That'll be a 20 point deduction!
It's worth noting that some people are just completely shit at timeliness, no matter how important the thing is.
I am and so are my a lot of my friends "I'm running 30 minutes late!" often meets a "No worries, I might be an hour". A punctuality obsessed person would hate me.
Fashionably late only makes sense if the others can continue without you.
* 2 hours late to happy hour? glad you can make it, get a drink. (But don't expect me to stay another 2 hours)
* An hour late for D&D game? I guess we can start now. grumble-grumble wasted an hour of everyone elses time.
* 15 minutes late to carpool? You better have a good reason.
You might plan a 2-3 hour buffer and only arrive 1-2h before the flight. You're still late.
A 2-3h buffer is just not feasible for everything as the day only has 24h.
It's very simple, if somebody is 1h late to the D&D game you start without them. I'm not sure about the game dynamics, but they can probably enter your storyline after 1h if you're creative.
Temporary NPCs do the stupidest things!
Occasionally, that is true. Most often, it is simply a sign that you disrespect the other person.
It's not about being "obsessed with punctuality", it's about realizing that the other person has a schedule that you are impacting as well. And then choosing to not give a damn, in the case of perpetual lateness.
For you it might be an issue of not caring. IT's not for everyone.
Same with the timekeeping : some feel that they are so unique and mentally impaired that keeping time is beyond them. But they just do not give a shit about others.
I was 30 kg overweight and had all kind of excuses (including a medical condition). I then moved out of this comfort zone and lost the extra weight. Some peopke will not be able to do that, this is their choice. I will not pity them and certainly not allow for any specific arrangements if I see this is their fault. And yes, when you see someone drinking coke after coke and inguritating mountains of food you are not at risk of hitting the unfortunate 2%.
So get a watch, leave an hour early. If an hour is not enough, two hours. Yes, this is impacting but then you choose which time is more important for you. I apologize if you are in the 2% of people who cannot afford a watch or read the time with understanding.
I've found that exercising control over my body is easy. The body is stupid. It does what I tell it to do. It complains, but it will only fight back when it absolutely cannot physically perform the task.
Not so much with my brain. The brain is smart. It fights back. I can look directly at a (digital) clock, and my brain can refuse to process the time on it.
I can dig around and produce piles of evidence of all the different ways I tried to fix this, all the different treatments I sought, how much sincere effort I put in, and a complete lack of results. Don't take executive function for granted.
Also, our lateness usually hurts us far more than others around us. Nothing is "too important" to be late for. And the things that usually make us late aren't generally important. Most of the time, they're complete wastes of time that didn't need to be done at all in the first place.
I was like this, and so is most of my old friends still to this day. I still snooze and never come in to work at a regular time, but I've never missed a morning meeting when one is planned.
I just scope out my getting ready, the drive in, account for extra traffic and finding parking, and then add an extra 5-10 minutes on top of the worst case time.
I can't remember the last time I was late to anything now, so it's rare enough that it has to be because of a car breakdown or anything else extraordinary.
Everything that involves more people than you are "too important" to be late for if there is a fixed time set.
Getting ready in the morning is a particular challenge because it varies tremendously. Some days I might fuss around with my outfit and makeup for an hour, other days I can get out the door in 15 minutes.
It's not just the time I "feel like" spending, it's time looking for things, time getting distracted... and time just badly planned (I think I am so early, when I'm not, because I plan these things badly).
(sorry for the short comment but I came to say the same)
EDIT: Removed comment about downvotes.
> "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
Do you have a bot that looks for downvote keywords?
Being perpetually late is a psychological problem. Telling people to "just be on time" is like telling depressed people to "just be happy".
Yes, depression can be remedied, as can perpetual lateness. No, it's not as easy for people who suffer from these. Please assume that if it's easy for you to either not be depressed or be on time, then it's hard for you to understand the people who exhibit these behaviors.
If you want to understand perpetual lateness better, please read this article: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/07/why-im-always-late.html
(I would also recommend it to everyone else who is late - it's a weapon in my arsenal).
Signed, someone who just appeared at the post office that closes at 2PM at 1:59:37 PM.
Group 1) Those who don’t feel bad or wrong about it. These people are assholes. Group 2) Those who feel terrible and self-loathing about it. These people have problems.
