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What would you do while you were waiting? Let’s say at a restaurant for someone? You’re in the lobby waiting for your friend to arrive so that the host will seat you at the table. What can you do with that time in order to not feel like it’s a waste? Personally, I’d rather be at home, not sitting in a waiting area. Can’t think of a whole lot to do.
That’s not right what he said.
I leave. If they are fifteen minutes late and no text saying there is a train, got in accident, running late...something...im gone.
If they don’t have the decency to notify me that they are running late I leave. Seven o’clock is the set time you better be there at seven.
I’m on time. That has been me. Always.
One time a guy said to another guy about me... he will be here right at six watch and I did. I pulled up and the other guy was amazed and told me what was said. I was a man of my word. It was a business I took care of every week. If I say I will be there then I will be there. If I don’t show and you don’t get a notification some fifteen minutes ahead of time saying that I’m running late then something bad happened to me.
To have a reputation of ALWAYS being late is unacceptable. You can’t always be late unless you actually try. Like you show up on time and say, “oh, I’m on time I will stop in this store and buy some gum.”
I was thinking more of inviting people to your house for dinner. Yes, meeting at a restaurant is another issue, but, again, most people with Smartphones today and wile away time on those. I don't own a smartphone yet, haven't embraces so much of the 21st century yet.
I agree that at home, it’s not as big of a deal. Away from home, I have a million other things I could be doing instead of sitting around waiting for people. That’s what’s frustrating.
A relative was in charge of the area office for a company. There were maybe 50 salesmen/warehouse workers/drivers/delivermen and ten secretaries/office workers. Now, most of the work for the salesmen/warehouse workers depended on the secretaries/office staff starting work on time as they would answer the phones to take late orders or change orders, etc. The secretaries/office staff worked 8 AM to 5PM.
It would really irk my relative when the office staff would either drive into the company parking lot at 8 AM and say that they were "on time", or drop off their coat in the coatroom at 8 AM and then go to the bathroom/fix their hair & makeup/drink a cup of coffee/etc. and wander over to their desk and phones about 8:20 or so. They considered themselves "on time".
My relative kept telling them, "Your job starts at 8 AM. That is when the phones start ringing and you need to be at your desk answering your phone & taking orders." So one day, before start time, he walked around the office and put a 10 dollar bill on each computer or phone. At, 8:01 he walked around and picked up the $10 bill from everyone who was not sitting at their desk ready to work. Some of the people in the bathroom fixing their hair or in the break room drinking coffee or in the parking lot were pretty miffed that they didn't get the $10 bonus that day. He did this on a random day every month or two and it seemed to help the punctuality of the staff. Also, chronic late comers were written up.
If you run a company where you have to have production meetings, et al, it's not just an annoyance. It destroys the productivity.
Imagine having a staff meeting schedule every freaking Monday at 8:30 a.m. Imagine 15 employees all managing to make it into the conference room at 8:25, get in their seats and ready to go. Now imagine the 2-3 employees who are busy getting coffee or just 'running behind.'
I ran two pretty casual work environments for years, the kind of place where people loved to work. But punctuality was absolutely non-negotiable. If the meeting began at 8:30, that means the meeting began at 8:30 without all the preliminaries and small talk. And if you couldn't manage that, then you were invited to work elsewhere. Same thing with deadlines. If you couldn't make a 1 pm deadline consistently, then we'd be having words.
Of course, there are things you can't help. Traffic jams. Whatever. But you know what's weird? A small percentage of the people have a large percentage of those excuses. That makes them a liability to the morale and productivity of any company, large or small.
If you run a company where you have to have production meetings, et al, it's not just an annoyance. It destroys the productivity.
Imagine having a staff meeting schedule every freaking Monday at 8:30 a.m. Imagine 15 employees all managing to make it into the conference room at 8:25, get in their seats and ready to go. Now imagine the 2-3 employees who are busy getting coffee or just 'running behind.'
I ran two pretty casual work environments for years, the kind of place where people loved to work. But punctuality was absolutely non-negotiable. If the meeting began at 8:30, that means the meeting began at 8:30 without all the preliminaries and small talk. And if you couldn't manage that, then you were invited to work elsewhere. Same thing with deadlines. If you couldn't make a 1 pm deadline consistently, then we'd be having words.
