she expected me to wait outside one with 3 kids in tow for up to an hour). Selfish in that she expected others to pay for her drinks all the time, and to do favours for her, but not giving anything to the friendship at all, except stories of how busy and stressed she was.