I don’t doubt that a few people who are chronically tardy have some sort of brain damage. What I do have a problem with is the fact that you’re painting a large portion of the chronically late with the same broad, brain-damaged brush. If every ADD sufferer was chronically late due to brain damage (they aren’t), we still would not see the high numbers of rude people continually failing to show up on time for engagements they agreed to. The default assumption is that these people don’t try hard enough. A handful of them may actually have a physical reason for their habitual tardiness.
All through my middle school life, (i’m in 7th grade now) i’ve never been late for a class.
Good job, Mr. Nuggets. I’m sure your teachers appreciate it.
<blink, blink> Uh, because we were together, and talked to each other about things over time?
Because he and I had several long discussions subsequent to his arriving 30 or 45 minutes late to an agreed upon time to meet up with me over the course of our dating?
Part of at least one of those discussions went something like this:
“So you knew I was waiting for you at Stone Soup, you knew you were already late, but you still decided to go shopping???”
“Hey, they were having a sale! And you know I’ve been needing new speakers.”
How can this be interpreted as anything EXCEPT “I decided looking at new speakers was more important than keeping my commitment to be with you”??
Oh, come on. He probably has undiagnosed ADD. :rolleyes:
You won’t ever catch me calling foul for a so called hi-jack. I imagine the boards as a cocktail party. We might have started off talking about punctuality, but then someone new walks up to the punch bowl and our conversation reminds them of something loosley related, and so on…
So if I tell someone they are ugly and their mother dresses them funny, they shouldn’t be insulted? If they assume my comment had malicious intent, then they must be misreading my mind? I might not be trying to hurt their feelings, but just stating a fact. :rolleyes:
What I’m getting at here is that you don’t need to pre-meditate or intend disprespect or insult to acheive it.
I’m curious. Were you on time for work that morning? 
No, actually I do have some ADD traits but not nearly enough of them to claim I have it or be diagnosed with it. However I continually astonish my own self with my inability to sense the passage of time. Which means, if I don’t look out, my life will pass me by with me still thinking there’s time to cross off the rest of the things on my ‘life list’ right up until the time of my coil-shuffling.
Has anyone visited the other thread lately that inspired this one? I particularly enjoyed Obsidian’s post at #95
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406624&page=2&pp=50
I enjoyed lezlers at #99 much more.
But I’m glad you’re pleased that you managed to browbeat someone into submission. Good on ya. :rolleyes:
Other people have, though. I do, however, consider behavior inconsiderate if they do not openly show a regret for being late that’s a bit more serious than a unemotional “Oh, sorry” upon greeting me in their tardiness.
Honestly, your commentary is that of someone who enables others to forsake personal responsibility for the sake of hiding behind some sort of mental deficit that they most likely DO NOT HAVE. Also, you’re not making a good argument for yourself when it comes to inability to manage time. Seriously, how hard is it for you to avoid things that distract you? Do you have ANY impulse control? I have some ADD and OCD tendencies that can cause me to be late or disrupt my day entirely, but I have learned ways to cope with it so I do not disrupt my life or others. I have to make an extra effort to do so, but with time, it has become routine to make this extra effort.
To veer a little off topic, but to use a more personal analogy. Would you blame me for the consequences I suffered if I made no effort to avoid the things that trigger my asthmatic reactions to non-allergic triggers, or is it okay BECAUSE I have that particular medical condition? [sub](Personally, I avoid triggers all I can, and make sure I have an emergency inhaler on me at all times. Additionally, I use Astelin when I know I’ll be headed to an area with a lot of people, a high tendency towards triggers, or an unknown place that may or may not have a trigger strong enough to cause a reaction. It’s not foolproof, but then again, I rarely have asthmatic/histamine reactions to the triggers anymore because of my own forethought and planning.) [/sub]
I hope that by “you” you mean us punctual ones because I haven’t even posted to that thread for 4 days, let alone “browbeated” anyone (and that last post was only to say I was starting this thread).
Didn’t look like “browbeating into submission” to me—it looked more like someone who considered the near-universal opinion of others on this topic, and came to the realization that perhaps he/she might be the one who was in the wrong. (An utterly alien concept, I’m sure.)
It is curious, though, to see you demonstrate the same psychic ability to read others’ thoughts (in determining he/she was “browbeaten” rather than making the decision voluntarily) that you have thusfar spent several posts loudly insisting does not exist.
Partly true.
As I was growing up with two severely disorganized parents, I learnt to regard their tardiness as… well, as a sign that my poor, poor parents were overstressed and that I really shouldn’t impose on them with my own petty demands, like keeping their promises, showing up on time and informing me where they were, and picking me up when they said they would.
To show you how bad they were: when I was five years old and had spent the night in hospital for some minor surgery (tonsils) they actually forgot to pick me up from the hospital. I just calmly waited untill a nurse had called them; I guess I had gotten used to it by then.
So yeah, time for some new standards.
:rolleyes: I saw the browbeating. I do not claim to know the thoughts of the poster in question. Nice try.
How do you define four per cent of adults as ‘most likely’? And I am sick to death of people who use this ‘personal responsibility’ crap as a weapon. Do you comprehend disability? As in inability to? Have you looked at the brain scans?
This thread isn’t about me. But I do hyperfocus; i.e. get deeply involved in whatever I’m doing such that things external to me (time, for instance) are unnoticed. I almost undressed completely one day in school because, lost in thought, I somehow figured I was at home. Another day I was buried in a book to the extent that I sneezed loudly in a jokey way the way we did at home. And only this morning a half-hour flew by in what seemed like two minutes.
Well good for you. You do get that saying ‘those who do not do what I do are wrong’ is kinda judgmental, do you not?
If the asthmatic triggers affected your ability to plan, then no I wouldn’t. The problem is that the thing that causes people to be late is the same thing that prevents them from fixing it effectively.
Yes. English needs a neutral collective pronoun. Back to ‘vous’.
The thing is, no matter how well I plan or prepare myself with medication, I still am affected by triggers. The only thing it really does is lessen the severity of my reaction.
Not to go all Dr. Phil on you yet again, but I don’t think you have any concept of the idea that the majority of people who are actually late do not have the same problems as you with correcting the issue. And, well, the more I hear, the more I wonder how you completely lose track of reality, such as in the undressing in school anecdote. Can you really not tell the difference between “at school” and “at home” when you zone out? If so, then maybe you should seek some sort of treatment for that, as it must hinder your ability to cope with everyday living.
We do - witness “y’all”.
I just don’t see why, even if you do have some sort of crippling brain disorder, it would come with an allergy to alarm clocks or watches. Unless that’s just too much trouble to avoid being late and making me miss the movie too, in other words. Which is what we’re saying.