To say being late all the time isn't a trait you are just rude

[username4s]

AIBU to thinks it's not funny. it's plain rude and shows a lack of respect for the other person?

I often see/hear about people who are always late and it's as if it's just a funny trait of theirs. I don't agree it's shows a lack of care for other peoples time. Are these same people always late for work/school runs/other important commitments or do they suddenly manage to organise themselves and be on time.

I'm not sure why me pointing out that time keeping is not the be all and end all in many jobs has upset you, its simply a statement of fact. As a number of us on this thread have told you, we work in jobs where time keeping is unimportant.

I don't think anyone has said its ok not to let people know you're running late.

Time keeping isn’t ‘easy’ for everyone else. The world isn’t split into those who find it easy to be on time and those who are consistently late.

It’s difficult for me to be on time. It would be easier for me to relax in the mornings and plod about, decide to wash my hair at the last minute, catch the last twenty minutes of a programme I like.

However, I have agreed to arrive somewhere at x time, so I have to make sacrifices with other things. If I don’t leave at x time, I will be late to meet my friend/late to my job meaning the ‘creatives’ who don’t value time keeping will need to wait longer for their items.

I agree OP. I am never late and my children have never been late for school and they're in years 7 and 10 now. Lateness does my head in!

And I would say the great majority of jobs do value timekeeping and it is essential to the movement of day to day life.

@lockdownmadnessdotcom

This comes up a lot on MN. I agree it's rude and there's no need. Everyone can misjudge the traffic or be on a train that is late from time to time, but if you value the friendship/meeting, you will be on time.

People who say they have a condition which means they cannot judge time still manage to get to work on time or to airports on time. If they don't, they lose their jobs or miss their holiday flights. So they have strategies in place to deal with that.

By not putting those strategies in place for a meeting with a friend (or colleague) they show those people they don't value them.

It's very straight-forward in my opinion. You get to places (and online meetings) on time.

Exactly this.

The people who “ get absorbed in something and forget the time “ , set an alarm ( or 5 ) on their phone.

The people who lose their house keys have a place they keep them at the door / on a hook / shelf - just like the rest of us boring and uncreative and uncute people .

And it’s not easy for everyone else to be on time but hard for you. It’s hard for everyone - you just CBA to make an effort because you are to special .

I’m talking about those who are habitually late without reasonable excuse . Not those who are late once because the baby threw up over them/ the bus broke down / they are a carer for someone with dementia / the cat got run over.

Talith same my kids in good habits. My last boss stickler for time. My husband good time wise. My friend manages her time badly then gets caught in school traffic! Then 0 parking at cafe!!

@Kanaloa Time keeping is "easy" for you in the sense that a dance class is "easy" for me compared to someone with dyspraxia. I will still find it hard, and make mistakes, and have have to put in time and effort and practice, and pay lots of attention to the teacher, but if I do those things, I will be able to improve, and translate what I want my body to do into actual movement. Someone in the class with roughly my level of fitness who had dyspraxia could put in double my effort and still make less progress than me. My "hard" is a lower barrier to step over than their "hard".

@Kanaloa

Time keeping isn’t ‘easy’ for everyone else. The world isn’t split into those who find it easy to be on time and those who are consistently late.

It’s difficult for me to be on time. It would be easier for me to relax in the mornings and plod about, decide to wash my hair at the last minute, catch the last twenty minutes of a programme I like.

However, I have agreed to arrive somewhere at x time, so I have to make sacrifices with other things. If I don’t leave at x time, I will be late to meet my friend/late to my job meaning the ‘creatives’ who don’t value time keeping will need to wait longer for their items.

You're not understanding what people are trying to explain. You're describing a choice, something you'd rather do, and talking about making a sacrifice. I'm not choosing to watch TV or wash my hair, I'm just trying to make my brain focus on the thing I need to do and stop it from firing off in a million other directions. Every tiny detail I see as I'm getting ready, every noise I hear, can send my brain down a rabbit hole without me realising that's what's happened.