Group 1 is 98% of the population. This is why we perceive people who are late as [from impolite to assholes]
Group 2 suffers because of that.
Thus my analogy with weight: 98% of people eat like starving hippos and then claim all kind of bullshit about how they are biologically|mentally|genetically|any-other-y impacted and that being fat is not their fault. And "no fat shaming because we are so special". Yes - aggressive fat shaming so that you put your shit together and stop being a (now or future) problem for the population.
The remaining 2% suffers because of that.
I mentioned this a few times in my comments
--- extra story --- I also remember a friend of mine who was overweight and had two medical conditions (ans possibly a mild psychological one) which made him what he was. I saw him fighting back - by eating healthy, moving a lot (I was lightly sparring kung-fu with him) and I was super proud. There are some happy ends - he is still far from being a model but he met a super girl (thin and sporty by the way) who realized after going past the physical aspect that he was a super guy. Their children (now teens) tease him about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmV8HQUuPEk&t=13s
Or less specifically you can read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...
The reality is that the circuits in the brain that manage things like impulse control and attention don't work as well in some people.
One of the primary treatments for ADHD is stimulant medications... and yes, as a coping strategy, getting panicked to the point of adrenaline spiking. Both of them activate norepinephrine. But it has limits. I cannot be a panic about leaving for work every morning, or every time I meet with friends.
Medication helps tremendously; planning things in the morning before the medication has kicked in leads to problems.
When I have worked at a job that requires me to be in at 9:30AM every morning, the result was a ton of stress and constant friction. The solution is to schedule that meeting some other time; when I've worked at places that didn't have that requirement everybody has been happier.
I can assure you that I never say to myself, what's more important: being at this meeting on time or spending 10 minutes searching for my phone? Or responding to this reddit comment? My understanding of time is not nearly good enough to make those kind of choices. Watch the video I linked; it's not intention that is the problem.
Knowing the current time is not the problem, but being reasonable about how long things will take is extremely difficult.
A lot of my life is organized around the knowledge that I am this way. I simply can't have friends who are going to think I don't care about them every time I'm 15 minutes late. For some people, that might be the case, but it's not for me.
FWIW, my BMI is 21; appetite was never a problem for me. But I know a thing or two about excuses and getting out of my comfort zone; I'm trans.
I am arguing with all the special flowers who "just cannot be in time", because this is fashionable, a mark of superiority or basic assholness.
A lot of times I can "smart" my way out of the worst problems. For instance I missed a flight that was taking me to a cruise the next morning. The airport staff were unhelpful; there weren't really any more flights that night.
But I figured out on my phone that I could switch both source and destination airports and make a new flight. So for the "small" price of a $350 last minute ticket and $60 cab ride, I "solved" my problem. I literally booked the flight on my phone while in the cab between the airports.
A large price to pay for being 15 minutes late, but I saved myself from missing the entire cruise at a cost of thousands.
This might help: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/07/why-im-always-late.html
I really wish more people understood that being late for people like you (and me, and the blog author) isn't the same as it is for them, and can't be fixed simply. I need a support group, dammit!
The only effective treatment in the long run is gastric bypass.
And comparing the volume of people in different countries, usually US or wealthy China vs. France (my country) or Italy or Japan.
The difference is striking. It doesn't come from the fact that Americans or wealthy Chinese have some physiological problem: they just eat TONS of food and drink pure sugar (last one is for the US).
One should not look for fancy explanations when the evidence is there: people are more and more obese because they eat shitty food and drink sugar.
And do not talk me about "the poors who cannot afford anything else". We have poverty in France as well, and these people are not horrifically obese.
Chronic obesity means chronic overeating. Except for the infinitesimal minority wich was obese 100 years ago as well because of the weird gene. When they become obese, they are programmed to be even more obese. Or "big boned".
And like with everything in life, willpower moves you ahead in most cases. There is one genius for every 100 hard working people (with willpower) and 100 slackers (in the same demographics).
I cut by 1/3 to 1/2 what I was eating. I eat the same things, just less. And more fruit, and almost no sugar. Was it hard? Yes, to a point. Was it excruciating? No - I was just salivating while looking at a nice cake and my brain decided to say "no".
