To think that people who arrive early are as annoying as people who arrive late?

[6079SmithW]

Just that really. Don’t arrive early. I won’t be ready!

We went to a childs party yesterday (Sunday) and was 5 minutes early. The mum I saw was huffing and puffing and looking at her watch. I nearly smacked her pink hair in the cake. Get a life. People are early

Yes this is broadly what I do, and ideally expect from others.

Early is WAY worse than late! Polite people arrive exactly (😂) 5 minutes after the agreed time.

I'd say it depends on the occasion.

Arriving early to a meeting with a friend, or picking up someone, no.
But for work meetings, doctor appointments etc it's quite useful and appreciated. If the other person is already free it might save them some time, else there is normally a waiting room.

Yes, of course they are - I'm early often - but I wait until the correct time to actually go and ring the bell/knock on the door. That 5 mins might have been the hostess's 'sprint to the loo' time!😯

From my experience of organising children's parties you just don't want early arrivals, thank you very much.

It's just being considerate of people who are already doing a nice thing for you by inviting you.

I'm usually early but that doesn't affect the other person. But I can't stand friends being late (unless there's a good reason).

But if it 5 mins is actually nothing...why not just wait till the appointed time?

I agree, @Criteria16. If someone’s coming to my house, I’d rather they were slightly late tbh.

The party was at my house - back in the day when nobody had entertainers and soft play places didn’t exist.

There was nothing official to “start”, and there hadn’t been at any of the other parties the DCs had been invited to.

My husband’s mum and partner travel down from the north to visit us in the south occasionally and her partner (the driver) always refuses to tell us what time they’re arriving. He’ll just ignore the question or says ‘he has no idea’ whilst en route with the sat nav on - which is ridiculous.

They always turn up at least hour early (often way more!) and we’re never ready - I look a state and we’re just not ready to receive guests. Last summer they said they would be at ours for 6pm so we sat down to eat dinner (they’d already eaten) at 5pm and they walked through the door just as we served up! Drives me insane.

When they came down at Christmas we made sure we drummed it into them that it would not be acceptable for them to arrive early and we absolutely would not appreciate any early arrivals. They got stuck in traffic for two hours anyway and it was fabulous!

But reception of most workplaces isn't a public space. If you sit there for an hour and a half clearly someone is going to come and ask who you are and why you're waiting. No one wants you hanging around for all that time, and it's odd behaviour (as I said, quite sweet in a school leaver, but that's because it's clueless).

You go find an actual public space to wait until just before the interview time. That is the etiquette, and etiquette matters for interviews.

I am one of those people who are always early so spend lots of time in coffee shops walking around the neighborhood etc trying to kill time.

I had someone come in for an interview last week. She arrived in 45 minutes early despite telling me later that she lived a five minute walk away and had visited the premises a few times to get timings right. It was quite annoying as our reception area has very limited seating.

Reminds me of school events. Start time 5.30pm, doors open from 5, no entry before then - first parents park up and demand to come in at 2.55pm.

Absolute nightmare to have them milling around and needing supervision when you've got two hours of work to do before the main three hours' event starts and another one afterwards.

You've got a car, bugger off in it.

wow

what a gracious guest you are. I hope you never receive another invitation again with that attitude.

I think 10-15 minutes early is fine, I wouldn't expect someone to go and find something else to do and wouldn't still be rushing about at that point, once you get to 30 minutes it's pushing it a bit, sometimes I won't even be at home by then. 10-15 minutes either side I am happy with, unless there's a reason it needs to be a particular time eg we'll meet at the station to catch the 9:05 train, I'd be very annoyed if someone didn't show up until 9:15 and would likely be on the intended train.

Have a friend who texts me
"I'm here" when she arrives 10 minutes plus early at arranged location.
Bit annoying because by default I then feel guilty or even late because
I'm not there yet because on the way to arrive at agreed time....

I have a relative who is so paranoid about being late that they arrive at everything at least an hour early, and even two hours ahead has been known. They don't have to come from far away to anywhere and we keep trying to explain that it's as rude to do this as to be late but it falls on deaf ears.

@chargeitup I've had worse than an hour. I had a group of six people turning up at 5.30pm, for a party that started at 8?!!
Thank fuck there's a pub over the road from me. Else they'd be sent all the way home again! 🤣

@BobbyBiscuits 😯 What on earth was their thought process! Had they come far?

Yes, Dh is this person. He is a people pleaser and socially anxious, and thinks everyone invites us to things expecting us to be early and he drives us all nuts stressing us out to leave really early so everyone will be happy that we are there early, and then we turn up and our hosts are still washing up and don’t even have a clean glass for drinks yet and it’s so awkward. 😩

It must be genetic because bloody MIL is the same. Says she’ll be here at 11am and then surprise she’s here at 9am and we’re all this in pyjamas and I just wanted to drink my coffee first!

@Thepeopleversuswork oh don't get me wrong, I'm not going inside if I'm 10-15 mins early. I'm sitting in my car or having a look in nearby shops or just sitting on my phone. I will then only be 1-2 mins earlier than discussed, so the other person would never know, they'd just think I was bang in time. But for my own sake I always give myself 10-15 mins to loiter outside because those 10-15 mins give you grace if something out of your control happens to delay you!

In a way it kind of depends on what type of event it is and where you're meeting.

But if you're talking about someone coming to your house for drinks or dinner then I agree that being early is very rude. If the invitation states 7pm, I would never arrive before 7pm, and even arriving on the dot of 7 would feel wrong. I would aim for about 7:05, to be sure the host is ready.

If I'm hosting, I'll make sure to be ready by 7pm, in case any guests arrive on the dot, but I wouldn't expect anyone to arrive before that and it would throw me off.

I would have sent them away.

I don't mind if people are a few minutes early but if I'm inviting them round I'll usually give them a decent window - eg come for dinner and we'll have a drink at 6.30 and aim to start eating at 7.15 so arrive anytime between the two. It allows for flexibility with public transport and means that most people will aim to arrive for 6.45-7 and gives them a bit of a buffer with traffic etc. We have very good friends who if we meet up in town are always early but they go off and find a cafe etc and just text and say that's what they're doing and to text them when we get there.