I am a chronically early arriver because I hate to be late, so chances are, it’ll be very close to 9. The exception would be if meeting with someone I know is routinely late, and even then, it’d be closer to 9:30 than 10, knowing full well I’ll be twiddling my thumbs till 11. I might skew later for a casual party or hanging out, but for a meal, where timing can be important, or for a trip where schedules may not be flexible, I’m definitely showing up just barely after 9.
With family, I tend to be even earlier, but on occasion, it’s been made clear that early would be bad, so I adjust accordingly.
The bad part about being early is that those who aren’t early are late! Yeah, I know, my problem.
How do you deal with an invite or appointment with a time frame rather than a specific time?
In Germany, arrive on time. In Brazil, maybe one to one-and-a-half hours after when they say at the earliest, definitely not “on time” unless you want to find your hostess still washing her hair. In the U.S., you need to know the cultural background of your hosts but you could show up, say, 20–30 minutes after the stated time, which, if it is “between 9 and 10”, means you could show up between 9:30 and 10.
If I was given an hour range in which to show up, my latent OCD tendencies would likely kick in and I’d get there almost precisely at the half hour mark.
There is something in my DNA that makes it impossible for me to be late. So I’ll get there at 8:45 and sit in my car until 9:00.
I currently have to be at work at 6:00 and my boss would not care if I was a little bit late, but I still get a very icky anxiety if it looks like I might arrive at 6:01. It’s ridiculous.
See, the thing is, I’m on time or early for things where you give me a starting time. If you give me a range, I assume you actually don’t really want me there on the too early or late side of that range, just giving me a buffer so if my schedule works better with me arriving earlier, I’m free to do so, or if I’m running errands or a child is having a meltdown, I got a generous window of time to work with. If I tell someone “anytime between 9 and 10,” I do mean any time, but I expect something towards the middle of the range, maybe a median of a 9:35 arrival time. Except Cousin Mike; he’ll be there at 9.
Since I started working a regular job in my teens till the day I retired at 64 years of age, I was never late for work once unless it was preplanned for some reason. About 10 times over those years, something happened that would have made me late for work. In all those cases, I said screw it and took the day off.
As far as the OP’s question, it would depend on the occasion. If it was something I was looking forward too, I would be there about 9 to 9:15. If it was something I didn’t care to be at, I would show up about 10 and look for a way to leave as soon as possible.
First I would be annoyed at the vague range, because I do like specificity, but then I would start fighting my instinct, which would be the show up at exactly 9 o’clock. As a further fight against that instinct, I would at some point tell myself that I absolutely will not show up until say 9:40, but as the moment approached I would find myself getting in my car and arrive there at 9:13, and call it a victory.
Realistically, 8:50 to 10:10. I don’t want to be insanely early or excessively late, but I also don’t sweat on-the-dot-precise punctuality that hard anymore, especially if someone is giving me that loose of a range. Depending on the person if I get there a few minutes early I may very well wait until after 9:00 and I’ll make some effort not to get there after 10:00. But honestly every person that I know that would give an hour range would also not give a shit if I was a few minutes on either side of that.
I’d just try and show up before 10. I’d expect that sort of statement to be casual, and thus not really sweat trying to get there “on time” like I would for something with a fixed time.
The main difference is that I’d still go in even if I arrived at 9:30. I wouldn’t do that otherwise. I’d wait until at least 9:50 if I was just told to arrive at 10:00 or “before 10.”
