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!

[yamsareyammy]

x post.
hmm, bar is trickier!

she is doing the hair, shoes bit for men?

[LimitedEditionLady]

Youre all right though its not an endearing quality.We already text a million times to arrange things and times.i think what ill do is say "so we are meeting at seven?its definately going to seven though isnt it?i hate waiting around for hours' is that mean ha?

[LimitedEditionLady]

I dunno who the effort is for,she is very stylish.she does have a stable partner who she adores.It a hard call that one!

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

If you're meeting in a bar, when you text her (as you suggest doing above), say 'Just confirming we're meeting at 7? I'll be there until 7.10/15/[whatever you think is reasonable] and if you're not there by then I'll have gone.'

Then go. Somewhere else (cinema?) or home.

[yamsareyammy]

Agree with LadyClarice. Getting regularly walked all over by her is not on quite frankly.

[vitaminC]

OMG, I have a friend exactly like this and she is also a registered clinical psychologist!

It's even worse when she invites us for dinner at her house, as nothing is ever ready when we arrive, so I've started turning up an hour early and with plenty of activities for the kids, so at least we eat before my kids fall asleep

I'm at the point now, where I tell her a time an hour early than we want her to arrive and I just get on with what I have planned if she's not there by the time I need to get on.

She turned up over an hour late to my wedding reception and then expected us to collect her from a bus-stop about 20 minutes away! We were all enjoying our meal by the time she turned up. Her choice...

[DontmindifIdo]

Softly - I used to be like you but reformed! I was thinking about it earlier this week when I was going to a hair apointment. My appointment time was 3pm and it's a 10 minute drive from my house into town where my hairdressers is. Previously, I'd have aimed to leave the house at 2:50pm to get there and then been surprised I was late. However, I've since retrained myself, and realised that 10minutes drive means I have to be in the car and backing it off the drive before those 10 minutes start and I now allow 5 minutes to leave the house if it's just me (15 if DCs coming with me) to put on jacket, get my bag, find my shoes, sunglasses, car keys, anything else I want to take with me - as well as getting to the car, altering seat/mirrors from DH driving it. I also now allow 5-10 minutes to actually park the car, buy a car park ticket and walk to the hairdressers from the car park.

An appointment time at 3pm is when my appointment starts so I should really be walking into the hairdressers at 2:55pm, to allow time to go to the reception, have them take any jacket, get me a drink and settled.

As it was, i felt I was running late because I got a phone call that meant I left the house at 2:40pm. (I'd aimed for 2:30pm) It struck me that previously, I'd have called that early and if normal life got in the way, then I'd be annoyed I'd "left early" and not been on time. (Telling myself "it's only a 10 minute drive and I gave myself 20 minutes and I'm still late!" not, "the total journey from deciding to go to being in the hairdresser chair is more like 30 minutes, giving myself only 20 minutes was obviously not enough time")

I walked into the hairdressers at 2:58pm.

[carabos]

I used to work with a woman whose idea of punctuality was so outlandish as to be positively deranged.

Example - we would have a meeting arranged with a client at 11am, half an hour's drive from the office. What she would do, would be to leave the office at 11am . Her reasoning (and she was completely unapologetic about this) was that she had set aside say 11am to 1pm for the meeting, so she would leave the office at 11 and be back in the office at 1 . She was adamant that this was logical and why would anyone do it differently?

Clients would, naturally, find it confusing when she wouldn't mention her lateness, let alone apologise, leading to many awkward moments in reception areas...

As others have said up thread, she never missed a plane...

[JRmumma]

YAY!!!! Dontmind!!!! A convert!!!!

[LimitedEditionLady]

VitaminC oooh its freeky!we have matching friends.lets hook them up,they can have a who can be the latest battle!

[DontmindifIdo]

Thank you JRMumma !

I can also explain the "bet they are never late for work/a plane" issue.

