For me, its a sign of disrespect. “You’re not worth enough time/worry/ whatever on my part to give a rat’s ass about your time table.” My brother-in-law, Dean, and his whole family are like that - they were even late for their own son’s/grandson’s baptism and everyone had to wait for them. And they lived closest to the church! Jerks.
I used to have a problem with being late. I’m not sure why, really. But, I managed to correct it. Now, I’m on time, mostly…as long as it’s just me, or just me and the kids.
If I’ve got to factor my husband into it, forget it. Good Christ. I do NOT understand why he can’t learn like I did. It’s not difficult, especially when it’s something like a family event that’s on a Saturday and we don’t have to get up early for it or anything.
And in his day-to-day life, it’s a problem too. He won’t start getting ready for anything until the last possible second, and then he’ll run around like a chicken with his head cut off, bitching about how he’s going to be late. Well, he could have prevented it.
Don’t misunderstand–I’m not saying that I’m better than anyone or anything because I learned how not to be late. I’ve still got my moments when I’ve got problems getting my own crap together. I just don’t understand why my husband won’t learn how to be on time, when he knows it’s such a huge issue.
Oh yeah–and if something unexpected happens (stuff like that happens to everyone) and you know it’s going to make you late, a phone call is nice, if possible. I understand flat tire/sick child/wait at the doctor’s office/meteor strike. Believe me, I do.
Not to make a huge generalization, but to merely report a trend: I’ve known a few people who were chronically, habitually late, and they all had one thing in common - they were all utterly self-absorbed. For these people it truly was that their time is far more valuable than everyone else’s.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.
I normally would not have fixed anything for Ms. Tardy. I would have just told her when dinner was and said, “Sorry.”
If it was someone unexpectedly being delayed (caught behind that 20-car pileup on the freeway), then sure, fix them a plate of food as it’s being served and stick it in the fridge for when they get there.
If it’s someone who’s always late, and you’re feeling especially kind, you could fix them a plate just out of the goodness of your heart. Otherwise, tough luck. Eat pie.
It sounded like as_u_wish was feeling conflicted about having served dinner, and I was offering an alternative.
IME lateness can be 1.) situational (uncontrollable circumstances) or 2.) chronic a.) scattiness or b.) conscious or unconscious manipulation.
I can overlook 1 and 2-a. Too many occurances lapse into 2-b. I’m almost obsessively early m’self, but understand that many take a much more relaxed view of things. But somewhere along the line common courtesy kicks in. Keeping other people waiting is rude. Arrogant. Self indulgent. It’s saying, “T’hell with you and what we arranged, you’ll wait upon my convenience.”
My worst experience was getting an otherwise wonderful friend to a wedding on time. The bride and her family asked me to somehow get her there on time for the ceremony. (Says something that she had to be an assignment, hmmm?) I allowed an extra four hours just for her to futz around and we were still late. I had to rant, rage and physically bully her into the car. She seemed totally oblivious. We crept in mid-ceremony but what’s a little disruption, huh?
Situational lateness happens. Chronic lateness is a basic lack of courtesy and respect.*
Veb
[sub]* don’t want to be late? Then just don’t promise to a time. Then the onus in on you to link up, adapt, whatever. If you do commit, show up reasonably on time you’re putting the burden on everyone else.[/sub]
Chronically tardy people tend to be more narcissistic and self-absorbed than the rest of the populace. They also tend to vehemently deny these character traits in themselves.
I’m chronically early, because I hate to be late. I’m pretty narcissistic and self-absorbed too; I just show it in different (annoying) ways.
What, you didn’t like my ice cream suggestion?
Reading this thread, I made a list of everyone I can think of who’s chronically late. Every one of them is extremely inconsiderate and self-absorbed in other, tangible ways.
PunditLisa would have gone home at 8pm.
Kerith - My BIL and SIL are consistently late. We used to hold dinner for them and stew about it. One Thanksgiving his entire family was complaining about how rude he was and we just decided, as a group, we weren’t going to take it anymore. The hostess got up and started serving dinner.
The whole family (6 of them) walked in as we were all enjoying our pie and seemed genuinely surprised that we hadn’t waited dinner for them.
Next holiday, we did the same thing. The Pundits believe in tough love.
Happy Ending: BIL is no longer tardy for dinner.
Oh, please elaborate! Don’t leave us hanging here, man!
Getting back to the specific question of the OP, instead of all of the various self-absorbed, narcissistic, disrespectful friends and family of various Dopers…
This screamed at me. When coupled with your comment about her readiness to run out of the door at the end of the work day, I’m left thinking that the problem is not with this woman’s organization, her time management or her respect for you and the other carpooler.
Yes, there is some amount of passive-aggressiveness going on, but I don’t think that it’s directed at you. I think you’re simply caught in the middle – an unintended casualty, collateral damage, if you will.
I think that this woman is unhappy with going to work. I’ve counseled countless employees with “promptness problems” and this was the underlying factor in many of them. The behaviors you mentioned – dawdling in the morning, doing chores unnecessarily, getting involved in delayable distractions all point to someone who is trying to put off that inevitable moment when they have to leave and go somewhere that they doesn’t want to be.
The thing is, your carpooler may not have realized it yet.
And it may not be because she doesn’t like her job. It may be because there are things going on in her personal or home life that she’d rather be dealing with, things that she feels get short shrift or are interfered with by her work.