I still have a hamburger from time to time (say, every two weeks). It is European size.
My kid made a cake, I had two parts (even if it was awful, way too sugary).
I bike to the office because I love it, and play sports again. Just because I WANT TO.
Your comments are bordering on fat-shaming, which I find completely unacceptable.
As for your other ideas, by the time you're trying to sort out worthies you don't actually have a social state in any meaningful sense. You can find some fault with most people. "Why did you work in a mine when you knew it could cause black lung? Why did you spend so much time at the computer if you didn't want RSI? You wouldn't have rabies if you'd avoided rabid animals." You get the idea.
BTW, I was 30 kg overweight. Then decided not to be anymore.
"Why did you work in a mine when you knew it could cause black lung?" - because I had to in order to bring money for my family. I have in very high esteem such people. As you say, you get the idea.
"Why did you willingly eat nasty stuff knowing what will happen, and you absolutely did not have to because you live in a country where you can get healthy (= normal, not some bio stuff) food?" - that's harder to explain. But still - this is a choice, we are free people, just do not come later stating that "you should understand, I have all these reasons not to be on time". Sorry, overweight, to get back to the main thread.
As an American person, I feel it is likely I have encountered at least as many fat people as you have, if not more, so appeals to your personal experience aren't that convincing.
First off: "Require" means what your body needs to sustain itself, which I would say is your TDEE. This changes when you gain weight or lose weight, or recomp.
Secondly: You can definitely "reprogram" when you get hungry, it only takes a few weeks.
> Losing weight by willpower in the short term just increases the signals to eat, and may cause weight gain in the long run.
This depends entirely on how you lose weight. As obesity (for the vast majority part, excluding thyroid and other physical problems) is a matter of habit, if you starve yourself from your usual diet for a few weeks in an attempt to reset your weight, of course you are going to relapse.
Temporary dieting can by definition never work. A diet is the habit of what you eat.
If you create the habit of eating like someone who weighs 50 kg less than you, you will start losing weight, fast at first, and then slower until it plateaus. I agree that not everyone is exactly the same, so basal metabolism between two similar people can vary a few hundred or so kcal/day.
Gastric bypass can in rare cases be necessary, but it's definitely a last resort, and unneeded in most cases.
You are a tiny sliver of consciousness on top of a vast, powerful machine. That machine gives you ideas, manages your body, and dictates your desires. Using conscious will power to try to overcome innate points of equilibrium in the system that is you, is extremely difficult in most cases. And in some cases it is impossible.
Neither of my parents worked out a day in their life, and neither did I until my late 20s. So I definitely understand the point of view of never learning good habits, but bad habits and not making choices are also a habit, even if you haven't realized an alternative.
Gastric bypass is not a silver bullet, it's a major surgery with a significant mortality rate and is always a last resort for the most severe cases who have at least made an effort.
The existence of large national trends also, to my mind, points away from individual failings. I find it hard to believe that the willpower of the average person has simply dropped off steeply over a few decades.
That's not at all correct. Success rates of weight loss by dieting are around 20%. That's still low, but you have to ask yourself: is it because people really can't control their diet long term, or is it because the majority of the population prefers the self serving narative of obesity genes and viruses, addiction engineered by the food industry, "the calorie myth", the intractable failure of willpower over body impulse, and so on? Because that sounds a lot like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Mind you, I'm grossly overweight (peak BMI 34, current 30), and I know full well the power of my body for mind control. A skinny person can't even imagine the fight every chubby faces on a daily basis. Yet, due to wining most battles, I've managed to lose some and not turn into the 500 Kg monster by body "demands" - I could easily eat 4-5000 calories on a daily basis, to great satisfaction.
> In reality, 97 percent of dieters regain everything they lost and then some within three years. Obesity research fails to reflect this truth because it rarely follows people for more than 18 months. This makes most weight-loss studies disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst.
