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.

[GreenLeafTea]

detoxlatte I'm a sahm so my life definitely isn't glamorous but I find shopping with my kids in tow very stressful so I will try and squeeze running in to buy milk between work and nursery pick up as it is just so much easier than dragging two tired kids around the supermarket. Then I end up being 5 minutes late for pick up but nursery don't seem bothered so I am grateful for their understanding.

I had a job before where they put a huge emphasis on punctuality and I found it so stressful I often couldn't sleep the night before for worrying. My son in particular the more I try and rush him in the morning the slower he goes and it just turns into a nightmare.

It really doesn't bother me if friends are late. I found it odd that my mil used to get so stressed out if I was even a few minutes late as my parents were much more flexible about meeting times. My mil is one of those people who will arrive 40 minutes early and that stresses me put as im usually running around like crazy getting dressed and tidied up.

My husband is never late but he also has an aversion to switching off lights when he's finished and that drives me crazy. I guess different people are bothered by different things.

[Murphy0510]

I am actually laughing at greenleaftea being aghast that a boss actually wanted her to be punctual!

Isn't that the general idea of a job; that you work the working hours specified by the company? What if you need to relieve a colleague so they can leave after their shift? Why shouldn't work expect you in on time?

And I think it's really rude to be repeatedly late to pick up your child. Did you not know nursery staff often earn minimum wage and often don't get paid extra if they have to stay late with children that are picked up late?

Living in a bubble of self or what!?

[Noodled]

Aah limited I could be your friend:) being often a bit late means my good friends tend to be a self reliant and tolerant bunch.

Why am I often late? A bf baby who I will feed rather than leave to cry, meetings to get to that start at half six which is usually ok but sometimes dh arrives around then due to traffic. I often get lost, I give extra time for this but I can get really lost! My vehicle doesn't fit in multi storey carparks so parking can be an issue too. My days are very full with not a lot of slack (dh has health issues at moment so can't do some of the helpful things he would usually do) so the dog treading in another dog's poo or the toddler having an accident as we were leaving for school means we threaten lateness.

I am always apologetic, I wouldn't expect anyone to wait for me and will say that I will be possibly late when I know timings are tight. I am dyspraxic which explains the travel issues maybe but isn't really much of a problem. Fewer children, dogs, a healthy husband and a bit of local childcare and I would be back to punctual!

[Murphy0510]

Those that won't tolerate lateness are self reliant and tolerant too, Noodled. We just refuse to accept disrespectful behaviour.

The things you have described could, and do, happen to anyone. Yet many many people still manage to achieve punctuality.

It's very amusing that those of you on this thread that are always late are full of excuses and reasons as to why your lives are harder than anyone else's therefore it's somehow ok for you to be late. Everyone has things that crop up at times. Everyone is tight for time sometimes. Everyone gets lost sometimes. But not every single time they go anywhere.

[WorriedTeenMum]

I used to work in an office with flats opposite where some of the office workers lived - literally 200m from the front door of the offices. Every morning I would see the same people wandering out of the flats down the drive to the office front door late!.

What excuse did they use for goodness sake? There was congestion on the landing? A contraflow on the stairs? The wrong sort of bread in the toaster?

I really despaired of these people!

[flangledoodle]

Oooh Murphy, you do sound like a crosspatch

[Murphy0510]

Yes flanged, it does make me cross when people have bad manners and are selfish and try to justify it

[Murphy0510]

Flangled, I take it you are a late person? Anyone who is not persistently late sees lateness for the rude habit that it is. Those that are late regularly seem to think that anyone who won't put up with it are mean and intolerant, hence your patronising use of 'crosspatch'

Perhaps all late people should be friends then they can out-late each other!

[WingDefence]

My brother and SIL are always late. They were late for my DH's surprise birthday party last year - everyone else from our family (50 people) were on time I.e. there before DH and I walked into the restaurant yet my brother and family were 20 mins late. Even though I'd told them repeatedly what time they had to be there.

But worse than that, the two of them were late for my (close) aunt's funeral last week. The rest of us immediate family (uncles, aunts, cousins etc) met at my uncle's house for the funeral procession at 11am to leave at 11:30. The funeral started at the crematorium at 12.

They weren't at the house. They weren't waiting for us as the coffin and family cars arrived. My DPs and I stood at the front of the chapel, saving them seats as everyone else came in - it was standing room only and there were 150+ people there. The doors closed and the service started and my DPs were extremely upset that my brother had apparently not made it.

We found out after the service that they arrived 15 mins into the 45 min service. They made excuses about not knowing where the crematorium was but basically hadn't been bothered to look it up. They had had instructions about where to go and to get there early if not coming to the house first to park because so many people were coming. It meant that throughout the service, my DPs and I were half thinking at all times about how we couldn't believe they had been late even for this. I can't forgive them :(

[slatternlymother]

Wow! So pleased to see this thread still going and that I'm not alone!

wingdefence I'm so sorry for your loss last week, and you're right. Your DB and SIL are thoughtless, thoughtless people I hope your DP's are alright? FWIW, I would struggle to get over that myself.

I just don't think there's any excuse; those perpetually late people are adults. Worse, their children will pick up these habits.

