Lateness

sorry thats pretty uncool. i'm supposed to be a rockstar, not a dag.

I generally always get to wherever it is I'm supposed to be way too early. I normally leave at least half an hour before I need too (though this is because South West Trains are Very Very Bad and I don't trust them). Usually, what happens though, is that I'll arrive somewhere about half an hour later then try to fill in the time by wandering around a bit then end up eventually arriving slightly (about 5 minutes) late. I'm always way earlier than everyone else though.

My rule for getting annoyed with my girlfriend's lateness - if she is late such that she must actually have left AFTER she was meant to meet me then I am wrathful, otherwise no worries. ;)

I am always late for work but I'm last to leave every day too - since I'm not working closely with anyone I can't see the harm.

I'm rarely late (except for work), but the vagaries of london's public transport mean this means being very early a lot of the time.

I used to pride myself on never being late for anything, that is, until I moved to first Tooting and then Herts. I used to leave at least 15 minutes early for everything, to insure that even if I was delayed, I would still arrive on time. But between the Thameslink and the Northern bloody Line, they invariably confound even my bestest of plans. I cannot WAIT until I move to N1 and I never have to rely on public transport again, so I can WALK everywhere, and god help you if you get in my way.

Ugh, people who are late just fuck me off. It's not just inconsiderate, it's DISRESPECTFUL. It's their fucking egomaniacal way of saying "My time is more important than yours". Which is fucking isn't. I used to be ruthless, and just LEAVE if someone kept me waiting more than 15 minutes TOPS. I think I should probably resort to that rule again.

If I am meeting Tom I really do not worry about being late as he will probably be later. if I am meeting Emma I better damn well be on time because she is always 5 minutes early. I think uptight people with a vague idea of personal perfection of superiority are the types who are always early (lateness being an aspect taught at school to be important - and you can be better than other people at).

It's not like being on time is an unattainable goal like looking like a supermodel or something, it is perfectly within the grasp of anyone with the ability to tell the time and the ability to get a bloody move on and be ready to leave on time.

This *did* in fact once happen to me at someone's wedding (not mine, sadly for the comical resonance). I missed the wedding feast becuz i did not know where it was occurring. I hate weddings.

I mean, I see the thing about personality types, and there are some friends who I will say 6pm, SHARP to, and they will understand, and some for whom time is a range, so I will say 6/6.30-ish, and make sure we meet in a place where there are diversions.

But honestly. The people with the fucking SUPERIORITY COMPLEXES are the ones who think they are SO BLOODY IMPORTANT that no one else has anything else in the world to do except STAND AROUND AND WAIT FOR THEM.

But as I type I am in the situation of waiting for someone who is FUCKING LATE. I hate waiting.

What really annoys me is when meetings I need to get on with are postponed.

Yet I'm not that bad at arriving on time, quite punctual in fact, but there's far more important things to worry about than ten minutes here or there.

BTW the whole idea of punctuality is very western/anglo-saxon. Many other cultures just don't get our obsession with exact times and schedules. Mexican families laugh when they get invitations to a little white kid's birthday party: "'2-4pm' wtf?"

I decided it was time to stop when I heard something somewhere about "chronic lateness" being a kind of passive-aggressive expression of hostility and/or arrogance. Made sense to me, so I cut it out (though I still have hostility and arrogance issues, obv).

I do think people who get all bent out of shape over it need to chill, generally. (Workplace is an exception, if there's a good reason such as a meeting or interview to arrive at a certain time.)

i once came across someone who actually admired me because he thought i was living in the moment whereas he is so paranoid about being late that he can't enjoy what he's doing. i probably should have just married that guy.

Right. It goes without saying that it's only annoying when you don't wanna see them. But I'm not psychic, so I don't always know when people would like my company. That's why I call ahead.