Of course, there are things you can't help. Traffic jams. Whatever. But you know what's weird? A small percentage of the people have a large percentage of those excuses. That makes them a liability to the morale and productivity of any company, large or small.
Same at AT&T, morning meetings your manager sits looking at the clock and words start flowing at 7:00 AM sharp. If you walk in at 7:01 you must open the now closed team room door, making a cacophony, and hope there's a seat nearby to shorten your walk of shame. This is if you don't get called into the 2nd level's office first. His office was the first door after you walk in, so he sees if ANYONE is late.
I think people that are constantly late to events with meetng people, etc, are rude, and have no respect for others.
If Im going to have someone meet me somewhere, I give 10 minutes grace, then go home, or just plain leave.
It did work with one friend, who knew, I wasnt tollerating it.
If dinner is at time X, eat, tell them, I will warm it up, etc.
DH is a rather unorganized, late person. ALWAYS I would be ready, standing there, tapping my foot while he scurried around in crisis mode. Drove me nuts and still does. I think as others pointed out, he has very poor "time awareness".
My husband and I are the exact opposites. He will be standing at the door fully dressed and tapping his foot 5-10 minutes before it's time to leave the house while I will be getting ready, relaxed, unhurried and without stress since I know I still have those 5-10 minutes.
I really see no need to put extra stress on myself by being anal about time. If it is something important like work or getting on a plane, I schedule myself so that leaving the house a little later than planned still gets me there on time. If it is something like a party or meeting with friends I trust other people to be able to entertain themselves for a little while waiting for me. If it is the other way around, I am there on time and the other person is late, I always find something to do: reading a book, ordering a drink, people watching etc, and I would not be mad when the other person arrives. Either way I see no need to be so strict about time. It is just putting extra stress on yourself. Maybe one of the reasons the Western man is so overstressed and harried is precisely the obsession with clock watching.
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Surprisingly, he's gotten better since retirement and living here. We don't have a car, so others will invite us to ride with them. Even though we are in So. America, our friends are usually early. DH finally got that thru' his head, so he'll start getting ready sooner, knowing we want to be out in the parking lot 10 min. early to show respect for those giving us a ride.
It's still a monkey-circus on airport days, though. It takes him 3X as long to get ready and I have NO idea why.
I would say he is doing it on purpose. If I were a retired person and had someone constantly trying to get me in a hurry/stress mode, I would do it too.
My sister wouldn't know how to be on time for anything, pretty sad! Poor time management skills also! She's fine with being late to work, she was fired from one really great job for lateness, never changed!
I hate being late and I like being 10 minutes early since I can get settled before I started work on time!
Some people just have no concept or consideration of others! If I had my own business lateness and absences would get you fired faster than anything from me. I would accept no excuses, don't care about your kids, you'd better be dead or in an accident! Yeah, I am a bit rigid there!
The late seem to think they need to come in and make a show of it or try and act like they weren't late. When clocking in is done at your computer where you need 1-2 minutes just to get the computer to boot up you need to be at least 5 min early!
Last edited by FierceKaia; 10-09-2019 at 06:49 PM..
Reason: formatting
I used to be constantly late. I blame it on my childhood. My mother was constantly late, by like 2 hours.
At one point in my life, around 35 years old or so, I decided to make it a priority to figure out how to be on time. I had a counselor at the time who helped me with this. It was a matter of being aware of how much time it really took me to do things. I had a really skewed sense of the amount of time it would take me to take a shower, fix my hair or whatever.
I also had this need to accomplish more during that time than just getting ready. Like I felt I should also get the dishes washed or whatever. Eventually, I started making myself start getting ready an hour before I normally would, and make a deal with myself that I wouldn't start any other projects. It was a mind game where I told myself - I'll start getting ready now, an hour before I think I need to, and if I happen to be ready way early, well, then I will do the dishes until it's time to leave - and I would have a realistic time-frame of when I needed to walk out the door.