And yes, whilst they might not mean it to come across this way, it smacks of 'my time is more valuable than yours'. It does.

[slatternlymother]

And I'm happy to be a 'crosspatch' on this one.

[Noodled]

Hey bit late replying here murphy...apologies and all, I was just... (disrespecting the angry person with highly punctual friends)

For the record I never claimed to have a life harder than anyone else's. I just gave some reasons why I am sometime a bit late. I suspect lots is attitudinal I take on too much but like too, the three voluntary roles I do prefer to have me a bit late than not at all. Work keeps encroaching further than I plan for it to do so but who wants to turn it down. And happily I have lots of late friends with busy chaotic happy lives, they aren't presumptuous and selfish they are fab not least because I look comparatively efficient:)

Winged- late for a funeral is awful though, that is horrid:(

[DontmindifIdo]

BTW - I have learned that with people who are habitually late (including myself until I learned better!), is not to talk about when you need to be somewhere, but when you need to get in the car.

DH finds this hard, I can't cope very well with him saying "we need to be at X place at Y time" I need to be told "You have to be in the car for Z time" if he says "it's 20 minutes to where we need to go and we need to be there for 8" I have to stop and think "that means I have to be in the car for 7:40pm at the latest", then "So I want to allow 10 minutes to do get changed, 10 minutes to do my make up and 5 minutes for faffing, so I need to start getting ready at 7:15pm." The addition of "5 minutes for faffing" has really revolutionised my life!

For non-late people, this wouldn't take sitting down and thinking about, it's a given if you need t be somewhere that's a 20 minute drive away at 8pm, you need to be in a car that's backing off the drive at 7:40pm. For a 'naturally late' person like me (with a late for everything mother), you have to think that's the time you need to leave.

Not thinking about arrival times but departure can make all the difference. (LeQueen, stop telling your DH what time he needs to be somewhere, just tell him the time he needs to leave the house.)

[flangledoodle]

What self pity? I was only saying it's only you that its harming by being annoyed as the late person is probabkly oblivious to how much it upsets you.

[flangledoodle]

What does google say about crosspatch, I though it was just another term for mildly grumpy?

[Murphy0510]

I don't tolerate it in friendships flangledoodle, hence I don't have any late friends, as I've said previously on this thread. Only someone incredibly thick, self-absorbed, and selfish would think that it is acceptable to be persistently late.

[flangledoodle]

Really didn't mean to upset you Murphy, was just pointing out that you seemed to be getting very hot under the collar on this one. Find it hard to see what is so bad about it but then again being a late person means that I've rarely been on the receiving end.

[flangledoodle]

Am actually not often late, just find it a.battle to be on time.

[Murphy0510]

Believe me, it is very irritating when you've taken the time to get ready, get your children ready, and travel to meet someone and they don't even have the courtesy to try to be on time. I really am quite gobsmacked that you don't see what's bad about it. Would you really have the same view if you'd waited for someone for an hour or more having rushed to get ready and make it in time yourself? Or if you'd taken the time and trouble to cook a meal for someone and they turned up an hour late so that the meal was ruined?

It is generally only late people that seem to think it really isn't that big a deal. Because they are excusing their behaviour and justifying it. Lateness is rude.

[flangledoodle]

As I said am usually on time. can't honestly say I've ever been kept waiting that long. Prob wouldn't wait. Was kept waiting for a boyfriend for an hour and a half once (was 16 at the time) then gave up and went home. It was probably a sign....

[dimsum123]

Murphy fwiw I totally agree with you on everything.

I recently had to let go of a friend who is always late. I think she likes the idea of people adoring her enough to be willing to wait around for her and also doesn't like waiting alone so I would always end up waiting for her. She doesn't even bother texting to say she's running late and says she's got too many problems in her life already to be worrying about trying to get somewhere on time.

I also have loads of problems in my life and yet somehow or other I always manage to be on time.

I do think it's pathetic that a grown woman cannot organise herself to be somewhere on time.

[Murphy0510]

So it clearly did annoy you then if you went home? If it wasn't that big a deal, as you've insinuated on this thread, you'd have just waited and waited willingly, surely.....

I have had bad experiences as I had one ex 'friend' who repeatedly took the mickey, being very late when I'd gone to great effort to meet up with her, at a time when I had a lot more going on in my life than she did, and probably if we were to divvy it all up, had more reasons to be late than her. But I never was.

To some it may not be a big deal, but to lots of us it is a big deal. As Laqueen has said, if someone is repeatedly late it does show a lack of respect from the late person, and I refuse to be friends with anyone who doesn't share my values. I have better things to do with my time than sit around in playcentres waiting whilst my friend sits at home having a cup of tea, tidying up and doing other stuff at leisure, when I could have spent that extra time at my house having a cuppa and tidying up.

If refusing to tolerate that kind of thing makes you think I'm a 'crosspatch' or 'hot under the collar' then so be it. I think though that most punctual, considerate people will share my view though and will view lateness as a big deal. It's only the late ones that think it's no big deal and as I said that's because they are trying to justify their behaviour

[Murphy0510]

dimsum, I don't blame you for ditching that friend. She sounds totally self absorbed and disrespectful.