How do you figure people "know how long shit takes" as a rule? There are an awful lot of times when I leave my house with extremely good intentions and get fucked around. A) subways B) traffic C) not being familiar with the area I am heading to and getting turned around D) unforseen run-ins with friends, acquaintances that hold things up E) forgetting to do something really quick that ends up taking much longer than you expected F) needing to pick up some beers (or whatever) before you arrive and running into a problem at the grocers.

ETC ETC ETC there are about 8 trillion valid reasons as to why one would be held up. This is why whenever I set up a social situation, the time frame is usually "We'll meet around 9 or 10 pm". If someone is like 2 hours late, that's one thing, but just general lateness isn't really a sign of anything more than underestimating the amount of problems one can run into while getting to somewhere.

Which makes it even funnier that the official reason for my being sacked from my last job was "lack of punctuality and poor timekeeping" heh heh heh.

Anyway, erm...

It's cool for social functions, none of my friends care and neither do I, it's a give or take thing. But for work and stuff it can be awful and I still do it. Last week I slept it out and was 4 hours late for a job I'm doing for my Dad whereby I greet some of his clients and stuff. It was a disaster and I was seriously disgusted with myself and guilty, the money is especially good which heightens the guilt but eases the speed at which you find method to alleviate it.

Anyway yesterday I was all set to do the job right, and I got to my dad's workplace and realised I'd brought the wrong key to open up, so I was late by an hour or so when I went back to get it. I felt guilty all day and most of today too, and my parents went absolutely crazy.

Then today I forgot to bring an envelope with me into work which I had to drop off where my dad works, I ended up using my lunch hour to get the bus back home and get it. Basically I am a total sievebrain lately.

It IS really hard to break the habit of procrastinating and being late, of course it's annoying for people but it's genuinely like an addiction sometimes. The mental block I have about doing something the moment I think of it is gigantic. The resulting guilt is also huge. Last night I didn't even want to go home to my own house after that key business.

It's fine being late in social situations I think, it's just that it leads you into the habit of being absent minded in general, which sucks and makes any job ten times harder.

But everyone I know realises I'm gonna be late now. So if there's something on at six o'clock, they tell me to come at half five.

My girlfriend is even worse. She often doesn't leave the house until 15 minutes AFTER she was supposed to meet someone, when the journey's gonna take half an hour. And as she's running out the door she asks ME to phone them to let them know.

The only reason why I'm overreacting is cos it's such a simple fucking solution. Unless of course all your friends are just as late as you are, in which case there's no problem.

"We'll be there around six or seven," when we're planning on hanging out for awhile and then I'll cook -> not a problem even if they're not there till eight.

"We're going to the 6:20 movie, we'll pick you up around 5:45" -> a problem if they end up picking me up at 6:00, cause then we've missed the movie.

"We'll be over for dinner at 7:00" and then not showing up until 8:00 when you know I've been cooking in advance and had timed things so dinner would be on the table at 7:30 -> a problem. Depending on what I'm making, half an hour could be half an hour too long.

"I'm putting you down for an eleven o'clock appointment" and then not showing up for the appointment -> major problem. Hampshire College cost me an extra $15K because they wouldn't let you drop out without meeting with a specific person, who repeatedly skipped our appointments until the deadline to drop out and get a refund had passed. I invented new swear words for that occasion.

Basically, if someone being late means me waiting around for long periods of time with nothing to do, or in bad weather or etc., I'll smack them upside the head if they don't have a good reason. But that's a small percentage of the time.

i am always first to arrive

This went from being something I didn't give a shit about in my 20s to the thing that will get me to never invite someone out again for

Do you have a cutoff of how late is acceptable to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO8CWK9pxps

Big difference between late and communicated (no sweat) and late but not communicated (excommunication)

I don't care about like ten minutes and I give most people a mulligan but people who constantly show up a half hour or more late with no head's up and for no reason other than "they lost track of time" is a big nope

Xpost yep exactly.

eight o'clock
nine o'clock
quarter to ten