For work every day, I'd have 'time splits' - I didn't think each day about what I had to do to be at work for a set time, I'd think about me leaving the house and what I had to do for each task. It would be the same every morning, shower, dress, do my hair, do my make up, get my bag/shoes/coat, leave the house, walk to the train station. i'd get up at the same time every day, I'd have points to make it clear I'd spent more time on each job (eg. I had to be out of the shower by a set time. I needed to be finishing my hair and doing my makeup by the 7:30am news on the radio, when I passed a certain house on the way to the station, I'd check my watch and know if I had enough time to make the train or not, or if it was close I needed to walk faster).

However, on other days, I didn't have that, I also on other days have other things to do other than just get out of the house which would make me late.

This is why the woman up thread can be on time for pre-school at 9am but not a toddler group at 10:30am - because I bet before the 9am pre-school all you do is get everyone up, breakfasted and dressed and go (or do other regular jobs you do every day), for the 10:30am one, you add in extra jobs which I am certain if you are a regular late person, you will underestimate how long they take.

Spend some time this weekend, first write down how long you think it takes to do certain tasks like unload the dishwasher, mopping the kitchen floor, put on a wash load (don't just count the time putting the stuff in the machine and switching it on, go from standing in your kitchen, thinking about it, walking upstairs, sorting out a load, going downstairs again and then putting it in the machine), then once you've got your estimates, time yourself. Plus time yourself from the point you say "come on, let's get going" to having all DCs and yourself in the car and backing off the drive.

Learn to allow enough time for how long things actually take, not how long you'd like them to take.




Then add 10 minutes.

[waityWaity]

Those of you who are asking why people don't just add up the time required and work backwards - Dontmindifido has described the problem - there's only any point adding up the time and working backwards if you're going to get it right. Late people often are doing that but getting it wrong. (It is an ADD type of issue - everyone is like this to some extent but the closer you are to ADD the worse you are.)

So part of the solution is if people like that totally ignore their gut instincts as to how long something will take, or just double all the amounts. If you're like this, you need to accept you can't fly by the seat of your pants and guesstimate times - you need a policy of trying to leave what will feel like quite ridiculous amounts of extra time spare to get ready for everything.

And when you do add up times add up all the things you do right down to finding keys and putting on shoes and walking to the car.

Another part of the problem is that different people really do define 'unacceptably late' differently. If you're doing the best you can, constantly aiming for 7pm and getting there usually at ten or quarter past, you know you're not just selfishly thinking the other person's time doesn't matter, you know you had 7pm as your target, and you don't really tend to think of yourself as Late late - just on the late side of 'on time'.

After all, you might say to yourself, surely the people who are selfishly, carelessly late are the ones who decide they CBA and plan not to turn up till half past - you're not doing that, you were aiming to be on time, and no one's complaining anyway so it must be OK really.

So the other part of the solution is for the person stuck waiting for the late person to politely or exasperatedly show they mind about those 10-15 minutes. If they do that, and the late person is a proper friend, then in the future they will then be much more nervous of being even ten minutes late.

Now they know that the person they're meeting doesn't see that as within the range of 'on time' but it @#!*% them off. Now their next appointment with that person feels more like catching a plane - they're anxious about being late - and that little bit of extra (and useful) social anxiety will be constantly pricking at them reminding them to get ready just like fear of missing a plane does.

Of course if you're a very disorganised person with rubbish time management there's a good chance you live in chaos and can't find things so even with techniques like doubling all time estimates, and with real fear of being late, you'll still sometimes screw things up, and even miss planes. It can be less often though!

[scottishmummy]

Because they are selfish and don't value time of other person
Btw I'm a15min andim leave unless I hear compelling reason to stay
Lateness is selfish and rude.it's not an indication of hectic life,or compelling demands just means late person is a twat

[DespicableYou]

"I'm with the poster who said a 10am meet up would mean somewhere between 10am and 10.30am"

WTAF?

REALLY??

[scottishmummy]

10am meet up,means I expect to meet at 10am.if I meant 1030 I'd say 1030
I'll be there at 0945, and I think meandering alone anytime between 10-1030 is fuckwitted

[DespicableYou]

Dontmindifido - I don't mind if I do talk about the fact that you're talking bollocks.