I also think this article is interesting because it includes some personal testimony from a successful long-term dieter that I think illustrates why most people are not successful:
> Debra Sapp-Yarwood, a fiftysomething from Kansas City, Missouri, who’s studying to be a hospital chaplain, is one of the three percenters, the select few who have lost a chunk of weight and kept it off. She dropped 55 pounds 11 years ago, and maintains her new weight with a diet and exercise routine most people would find unsustainable: She eats 1,800 calories a day—no more than 200 in carbs—and has learned to put up with what she describes as “intrusive thoughts and food preoccupations.” She used to run for an hour a day, but after foot surgery she switched to her current routine: a 50-minute exercise video performed at twice the speed of the instructor, while wearing ankle weights and a weighted vest that add between 25 or 30 pounds to her small frame.
> “Maintaining weight loss is not a lifestyle,” she says. “It’s a job.” It’s a job that requires not just time, self-discipline, and energy—it also takes up a lot of mental real estate. People who maintain weight loss over the long term typically make it their top priority in life.
Still bad but not as bad.
It's also important to point out a strong self selection bias in such studies: we mostly deal with those who were overweight and needed to start a diet, so they probably had low impulse control to begin with. An important part of population with better control and similar cravings might have started their willpower exercise after gaining the first few pounds, it's disingenuous to discourage everybody using statistics applied to those who have a trackrecord of failure. If you gained weight by simply not caring about your weight (depression, cultural norms etc.) then you might stand a much better chance of success when you start to care.
The testimonial sounds like a clasic case of artificially lowered basal metabolic rate by crash dieting and associated loss of lean body mass. Such people need high resistance, mass building exercises, not catabolism-inducing aerobic. She might live a very long life tho.
By this metric some three-quarters of Americans have poor impulse control (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#/...), so I think it is actually the other group that is exceptional.
There are many other nations that reached comparable prosperity and food abundance at similar times, yet don't have even comparable obesity rates. An extreme case is Japan, at 3.5% obesity rate maintained largely though willpower and cultural norms, by literally firing those that are too fat, or in any case applying strong social pressure and mandatory counseling.
1. There are other differences in Japan -- most obviously a very different diet
2. Obesity rates in other countries are catching up to the United States.
3. The first two points call into question your claim that Americans are uniquely lacking in willpower.
4. I don't want to live in a society where people are fired or ostracized for being fat because it is cruel and inhumane.
5. The US has a $66 billion weight loss market, suggesting many Americans do want to lose weight (cf., https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-weight-loss-mark...), but I'll leave it to the oracles to decipher what you mean by "really" want.
Yes, the statistics of people in weight loss programs keeping their weight off is really low, but this could have many explanations:
* Are they included because they wanted a one-time solution to a permanent problem?
* Did they initially get coaching that they later lost?
* Did the changes they made temporarily not work for them personally in the long term?
Even if this is statistics of everyone that has ever tried losing weight, does it matter? Humans haven't evolved in the 50-100 years that obesity has exploded. This makes it conclusive that it can't be physiological, does it not?
So it could be culturally behavioral, as a society, or individual, and it's looking like the former, but does it matter?
What is more likely, that we as a culture fixes the obesity problem against any market forces pushing it, or that you die of obesity before that happens, unless you individually go against the grain of what is pushed upon you?
The only way to lose weight is to make changes you can see yourself living with for the rest of your life. This sounds heavy, but none of your reflex habits seem heavy to you, but might to someone else. That's exactly why thin people seem to have it so easy (which they do). They have had a healthy habit of exercise and limited portion sizes their entire life, so they don't even have to think about it.
You don't need exercise to lose weight, but you definitely need it to feel healthy. You need to find something you can either bare to do for the rest of your life, or best case enjoy doing. Soon enough it will be a habit you don't consider anyways.
Same goes for food. There is no trick to it, and not one diet that works for everyone (in terms of psychology). Some can do it by counting everything they put in their mouth. Some can do it by forcing them to sit down everytime they put something in their mouth (so you don't walk around and snack without realizing). Some just cut out any drink that isn't water. Some cut out any snacks that isn't their one absolute favorite. Some just eat once a day without regards to portion size. Etc etc etc. It is harsh, but no one else will do it for you. You don't have to do anything about it if you don't want to, but it's not productive to hide behind lies as to why you can't.
Otherwise it’s pure willpower (well technically being able to delay gratification) combined with healthy food. E.g start a meal with a raw brocoli and it’ll be physically difficult to put other things in your stomach after.
