How can people be late everytime?

[LimitedEditionLady]

AIBU to be really annoyed that my friend is literally NEVER on time?It is not even just five minutes,its usually at least an hour!

[EBearhug]

My father was pretty even-tempered, and didn't often get angry. But his sister was always, always late for family gatherings, and that could really set him off. (Still does it, she was late to the last funeral we were at, as well.)

As a result, I am nearly always on time for everything, and I also get annoyed with people who don't manage it, and have been known to demand apologies at work. If you've got a 10am meeting, why would you wait till 1 minute before to fit in everything from popping to the loo and making a cup of coffee before sauntering along to the meeting room? I find it so rude that people can be so inconsiderate of other people's time like that. I know some things will always get in the way - really bad traffic problems, or major customer-facing problems at work or so on, but it's not usually things like that, it's just they can't be bothered to make a bit more effort.

The one which really, really annoys me is a manager who cancels meetings last minute, or starts them up to 20 minutes late and so on. And yet, when it was a meeting including his manager as well, he was absolutely on time. It just proves he can do it, and the rest of the time is just bullying and manipulative, because they're people who aren't worthy of him (in his view. Most people on this planet are worth more than him.)

[softlysoftly]

Can't type either clearly

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Perhaps your friend is dyspraxic.

[5Foot5]

How can people be late every time

One reason only - selfish, inconsiderate and considers her time more important so it doesn't matter if you are waiting around for her.

Do you have to wait for her before starting whatever activity you have planned? Can you not just go ahead without her and then tell her that you got fed up of waiting. In fact, why not just tell her straight anyway - not in a jokey way either so she can say "Oh what am I like like" but more directly that it really pisses you off and can she make more effort to stick to the arrangements.

[JRmumma]

I wouldn't really consider 10 minutes as late, unless it was for school or an appointment etc, something with an actual start time, in which case you need to aim to be there 20 mins early to ensure you are there in plenty of time.

If you are consistently late for things and want to know how to rectify this, then im afraid the answer is simple. Ensure you aren't late. If the only way yo do this is to try and be 30 mins early, and you end up having to hang around coz you are a bit early at least it is your time you are wasting and not someone elses. Isn't that fair if you are the one with the time keeping problem?

[thelma3333]

softlysoftly i'm also one of those '10 mins late people.' Nothing to do with being selfish or thinking that other people's time is less important. I have very bad time management, lose track of time, procrastinate, don't factor in the unexpected. Have even been on a time management course !
Strangely, i have improved since having kids.
OP i think maybe you should mention it to friend, or ask her to meet you 1 hour earlier but not be ready until time you think she is going to have to turn up. I know you shouldn't have to do this, and must be very frustrating for you.
Us laties also don't get bothered when other people are late (yes that happens to me aswell), so maybe we've just got a more relaxed approach to time. ie. if someone says to me 10am, i think they'll turn up 10am - 10.30am

[MerylStrop]

Nah, ten minutes late is still late, and if it is ten minutes every time it is cumulatively irritating.
Especially for the waitee who usually also hates getting up on time and also had to deal with all that stuff it.

[JRmumma]

thelma surely you don't think its acceptable to be 30 mins late if you are meeting a friend say in a pub and she would be there on her own for 30 mins in that case?

If you are going to someone's house then ok, if they say come over at 10 then maybe fine ( although id expect notice that you were going to be that late) but not if it leaves someone wasting 30 mins of their day for no other reason than you have a more relaxed attitude to time keeping?!

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

It's not thinking her time is more important than yours, necessarily. I know because I am like this and I'm just as late (actually, far later) for appointments with myself, IYSWIM. So if I want to go and see an exhibition, by the time I get there I'll only have allowed myself 10 minutes rather than the hour I wanted.

For me it's partly this: "being so optimistic about what can be achieved in the time available that he thinks he can bend the laws of physics". As someone else said, the longer the journy I have to take, the more contingency I factor in, the more on time I am. I would arrive literally on the hour for an event 6 hours away, while I would easily be 25 minutes late for something round the corner. Something's very wrong in my conception of time. It's as if I think the moment I am standing in my house with my shoes on, is the same moment I will arrive at my destination. Faffing and travel time is as nothing. It's embarrasing

[changeling1234]

I don't understand how people are late all the time. If you know it's going to take you half an hour to get ready, 10 minutes to drive to wherever, then another 5 minutes to walk to the restaurant or whatever, then add the minutes together and work backwards from the time you planned to meet.

So, meeting a friend at 10 o'clock means leaving the house at 9.15. I would allow an extra 5 mins for faffing around and an extra 5 mins to find a parking space, so would leave at 9.05.

If you're early, just wait in the car or walk round for a bit.

There's no excuse in saying "my whole family is like it" or "I just can't do it". Of course you can. It really is just lack of planning and no empathy for the friend who's sitting there like a lemon having to wait for YOU.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

yes it's totally unacceptable for a "latey" to be critical of other people's timekeeping. If I'm left waiting I just think it's karma.

