To get annoyed by people who are always late

[AndroidB]

and lack the ability to respond to texts to inform you they are going to be hours late. My mum is always late, every single time and doesn't respond to texts. I love her but ffs use your phone woman. Any of you have that friend or family member who is always late?

Hate lateness

It's so rude

I used to meet a mate for lunch once a week but she was late every time and I wasting my lunch break waiting for her so I stopped meeting her. Obviously I wasn't brave enough to tell her the real reason 🙄

I've dropped someone over the same thing. People who are late always make excuses for themselves. Making the same mistake every time isn't an accident. People who over estimate time needed are not stupid in other areas of their lives:they are capable of drawing conclusions and lessons from previous timing errors, just like every one else. They don't want to. Their need to control is too great. I found this helpful:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/enlightened-living/200812/tardiness-self-worth-and-being-present%3famp

The height of rudeness.

I used to be a perpetual late person, I grew up with a dad who always wants to be anywhere insanely early (think at least an hour before an appointment just in case), and a mum who would always be late. It left me with no ability to plan how long it took to get anywhere as we were always hideously early with my dad or late with my mum.

My mum is one who has a list of things to do before she can leave the house and does think shes been more efficient as her washing up is done, the clothes out on the line and kitchen tidied up before a day out, but with no acknowledgement that shes kept someone else waiting for an hour as she cant change her morning routine to be on time.

On the other hand, if my dad is driving to someones house with an 11am invite and it's an hour's drive, he cant just sit until 9:30/9:45 before leaving, he has to get up and get going straight away at 8:30am as what he has to do today is get on the road to XXX's house.

Neither of them are able to plan backwards from when they need to arrive and plan the rest of their day to fit in.

I'm surrounded by perpetually late people!
My dad and his other half are faffers by nature so we always know they'll be late and plan around it. I have had to spend the last couple of years since having children making sure they understand that if they're late they'll either miss us as we'll have left already or they won't see their grandchildren at their bhouse st as they'll be bored/tired/ hungry. It's worked quite well surprisingly and they're usually only 15 mins late now but never on time for anything we do together.

DH is also a late person as he's dyspraxic and cannot for the life of him plan anything involving timing. He had a course to get to recently that meant going through town in rush hour traffic but didn't plan for that so got there 10 mins late, missed signing in and then had to spend a week chasing it up to make sure the right people knew he'd attended. It drives me mad but after so many years I know he's going to do it so I have to plan accordingly.

I'm always late, I leave enough time to get ready and to be able leave the house on time but I never manage it. I dont know how it goes so wrong, I go to get dressed and change my mind and change my outfit, I'll allow 10 minutes at the end to have a wee, clean my teeth and put my jkt on but it always runs over. Always been the same, I just cant get out of the house. Iv lost count of the times iv said I'll meet you there or dont wait for me

Can we vote on this- I agree with the OP.

I have friends who are late 9 times out of 10. If they are coming for lunch then I tend to say to come for 12 and plan for it to be ready an hour or two later. It failed me once though as they said they had left so I got on with cooking. God knows what happened as it took them 2 hours to do a 30 minute journey. Then their kids moaned about the food being cold.
They are great in all other regards so I let them off

@pinotjo - are you someone who struggles with working out how long it really takes you to do something or are you someone who gets distracted so cant stay on task ?

One thing my mum finds hard is not doing other stuff before leaving the house. If she needs to leave in 10 minutes, but notices the washing machine has finished so could peg the washing out before she goes because it'll only take 5 minutes, the fact she has 10 minutes worth of other stuff to do in the 10 minutes before leaving will be ignored, shes not at the time she needs to leave yet, so shes got time to do it in her head, even if that's robbing time from other tasks she needs to do.

Perhaps time yourself with make up, hair, getting your shoes/coat/bag etc and work out how long it really takes you to do these things if you are a "time optamist", or if you are a "cant stay on task" person, then try to keep repeating to yourself what you actually should be doing first before wiping out the sink/throwing stuff in the washing machine/trying a new hair do...

Oh and I know it's hard, I've had to really retrain myself after growing up with parents who cant be on time one way or another.

I'm currently struggling with leaving the house 15 minutes earlier so I can walk to work rather than drive. My time splits about when I need to have done things (like, I need to be out of bed and in the shower before they go to the weather on the radio, I need to have my hair done by traffic and travel updates) are all wrong and I'm struggling to establish new ones as it doesn't come naturally to me to be aware on my timings.

pinotjo but you clearly don't leave enough time! or else you'd be ready on time!

Pintojo are you late for work every day, flights, trains, dates, medical appointments. If not then you need to apply that to meeting friends and other less urgent appointments. I have yet to meet a "late" person who applys this "O I'm always late", to work/ flights etc.

I have a friend who we always have to tell a different time to in order to get her to show up on time. And an ex was always 10mins late but I trusted him every time lol so it led to lots of arguments

I hate being late - I feel terribly guilty if I keep other people hanging around, even for a minute.

And I hate people being late. SiL one time, a two hour drive away, ringing an hour before they were due to arrive to say, 'Oh, we've just got back from DS's rugby.' You must have KNOWN your DS had bloody rugby, and how long it would take, so why arrange the impossible?

And then there was a further delay because of 'traffic'. We spent a large part of our day dicking about waiting for them when we could have been doing something useful.

Bumper1969 - in pinotjo's defence, as a reformed "later" who still needs to put effort in to being on time for appointments /meet ups - work is different as normally in the morning, you just get up, do your routine and go to work. As long as your alarm goes off at the right time, and you dont do anything different that morning, you will be ready to leave at the same time each day and most importantly, dont need to plan and think about your timings each day.

If your routine gets you out of the door on time and at work on time, then it will do every day.

But meeting a friend in the evening or an appointment is different, you then need to be able to plan backwards from when you need to be there, be able to accurately judge how long it will take to get there, accurately judge how long you need to get ready etc.

I generally find it stressful planning out going somewhere new if I have to be there at a set time, because I know I have a history of misjudging timings.

(This is why when I bought a clutch bag for "out out" nights, I made sure it fitted my kindle, as I know I'll find myself getting to a bar 20/30 minutes before everyone else and being bored, because I'm over compensating to avoid being rude.)

I can't stand it. It's beyond rude and inconsiderate.

I leave enough time to get ready

You clearly don't though as you are late ?!

it's totally rude, inconsiderate and selfish. They are in essence saying that they do not value enough to be on time.

But this being Mumsnet, it's nobody's fault as everyone who is ever late is autistic, or have some sort of processing disorder and it's not their fault. Ever.

Late people are rude, they show little value of your precious time. It’s not right and they need to be a ware of impact. Occasionally lateness with text or call and reason ok, they very very occasional.

@mouldyhousemoudlylife - by not staying on task, so while having enough time to get ready, will notice the bathroom sink needs wiping down, just pop downstairs and get the cleaning stuff, and ooh the washing machine has finished, I'll just pop that all in the tumble dryer - only take a few seconds. Oh, loads of this need to go on hangers to dry, will pop up and get some of those. Now back down and sorted that, oh the cups need to go in the dishwasher... how is it I only have 10 minutes to get ready now?! Rush back to the bathroom, goodness, look at this sink, cant leave that in that state.... and goodness, I should have left 10 minutes ago and I've not done my make up yet, how has that happened?

Staying on task is tough for some people. Being aware of the problem though is half the battle, @pinotjo might not be leaving enough time to get ready, or she might be, but wastes the time on other things that "only take a minute".