Yes it’s very hard but I did it myself, you always have to think I’m suffering now but I’ll be good looking one day (and yes it takes years)
Edit: though I understand that all people may not have the same capacity to delay gratification
Have them exercise, switch sugary soft drinks on refill with water and not eat the one pizza per day or something "they must have", replace that with filling but low calorie food if needed and see what happens
This excuse sounds like the excuses for why the US has more school shootings than every other country.
The people who try to arrive 'just in time' are the ones this usually applies to though.
If you've ever worked at a place where you have a long commute you'll likely have noticed that the people who are consistently late are those who live closest.
For some people, it's hard to see all the pieces ("take a shower, brush teeth, put on clothes, pack your bag, take the elevator...) that go into one larger task ("getting to work") and reason about them. It's fundamentally a working memory/executive function deficit.
It's also shocking to me how every intent of leaving well and truly earlier than I thought can also fall apart. The lack of adrenaline in such situations allows a million distractions to creep in. "Oh, I can spend a few minutes to fix my makeup". "Oh, I haven't watered the plants in a while!" I can try to wall some of them off (I will NOT use the computer or look at my phone), but there's real limits.
"Just leave earlier" is about as useful an advice as "grow a new hand."
Personally I think the probability of this used as an excuse is much higher than of it beeing true.
You did. You probably have family like that. The fact that you _think_ you never met such a person says a lot about you, though.
I am also sometimes early. I once arrived 24 hours early for a flight. On two occasions recently I arrived at a doctor's appointment the day before. The first time they thought it was quirky, the second time they looked at me as though there might be more wrong with me than they'd thought.
Those of us who are deficient in executive function aren't "choosing to not give a damn". It's not a "choice". If you're a person who always has complete control over their actions, please consider the fact that some of us don't have that luxury, and our own lives suffer even more from it than the lives of the people who we subject to our tardiness.
The problem with low exec function is that you do not realize WHEN you have choices to make; you get sucked into an activity and forget to stop and reflect the situation. In the process you overlook chances to decide, so you get the impression that you cannot decide anything (thus the victimization). Coding does this a lot to me btw, while other activities don’t; might have to do with the amount of energy required for the task as hand.
BUT you can choose to train yourself to stop in regular intervals and contemplate the current situation. Over time this will improve. I‘m also experimenting with near infrared light shone on the forehead, which for some reason does wonders for this (increasing energy available to the frontal lobe maybe?).
Maybe people walking around with a cast and crutches are just making themselves look "powerless and victimised". Surely.
Victimization is a state of mind. You could be confined to a wheel chair but that doesn’t make you powerless.
/anecdata
This is only true if the circumstances knowingly make the person stuck waiting for 30 minutes.
That's fairly exceptional, but some people do voluntarily wait for others doing nothing, when the participation of others is entirely optional for the activity - something I don't quite understand. But I have noticed people who do this often aren't really capable of being happy or content independently in general, which I consider a sign of immaturity. That's a different problem, and being punctual for them doesn't fix it.
If someone's late to go bowling we/I start bowling without them. When they show up, they wait and join in at the next game, or get their own lane.
If someone doesn't make it to the cinema before the show starts, I'm watching the movie I wanted to see without them. It's their loss, not mine, and I'm not waiting for them or upset - I'm seeing the movie I wanted to see.
It makes relatively little difference to me if they're present for those activities. It's the activity that I'm principally interested in. Sure it's more fun to bowl with others, but only marginally. The last film I went out of my way to see with a friend, afterwards I didn't even understand why I bothered when the experience was largely unchanged from seeing it alone yet I drove across town to watch it sitting next to someone I knew, useful that.
Surely you could come up with better examples than those for when to justifiably be upset with a person being late...
I'm not even one of those people who's chronically late, I just don't see it as an issue worth fussing over in the vast majority of social circumstances.
When you're younger you just wait for the other person.
Early on in any relationship I learn which style of timekeeping a person has. You get the people who will warn in advance and apologise profusely if they are going to be 2 minutes late, then at the other end of the scale you have the people who say "I'm just around the corner I'll be there in 5 minutes" and you know they might turn up some time that day/night, if they're having a particularly switched-on day.