[quote DontMakeMeShushYou]@cheesemarmitepanini

Sorry but the three examples I've given of selfish lateness were perpetrated by NT individuals who have very successful careers etc.

How do you know they are NT? I didn't know I had ADD until I was in my late 40s. I have a successful career.[/quote]
Because I know they're not

I'm naturally disorganized and messy, however my parents drummed politeness into me so I hate being late because I think it's really rude to whoever I'm meeting.

I actually force myself to be organised, so keys in same place always. Constantly checking I have my phone and purse on me. I have a DC with sn who needed to attend endless appointments so I got planning and organising down to a fine art

I've found this thread quite an eye opener if I'm honest. Somebody said punctuality is an arbitary rule enforced by NT people.
Quite a thought. I think it's only since the industrial age that clocks were developed to make sure the factory workers got to their shift.
I suspect a lot of us would like to get back to making plans for, say, sunrise (farming) or simply be more relaxed about meets.
But I wonder how this works in our modern society. We'd be a bit screwed if nobody made and kept appointment times.
There might be something in the notion that there is no such thing as neuro typical or neurodiverse, simply that the ones who don't fit in to the way things are now run are considered disabled (or rude)
Then presumably the people who became successful through the industrial revolution were what we'd call neurotypical , and they are now the ones who call the shots.
I'm sure that when we lived in small hunter gatherer groups, people were able to work to their strengths, to the advantage of their community.

But in the world we find ourselves in, I'm not sure how we can maintain our work and social lives without a framework of sorts.

Clearly very disorganised people/those without good executive function find it very stressful to fit in to this structure, and people who are regularly on time (I'm one, though it takes strategy and I don't find it easy) find it annoying and stressful to be kept waiting.

As an ex-often late person, I took the blame, but certain posters here think wanting others to be on time is unreasonable.
How do those posters square that up with getting things done? How would you arrange things so you meet friends, if time keeping is an arbitary rule?

It's very interesting to ponder on this!

Oh and years ago I hired a babysitter to watch my kids one evening. She called me to let me know she was going to be 3 minutes late. That's the kind of attention to detail I love!

@RightYesButNo

You know, I don’t know if people will find this interesting but I used to be one of these people: massively disorganized, always late, constantly losing things I needed to be able to leave, sounded a bit like *@DrinkFeckArseBrick*. Yet I care deeply for people and would be mortified if they thought I was thinking their time was unimportant (my friends never did - they thought I was “scatterbrained,” so maybe a bit ADHD or dyspraxia or something).

But then I got chronically ill. Suddenly I had a lot of appointments that I couldn’t be more than five minutes late for, or I wouldn’t be able to see the specialist again or take a special exam for months. So I had to come up with ways to deal with it. I set alarms no matter what time of day the appointment is and I don’t ever press “snooze” on them until I stop what I’m doing (pissing about on Mumsnet) and get up to get ready to go. I have a second alarm set for when I must walk out the door, and it’s programmed to allow me to arrive ten minutes early at a location, because a consultant’s office doesn’t care about traffic. I put the three or four things I MUST take with me on the table by the door the night before and don’t move them (ID, paper with appointment, house keys). And then if I’m not at the door when my second “leaving” alarm goes off with what I want, then I don’t have it. If I want a water bottle but I don’t have one ready when that second alarm goes off, I have to go without a water bottle (I might start putting a water bottle on the table the night before if I realize I always want it). If I have a snag in my tights, I have to go with a snag in my tights. That’s all there is to it; there’s just no other option. Otherwise, I won’t be able to see my neurologist for an extra three months and that could mean a world of pain and extra A&E visits.

The thing is, if something life-altering comes along, you will HAVE to find systems to allow you to timekeep better. It’s arse, but it’s life.

This is the thing, people who are chronically late for absolutely everything do need to DO something to try and help themselves and others.

It's really not acceptable to just reel off excuses and that's that.

Ok there might be genuine reasons why it's so hard, but as a responsible adult they need to do what they can to minimise the affects on others. Or at the very least, explain and warn people if they're aware they won't be on time.