Inevitably, there wouldn't be time to do anything else - but I started getting places on time.
Then, I discovered how much less stress I had in my life when I wasn't hurrying and worried about the consequences of being late, or yelling at the traffic, etc. And then I got addicted to how great it felt to leave early enough so even if there were delays, I knew I'd still be on time.
I now take a book with me everywhere, and I'm consistently early. There is so much less stress in my life! I get everywhere early, find a comfortable place and read my book until it's time for my appointment.
As far as dealing with friends now who are consistently late. What I do is never make them the main event. If they are someone I do really want to stay friends with, I will only invite them to a group event that will go on whether or not they show up. Nobody waits for the late person. Nobody picks them up or gets a ride from them - only meet them at the venue.
Dinner is never held up. If we go to a theater, we meet in the lobby on time and then go to our seats. If Ms. Late shows up late, she can just figure out where we are. And I have no trouble making this perfectly clear. I won't wait for you. I like to be in my seat early, so if you're late, you can find your seat whenever you arrive.
I also have no trouble turning my phone off and not dealing with someone adding stress to my life by trying to suck me into their level of anxiety. Sink or swim, but I'm going to sit down early at a show and I'm not texting with you to tell you where I'm sitting. You find me or you don't.
You just never let them be in a position to make or break your happiness or planned experiences. And I never warm up food for them. Too bad you missed the meal, it was really good. There's some wine in the fridge if you want to help yourself.
I don't like stress and I refuse to be sucked into someone else's need for it anymore, and fortunately, I don't have to.
I used to be constantly late. I blame it on my childhood. My mother was constantly late, by like 2 hours.
At one point in my life, around 35 years old or so, I decided to make it a priority to figure out how to be on time. I had a counselor at the time who helped me with this. It was a matter of being aware of how much time it really took me to do things. I had a really skewed sense of the amount of time it would take me to take a shower, fix my hair or whatever.
I also had this need to accomplish more during that time than just getting ready. Like I felt I should also get the dishes washed or whatever. Eventually, I started making myself start getting ready an hour before I normally would, and make a deal with myself that I wouldn't start any other projects. It was a mind game where I told myself - I'll start getting ready now, an hour before I think I need to, and if I happen to be ready way early, well, then I will do the dishes until it's time to leave - and I would have a realistic time-frame of when I needed to walk out the door.
Inevitably, there wouldn't be time to do anything else - but I started getting places on time.
Then, I discovered how much less stress I had in my life when I wasn't hurrying and worried about the consequences of being late, or yelling at the traffic, etc. And then I got addicted to how great it felt to leave early enough so even if there were delays, I knew I'd still be on time.
I now take a book with me everywhere, and I'm consistently early. There is so much less stress in my life! I get everywhere early, find a comfortable place and read my book until it's time for my appointment.
As far as dealing with friends now who are consistently late. What I do is never make them the main event. If they are someone I do really want to stay friends with, I will only invite them to a group event that will go on whether or not they show up. Nobody waits for the late person. Nobody picks them up or gets a ride from them - only meet them at the venue.
Dinner is never held up. If we go to a theater, we meet in the lobby on time and then go to our seats. If Ms. Late shows up late, she can just figure out where we are. And I have no trouble making this perfectly clear. I won't wait for you. I like to be in my seat early, so if you're late, you can find your seat whenever you arrive.
I also have no trouble turning my phone off and not dealing with someone adding stress to my life by trying to suck me into their level of anxiety. Sink or swim, but I'm going to sit down early at a show and I'm not texting with you to tell you where I'm sitting. You find me or you don't.
You just never let them be in a position to make or break your happiness or planned experiences. And I never warm up food for them. Too bad you missed the meal, it was really good. There's some wine in the fridge if you want to help yourself.
I don't like stress and I refuse to be sucked into someone else's need for it anymore, and fortunately, I don't have to.
This bold area is the key. Kudos for fixing a pet peeve.
Hour to shower, ten to dress twenty to get there... it’s all in the planning.
I remember seeing a person I know needed to be somewhere at a certain time who had not begun getting ready yet. I literally said, “Shouldn’t you start getting ready?”
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