Once I have my expectations set correctly I don't get annoyed. It does mean that any arrangement with the 'very late' style of friends always has a status of 'tentative'. And I make it clear to them that I may be doing something else by the time they arrive and that they'd better be able to handle that as it's a cost of their style of being. I've never known a late person to have any problem with that arrangement, they generally seem to quite like it as then they know they can do their thing and not worry about putting me out.
I've not read the linked article but I've been pretty constant with my level of making new friends throughout my adult life (am in my forties now). I've moved around a bit and lived in a few different towns/cities, had a few career paths, maybe that's relevant. I think some people narrow their worldview as they get older and perhaps this makes them more choosy about who is 'worth it'. I've always been a weirdo/outlier. I'm fine with loads of people around me and making parties etc., but also more than happy in my own company. I noticed quite early in life that I could be accepted in most social groups and drift between them and developed a distaste for cliques and the negative behaviour they encourage (exclusivity, "our love for each other is based on our hatred of everyone else" etc).
I have missed flights, and the reason I usually don't is because I plan to arrive at the airport ~3h before departure.
Believe me, it's making me way more miserable than the person I'm stressing to meet. It's neither disrespect nor prioritization.
If you do it all the time, you’re inconsiderate.
I get that waiting around doing nothing is annoying, but it doesn't have to be that way. For example, if I'm meeting up with some friends to go out, I'd much rather meet them in a pub rather than meet them at a bus or train station. That way their evening can start without me.
I'd also happily live somewhere with other people that don't put a high value on punctuality. As an example, I've heard in Costa Rica they have cultural trait of running on "tico time". I've only ever met a couple of people from Costa Rica before, so I can't say how common this is, but what I can say is that I'd not be offended by it, and I'd hope it was something we would all be a bit more laid back about than where I currently live.
It just seems stupid to make an agreement that you know you won't keep.
If people accepted that answer, that'd be fine, but by and large they don't/won't.
> "It just seems stupid to make an agreement that you know you won't keep."
You don't always know ahead of time. If you arrange to meet at 7pm and arrive at 7:05pm, predicting that far in advance is quite tricky. Perhaps you fully intended to be on time, but underestimated some part of the journey getting there.
Nice stereotype though!
If you don't like the example I gave, you can have another example, looking at Ikaria:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171116-the-greek-island-wi...
Quoting the article (note this was said by a Greek person, not an expat):
"Retired doctor Christodoulos Xenakis has another theory about how Ikarians avoid unnecessary anxiety. We met briefly during my first hour on the island and we had agreed to meet again, though tracking him down wasn’t easy.
“No-one really sets appointments here,” he shrugged when I greeted the 81 year old – who is considered a young man by Ikaria standards – a few days later in the village. Time is an important part of life on Ikaria, Xenakis explained, but not the way most people think. “It’s more like ‘see you in the morning, afternoon or evening’. We don’t stress.”"
That's not what's happening. If I'm running late I'm supposedly missing out too, by missing out on spending time with friends. What part of that is selfish? If I arrange to meet somewhere where they can start enjoying their evening, the only person that misses out is me.
Do you think that those of us without adequate executive function are on time for things we deem truly important? If you do, then you might want to challenge that notion, and see if that affects your viewpoint.
If you tell me that you'll pick me up at 5pm, but show up at 7pm... I'll be upset most likely. But if you tell me that you'll pick me up at 5pm, but will probably be late, maybe even hours late... I'll get it... And will adjust accordingly (most likely I'll get a ride with someone else if at all time critical).
That's why I find it best to have a reasonable time to aim for, and the people that know me know they will need to be able to accommodate my late arrival. And every once in a while, I might even be on time, though I do consider "5 minutes late" as "on time".
Yes, the people that know me are nice and patient people. That's probably a major reason why I know them in the first place.
"How about I meet you at your place? I often run late and would rather you weren't sitting there waiting for me"
Or you could pick me up at my work; I'll already have to be dressed and out of the house since I'm at work.
I'll quote what I wrote in a reply further below:
> I've missed at least 8 flights in the past decade, have seen only the last 80-90% of many of the films I watched in the cinema, have had to stand in the back for the first act of many stage productions, etc. Seeing me walk, rather than run, through train stations and airports is a rare sight. I don't recall a single multi-day bushwalk I've been on, where I pitched my tent before sunset, or even within 2 hours after it.