I have stepped back from friendships with people like this because I have got so sick of being expected to sit or stand waiting for an hour or more while they piss arse about. The bottom line is, whatever the reason, it's not fair on whoever is waiting for you.

Many years ago a friend was always late when we met up. We would miss the beginning of films sometimes. My friend used to give lots of excuses every time she was late. One day I asked her if she was always on time for work. When she said that she was, I told her to "treat me with the respect you treat work".

@cheesemarmitepanini

Because I think I know they're not

There you go. I've corrected it for you. You're welcome.

[quote DontMakeMeShushYou]@cheesemarmitepanini

Because I think I know they're not

There you go. I've corrected it for you. You're welcome.[/quote]
Ok.

Even if they were ND, that doesn't excuse waiting for the washing machine to finish before meeting me though does it?

Okay, but if your condition is so completely severe that you are incapable of arriving at any place for an agreed time - don’t agree on meeting at specific times.

Tell your friends in advance - sorry because of my disability I’m incapable of arriving at a meeting place for a pre arranged time, if I try to do so I won’t be able to and will be late, arriving at a different time than we have agreed. Because of this let’s meet for a casual time/visit each other at home.

Rather than saying you will be there at a certain time if your disability doesn’t allow for it.

Like the example given upthread about oh would you be annoyed at a physically disabled friend who couldn’t keep up? No, but I would expect them not to make plans for a timed hike if their disability meant they wouldn’t be able to take part in such an activity.

I really struggle with this now. I hate lateness, I find it the height of bad manners when someone is repeatedly late. I was always the kind of person who'd be sat in my car for 10 minutes because I'd arrived too early just so that I wasn't late.

However, my youngest child has numerous medical conditions and I'm now often late because of a seizure, a phone call from a consultant, a blocked line or tube, or the likes. And I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

Yesterday I was 15 minutes late because I couldn't get the bloody lid off a new bottle of medication until I took a knife to the plastic seal. My friends didn't mind, primarily because we now do things like meet "between 10 & 10.30", but eventually they'll all get fed up with it.

@CuntAmongstThePigeons I feel the same. How on Earth do people know how many people are affected by problems with timekeeping etc. I am not excusing lateness but as much as I feel sick at running late I still only make things by the skin of my teeth half the time. I’ve got way too much cortisol, terrible anxiety, I get myself up to 90 about being late, leave extra time to be early and somehow (no idea how) that time is eaten up. It’s fine to say that you’d be pissed off at me being late but any one who tells me I don’t care or think I’m more important than anyone else can piss off. Currently feeling panicky about being late just reading this thread. I’ll probably still be making it by the skin of my teeth next time. Thankfully my job is a creative one and not time sensitive. While this thread has made me feel even worse about it, it also makes me glad I’m not as angry and judgemental as some of you.

@Kanaloa

Okay, but if your condition is so completely severe that you are incapable of arriving at any place for an agreed time - don’t agree on meeting at specific times.

Tell your friends in advance - sorry because of my disability I’m incapable of arriving at a meeting place for a pre arranged time, if I try to do so I won’t be able to and will be late, arriving at a different time than we have agreed. Because of this let’s meet for a casual time/visit each other at home.

Rather than saying you will be there at a certain time if your disability doesn’t allow for it.

Like the example given upthread about oh would you be annoyed at a physically disabled friend who couldn’t keep up? No, but I would expect them not to make plans for a timed hike if their disability meant they wouldn’t be able to take part in such an activity.

Wow! Are we to assume that's genuinely how you feel disabled people should describe themselves to their friends? I guess so. Just wow!

No, I’m saying don’t be inconsiderate. If you’re aware you can’t possibly be on time, don’t agree to meet at a specific time. The selfishness isn’t in the being late, it’s in making the promise when you’re aware that (according to this thread) you have absolutely no control over whether or not you are able to keep that promise.

JustLyra your friends know and understand, that life has changed in your case. I am sure you would message them if you needed to. We are talking about people who can arrive on time, but choose not to.

YANBU!