I have set tasks to do before I get out of the house every morning. IF, once I've got them all done, I find I have 15 spare minutes THEN I will take on one task, and one task only - e.g. empty dishwasher. Once that's done I CHECK THE CLOCK AGAIN - ooh, still another 10 minutes, I'll put the rubbish out.

THEN I CHECK THE CLOCK AGAIN - five minutes til I have to leave, so I call the DC to stand by the front door with their shoes on.

I do not fart around doing extra jobs when I know I'm leaving the house in 5 minutes.

[scottishmummy]

If I were meeting at 7 I'd arrive 645,build in slippage for traffic etc

[LimitedEditionLady]

If i was stressy and hacked off to my friend wouldnt that spoil the event even more?

[iliketea]

Lateness drives me bonkers. I have a 15 minute rule - if you're not there within 15 minutes of a meeting time then I leave / change my plans to suit myself.

I try to understand why people can't be on time, but it's just plain rude. And as for being late, so you don't have to wait on your own - that's just plain selfish. It's okay for a friend to wait on their own but not you?

I have ditched a couple of friends due to lateness, IMO, being late sends a message that my time is far less inportant than the person being late, and I don't need people like that in my life.

[scottishmummy]

I'd set your so called friend some boundaries eg she must be on time
If she gets hissy,thats tough titty
She isn't treating you well,but you know that already

[DontmindifIdo]

Ok despicable, what makes you late for things when you have more time before you need to leave than when you have less?

Another thing I realised I did that sabotaged myself was when planning backwards when I needed to do a journey, I'd think of the shortest time I'd ever done a task and assumed that's how long it took. If I'd once managed a certain car journey in 5 minutes when all the lights were green and there was little traffic, i'd tell myself it's only 5 minutes to drive to x, yet the average journey might be more like 10 minutes. If I'd managed to do something in a quick time once, I'd assume that for every time, then be annoyed at taking so long to do it normally. Other people seem to work on the longest time it's ever taken them to do a journey/task (eg my dad is always surprised if someone can manage the dartford tunnel without a 2 hour queue, he can't quite comprehend that most times it'll be fine and therefore will arrive hideously early for anywhere that involves going via dartford)

[DontmindifIdo]

Oh despicable, sorry, I thought you were getting stroppy because it was you I was talking about from earlier (just realised it was softly who coul be at preschool for 9, but on non-preschool days struggled to get to a 10:30 starting group), I was just trying to explain how that happens if you don't have a fixed idea of how long things take. If you have a spare 5minutes you could do a 5 minutes job and still be on time, but if that extra task actually takes 10 minutes, you will go from being early to late.

[tallulah]

My DH is always late. He will allow 2 minutes for a local journey or 10 minutes to get to town, and no amount of explaining to him that it takes longer than that goes in.

We go to a class that starts at 6.30. At 6.10 when I say it's time to go he'll go upstairs for a shower . When I tell him at 5.30 to get ready I get "it's ages yet. i don't need to get ready for another hour". He expects to leave here at 6.30 and still get there on time.

[waityWaity]

You don't have to be stressy and hacked off there and then, there are a few ways you can do it. You can say "look, just for the record, it really makes it difficult for me when you're late" at another time altogether. Or you can engineer an overheard conversation between you and another friend where you both bemoan people who make them wait. Or start commenting on how if you've booked to meet at 10 you won't turn up till 11 since you know she won't be there. But if you do decide to be a bit frosty there and then, even if it spoils that day a bit it could be a good investment if it gets her into better habits.

[Whathaveiforgottentoday]

Being constantly late is one of the symptoms of adult ADD. Some people just find it really hard and don't do it to be rude. I get arsed off with intolerant people who clearly think they are perfect.
I don't mind friends telling me an earlier time to arrive and love being early/ on time and hate being late. Also I've been late for some very important things including missing a flight.