They are perfectly capable of being on time for important things. It's just that their friends aren't important to them.
I've missed at least 8 flights in the past decade, have seen only the last 80-90% of many of the films I watched in the cinema, have had to stand in the back for the first act of many stage productions, etc. Seeing me walk, rather than run, through train stations and airports is a rare sight. I don't recall a single multi-day bushwalk I've been on, where I pitched my tent before sunset, or even within 2 hours after it.
Some of us simply don't have the time awareness and executive function to be on time. I have a clock always visible in my line of sight at my desk, but many times, I can't get myself to actually read the time off it, even though it's right there (and it's digital).
If my friends didn't know not to take my lateness personally, I wouldn't have any friends.
Some clocks can be programmed to make noise nowadays at a certain time.
It's tough to fight this, because the person you're fighting is yourself, and you're just as smart as you are, so you can't outsmart or trick yourself.
Sometimes, some technique will work for a day or two, but the brain adapts very quickly and learns how to get around it.
I'm very absent-minded and frequently forget things like eating and cleaning, but out of respect for other people, I frequently take notes and set alarms, which at least helps me stick to agreed schedules.
Another useful way to manage it is to schedule things loosely when possible. Agree to meet at some point in the span of an hour under circumstances where neither party will be bored waiting. For example, invite the other party over an hour before going to a see a film.
It's good that friends aren't like that. I'm happy to acknowledge that someone may have a family or other circumstance that is more pressing than a ruminative chat, and not count it against them. And I expect they will give me the same consideration. The score doesn't get kept the same way.
For instance, we plan to meet up at somebody's house first (they obviously are going to be there, even if they're still getting ready).
Or cases we both exchange texts and actually leave only when we are both ready to go.
The trick is to take all the variables and planning (and potential for bad planning) out of the equation. Everyone is happier that way.
If you are late, but after comming in treat people politely, are willing to compromise, dont assume they are stupid in each of your responses and dont go out of your way to insult them and respect them dont act like alpha-king-of-galaxy that needs everything your way, then it is much better then punctual opposite.
Come on, in your own example you provide a white lie to the person and tell them it'll be 30 mins, when you know that it could likely be longer. Why not just say you're running an hour late instead?
I suffer from this myself, so don't feel like I'm picking on you, but I realized a long time ago that it's just me being dishonest with myself and others, and I should cut it out.
But I forget about the time to find my always-lost cell phone, the time to ride the elevator - basically everything except the actual time on the road/bus/etc... 30 minutes being that magical time every light was green and everything went perfectly, etc.
This impacts all areas of my life. It's a reason I'm reluctant to carpool or take caltrain, heck, I'm always late to my Therapist... and I pay a lot for that.
Point is that I really try to avoid things where I have to be EXACTLY ON TIME.
For instance, if I'm going to a theater show, I'll plan to meet my friends for dinner beforehand. I might not be able to eat (they will), but at least I'll make the show on time.
Incidentally "I'll plan to be 30 minutes early, so I won't stress the entire time"... doesn't work somehow.
Leaving it for a permanent record of my crankiness. Sigh, I may be getting old...
That's just her situation, but I think there's generally something larger at play. Something more like people feeling the need to squeeze the most time out of whatever they're doing right now, even knowing in the back of their mind that they're stealing from the next thing. I think it takes a certain amount of unnatural discipline to think of the current thing and the next thing as time-equal.
Other random crap often does.
I didn't mean to imply it's a magic cure-all, just that it's a pre-shared context that makes it easy to make those decisions.
Or maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
Does that count?
What I think is worse than being late are thr monsters that show up on time to a party. Like wtf who does that.
I think living in Finland has conditioned this type of attitude of not being too early(for fear of wasting time waiting) or too late (fear of being rude). One thing that helps significantly is to know travel times(by bus,car, etc) and allocate rough estimate to them. Luckily most Euro countries have good public transport to make planning ahead less stressful.
This is really really not true for parties. The polite thing to do for a party, as long as it is not a dinner party, is to be at least 1 hour late. Nobody expects guests earlier than that. It’s the unspoken rule.
For dinner parties the usual 15 minutes late is on time.
I'm old and cranky too.
This is funny to read in a forum of software developers :)
It's not necessarily an actual scorecard or anything like that, but more like a subconscious intolerance for bullshit that you don't HAVE to put with anymore.