That said, it isn’t your place to punish her or to work to modify her behavior – you’re not her boss, her parent or her shrink. There is no reason for you to make her problem into your problem. Your only concern is that you get to work on time, and the obvious way to address that concern is to drop this woman from your carpool entirely. If her unresolved issues are causing problems for you and the carpool, tell her so, and tell her that after next week or the end of the month or whatever date you choose that she’ll have to work out another commuting solution. She’ll deal with her own issues for herself.
The problem with going back and changing pronouns and adding clauses to sentences?
You take out a “she” and put in a “they” and end up with stuff llike “that they doesn’t want to be.” and change a “something” to a “things” you get “things that she feels” ai yi yi.
IOW, please ignore the egregious errors in grammar in the previous post. Thank you. 
Just remember, whomsoever does not live as ticky-tocky industrial clockwork drone is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL! Could part of the “problem” be that our culture has come to place excess emphasis upon “time” and “schedules”? That many people are able to adapt to the new way of doing things doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily right.
After all, the majority of city dwellers in the middle 19th century were able to get by in living conditions we would consider simply unacceptable today. However, since so many people could survive under those conditions, they must be okay, right?
In general, I have a set of priorities over how much attention I will pay to being prompt. For most situations, I’m a definite “CPT” kind of guy. I can do “WPT” when I have to, but I don’t live my life off a clock.
Originally posted by Dogface:
That may or may not be true, Dogface, but I think it’s hardly the “problem” or the point.
In order to keep the boss happy, BobT & co-workers must be at work at a certain time: This is a given - whether it’s a stupid given doesn’t matter. This woman knows that her fellow car-poolers have to be at work at a certain time, yet seemingly isn’t willing/able to be ready on time.
Whether she & her boss are in the right in terms of not sticking to a schedule is irrelevant; what matters is the fact that, by dawdling, etc., she’s inconsiderate of members of the carpool who do need to arrive at work before a certain time.
I agree. There is no way to work this problem out other than her finding another way to work or being on other people’s schedules.
Thanks for everyone’s opinion.
I think once I come back from vacation and the late person comes back from her, we’ll just sit down and discuss the situation with her.
My nature is that I don’t like to talk to people in such a way that I think they will be unhappy with me. However, I guess I better get used to being a bit tougher since I’m going to be a boss in a few months. (But not the boss of the late person.)
“New way of doing things”? What are you talking about? Clocks and keeping time were invented a long time ago.
It’s really very simple; if you can’t be on time, do not make a promise you will be at a certain place at a certain time. Don’t agree to arriving at 7 if you are physically incapable of being there at 7. How hard is that? If you can’t do it, don’t say you’ll do it.
I don’t live my life off a clock. I don’t even wear a watch 49 days out of 50. But it’s not hard to be somewhere on time if you know someone is waiting for you.
(Shrug) You want a point for point list?
EVERYONE I know who is genuinely considerate and nice is usually on time. Not always - shit happens - but usually.
The people I do know who are never on time are universally jerks:
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My uncle Mike is famously late for everything. If dinner is at 6, he will arrive no earlier than 7, and you’re lucky if he’s there then. He is never on time for anything EXCEPT work - I assume he gets to work on time, since he works shift work and would be fired if he was late too many times. He’s totally unconscious of his effect on other people in almost every other way, too, to the extent that he’s ruined his own family; his kids ran away and his wife left him.
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Mrs. RickJay’s dad’s girlfriend cannot be on time for anything, ever, and on more than one occasion has forced other people to be late so she could do things like take pictures. She’s an inconsiderate, backstabbing bitch of the first order, selfish and cheap and mean, and she hates Mrs. RickJay and her sisters because they “get in the way.”
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Her daughter is the same way except crazier.
If you want I can run through the other four or five names I came up with of the chronically late, but it’s the same thing, over and over again.
I don’t buy the scatterbrained defense, either. My dad’s a scatterbrain, but he’s usually on time. My sister’s a flake, but she’s usually on time. My grandparents are as old as the hills and don’t think very well anymore but they’re on time. I’m no genius - heck, I never wear a watch, as I mentioned above - and I’m always on time. I’m not anal about being on time - I just don’t want other people inconvenienced for no good reason.
You seem quick to doubt the truth of the notion that chronically late people are inconsiderate, erislover. Well, here’s proof; they’re chronically late. That’s inconsiderate. Wasting OTHER PEOPLE’S TIME makes one an asshole. It’s inherently rude. Being late because shit happens, well, happens - there’s nothing you can do if there was an accident on the highway and you were stuck in traffic, or if the kid unexpectedly had to be picked up, or the dog got sick. Being late because you just don’t care means you don’t care that you’re inconveniencing other people for no good reason, and that’s the very definition of a jerk. Set the damn clock back.
I don’t think I could beg the question in less words if I tried. Good job! If we ever meet at a dopefest I’ll give you a stuffed animal.
My brother’s late most of the time for things… we blame it on his “musician’s temperament.”
Well, I know some people who are chronically late - one particular family, all of whom do this - and they are, other than that, generally nice considerate people. We just start events without them.
Myself, I’m a mixture of the two. I’m both chronically late and obsessively punctual. No, really. If there is anyone waiting for me, or my delay will cause problems for anyone other than myself then I am on time, often 5 minutes early. On the other hand, if it’s something that will affect only myself then I tend to be 5-10 minutes late at least. The main example is lectures - I’m late for as many as half of my 9AM lectures. However, I can just slip in at the back and sit down without causing any problems for the lecturer or my fellow students.
Why am I late for these? Combination of factors. Poor time organisation, a strong attachment to sleep and a dislike for most of my earlier lecture courses (although I’m sometimes late for the ones I like as well). It doesn’t affect anyone else, so I just don’t have enough motivation to get myself organised for them.