[awaynboilyurheid]

I too can be guilty of this but have to try really hard not to think I can just fit another job in before I go or as someone on here said try to bend the laws of physics ! its not that we are selfish getting angry won't work, its simply we find it really hard to judge time I always think i could just put on a wash or tidy up or it will only take me x amount to get ready but it always taks longer finally I recognise this ! so now I chop off a half hour as my cut off time and that has helped or friends and family do this too

[awaynboilyurheid]

Oh and I never criticise anyone for being late I'm ususually delighted as it makes me look early

[softlysoftly]

It's NOT a lack of planning! For example I lay the kids clothes out the night before;, half pack a picnic, get the up at a designated time and do final things when they are having breakfast, have 5 minutes to get out the door before the set off time that will get me there on time.

Then something happens, I get to the car and dd1 forgot her sunglasses or dd2 does a huge poo or I have the wrong bag or I remember I need money. Or nothing really happens and I'm still 5 - 10 minutes late. Its like my brain refuses to allow me to be on time.

I've even been late when I've been early. Get to a place early, wait in car, faff about with mn or emails or snooze look at the clock and I'm flipping late again.

[DiseasesOfTheSheep]

I'm almost always 5-10 minutes late... Normally because I attempt to do too many things in too short a space of time - sort of a subconscious desire to please everyone, and just end up charging around like a loon, running late.

I also am cursed with inevitable bad traffic / red lights -I can do the same journey without a deadline and it takes 5 minutes, and then at the same time the following day with a deadline and it takes 20. Same for trains and virtually everything else in my life... Logically I know everyone has to deal with traffic / tractors in the road / sheep crossing / kamikaze deer / the roadworks of doom, but sometimes I swear they're out to get me!

[JRmumma]

Don't just leave yourself 5 mins then softly! You know you need contingency time so factor it in!

Why would you not do this if you are only leaving enough time to be exactly on time?

Latey's and non-latey's will never understand each other i fear.

[miffybun73]

I find this intolerable and one of the rudest things that someone could do.

Grrrrrr.

[Eraser]

I cannot stand being late to the point that I'd rather get somewhere 30 mins earlier and stand around like a pleb then be 5 mins late.

[ComtessedeFrouFrou]

Softly in te nicest possible way, the last two examples of your sentence are why you are late (the first two I can excuse):

dd1 forgot her sunglasses or dd2 does a huge poo or I have the wrong bag or I remember I need money

You may have planned, but If you've got he wrong bag or you only just remember you need money as you're leaving the house you haven't planned enough.

[CrapBag]

YAsoooooooooNBU!!!

This drives me up the absolute fecking wall.

I have a friend who is always late. Before she could drive she had the excuse that she had to rely on public transport. Now she can, she will still be late, still have a 'valid' excuse though. I think piss poor time management actually. I made a joke once when she turned up somewhere bang on time and she got so shitty about it. But then when she is on time or almost, she will always draw attention to it. Mainly people notice that she is so late because she points it out, but heaven forbid if you do! Recently she phoned me to ask if we could delay something by 15 minutes because she had something to finish. I said ok because I knew a couple of others had already said they couldn't be there for the time, this person was still there after them and 25 minutes after her later time that she had asked for. I will drop if she carries on tbh. She does act like she is the only person who is ever busy and it fucks me off.

Someone else I knew who is flakey and late always, made me an hour and half late for my own big birthday night out. I was the last to arrive because of her and sat around at home ready for more than an hour because she can't get her fucking act together. She also held up 11 of us at a meal before for an hour. She has been ditched.

[fatfingers]

"If you're early, just wait in the car or walk round for a bit."

I absolutely dread having to do that. I am a 10 minute late person and I think part of it is the fear of being early and having to wait around, etc. I aim to be bang on time rather than early. I don't even really class 10 minutes as late tbh and I'm with the poster who said a 10am meet up would mean somewhere between 10am and 10.30am. Wouldn't bother me if I was waiting on my own.

[CrapBag]

"There's no excuse in saying "my whole family is like it" or "I just can't do it". Of course you can. It really is just lack of planning and no empathy for the friend who's sitting there like a lemon having to wait for YOU."

^^This. softly you aren't factoring in extra time for the faff that goes on. And how is it that everytime you go out something needs doing?

Sorry but I don't get it, it is poor time management (and that is to all lateys) and you do have to allow an extra 10 minutes or so to get out of the door to factor in something at the very last minute, which I also don't get actually but there we go.

[CrapBag]

10 minutes is late if someone says "lets meet at 10" they aren't talking about 10.10, they are talking about meeting at 10 so anything after that is late. If you want to meet 10 minutes later then say so in the beginning and stop thinking that people should just wait because you don't think 10 minutes is late (to all who think 10 minutes isn't late).

Would you honestly walk into a job interview or a hospital appointment 10 minutes late and tell them that you aren't actually late? Or turn up for work 10 minutes after your start time but tell them that you aren't late? No, you wouldn't, therefore it is late.

[yamsareyammy]

How long has she been your friend for?

[fatfingers]

Well I regularly walk into work 10 minutes late and then I work 10 minutes over in the evening (I deliberately chose a job where I manage my own diary!). I am often 5 minutes late for appointments but I probably wouldn't be a bit late for an interview, that's true and I don't make the children late for school.

I suppose I just mean 10 minutes is not a big deal to me - is your life that regimented that you can't spare 10 minutes? It doesn't annoy me at all if I wait 10 minutes for someone to arrive (and if I genuinely didn't have time I'd just tell them I'll carry on alone). Over half an hour is taking the mick though imo.