If I meet someone that doesn't bring any positivity, and worse, requires me to put an effort into finding them companionable (e.g. trying to discover their good qualities), I decide I'm too old for that shit and have other things to worry about.
Counter anecdote. I strive to be on time especially when I know being late will waste the other person's time because I want to be respectful of their time. Many times I've sacrificed my own productivity to be on time. Also, for me, it's a matter of integrity. If I tell someone I'm going to be there at a certain time, I've given them my word. Barring extenuating circumstances (e.g. car accident) I do my best to do what I said I would do.
Some people are so high-strung and high-maintenance, I don't know why they do it to themselves. Perhaps their career path rewards this behavior, and they become so obsessed with success as defined by their career, whatever that means, that it becomes their entire identity. Because the way Thayer is approaching life sounds a whole lot like the way people behave in corporate america. Thayer Prime would probably benefit from eating some mushrooms in the forest.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjL07JQ5cLo
edit: By mushrooms I mean the kind that educates, not kills.
Sounds like she's just put a number scale on what most people do intuitively.
I don't think it's too high-strung or high-maintenance to expect people to be reasonably on-time.
Disclaimer: I haven't read the article. The real good stuff is in the comments. -10 points for not reading the article for me.
The thing is, my date or friend being late for something like a dinner or cafe meetup is of little consequence. I'm not going to be sitting there twiddling my thumbs stewing in anger bored out of my mind because of it, because I presume we were doing something I genuinely wanted to do wether they were a participant or not. Their presence was just to enhance the experience, we were going to share an experience as a means to enhance it and get to know one another. There is zero urgency for this to have happened precisely that way at that time, and the cost of it not happening exactly as planned is insignificant.
If we were supposed to be pouring a cement foundation and they showed up an hour late and I couldn't get it all poured and finished before it started setting in their absence? Ok, that friend is getting taken down a notch if it were clear they were needed and they had committed.
From what little I know, Thayer Prime strikes me as someone who is not particularly aware of the importance of context with expectations, and is applying the same level of obsessive anal retentiveness she uses professionally uniformly throughout her life.
If my friends are late for social activities, I just pull out a book and hang out wherever we wanted to go - because I wanted to go there. Maybe they'll show up, and that'll be great. If not, well at least we spend time at places I like to be anyways!
Sometimes it seems like some people date just to force others to fulfill their expectations, and their whole world is shattered when those expectations aren't met in the slightest way. Life is so much more than that, it's absurd to me. shrug
On-time is... sometime that day. Or perhaps tomorrow. Later than that is significantly late, but why worry about an hour or two? It really is a very, very particular western culture thing to be time-obsessed: it's not specifically something that all humans do intuitively.
That would be fine, and honestly I'd be much happier if my work was like that.
But my free time is limited and I have to be at work at 9am on Monday, no matter how long I wait for a selfish person to turn up. So I'm not going to sit there waiting for long...
But yeah, I try not to get hung up on other folks' timeliness, unless there's going to be a knock-on effect. I know shit happens. I bring a book so I can put my time to good use if I have to wait. An obsession with punctuality in and of itself might be a sign that a person is optimizing what's measured rather than what's actually important.
Well, now, I wouldn't go so far as to wish death upon her.
"Your call is very important to us. Please leave your name & number, and we will get back to you as soon as possible."
This is like that terrible "The Rules" dating book. How about we treat each other as human beings and not as instrumentalities? We have instincts and biases, but we also have minds and self determination.
If you invite someone and they bail 10 times, maybe you stop inviting them.
I am pretty sure certain events I’ve been invited to was only because I was good friends with someone else. And once they stopped going my invites stopped as well.
Some people you’re close to may have other things going on in their lives, but you loop them in anyway for when their situation changes.
A real friend won’t leave one hanging.
A point could also be made that life is too short to take yourself too seriously, but to each his own.
> “You meet someone really nice, but if they don’t return a call, drop to 90, if they don’t return two calls, that’s an immediate 50,” she said. “If they’re late to something in the first month, that’s another 10 off.” (But people can move up the scale with nice behavior, too, she added.)
OK, here is one case where the lack of friends is not mystifying at all.