Is punctuality a choice?

[VinylTurnip]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

:rolleyes: I saw the browbeating. I do not claim to know the thoughts of the poster in question. Nice try.

Then Obsidian, it would seem, is helpless to formulate his/her own opinion in the same way a person with ADD is helpless to take action to rectify their punctuality problem. I think I see a pattern forming here.

In your world, are human beings ever capable of acting upon their volition, rather than simply being pawns subject to the whims of external forces?

[nashiitashii]

@Vinyl Turnip

Then Obsidian, it would seem, is helpless to formulate his/her own opinion in the same way a person with ADD is helpless to take action to rectify their punctuality problem. I think I see a pattern forming here.

In your world, are human beings ever capable of acting upon their volition, rather than simply being pawns subject to the whims of external forces?

I do believe that we’ve come to the same conclusion, then, Vinyl Turnip.

[Contrapuntal]

@Frylock

To be fair: What Contrapuntal is saying is that he doesn’t pretend to know why she thinks there is something more important than keeping her appointment with him, but rather, simply notes that she does in fact consistently find something else to be more important than keeping her appointment with him. It follows from the fact that she does not keep her appointment with him (along with an assumption that she was not held up by something beyond her control) that in each individual case, she has put a higher value on something else than on keeping her appointment.

Contrapuntal doesn’t know (and presumably doesn’t care) what motivates her to devalue the keeping of her appointment in these cases. He just knows she does devalue it. (Where by “devalue” I mean neither “assign no value” nor “assign less value than is appropriate” but rather "value to a lesser extent than something else.)

In other words, Contrapuntal doesn’t know (or I presume care) what it is that she has valued more than keeping the appointment. He just notes that she consistently does value something more than keeping the appointment.

Spot on.

I think Contrapuntal is not speaking English correctly (;)) when he says that to ascribe thoughts to people in order to explain their behavior is not to ascribe motivations to them. But I believe the above translates Contrapuntal’s thought into a more standard (if more stilted) form of English.

Not all thoughts are motivations. “I choose red shoes over black shoes” is a thought, but it does not speak to the motivation. “If I choose black shoes, the bad guy will shoot my puppy” is a thought and a motivation. When I say I know what someone was thinking by observing her behavior, I am referring to the former.

@QG

You have chosen to interpret ‘late’ as ‘disrespectful’. That is your interpretation. IT is not in the dictionary. It is not a rule. It is your own particular idea. It is shared by some other people but by no means all other people. And since, so far as I know, nobody has appointed you the arbiter of the definition of disrespect, you do not get to feel that your interpretation is the valid interpretation for all people.

You have taken that quote a bit out of context, but no matter. Forget “respect.” It is not really important. What is important is that a person shows a pattern of behavior that tells me that she cares so little about keeping her word, and so little about whether she causes me to waste my time, that she consistently chooses to be late for our meetings. I think that is disrespectful, but it is not the crux of the issue. The crux is that my time is being wasted for no good reason, and without apology.

No. What she thinks is the content of her thoughts, which are inside her head, where you are not.

You simply must get over this idea that I must be a mind reader in order to know what someone thinks. I know what you think about punctuality, and I can’t read your mind. I know what a peace activist thinks about the war in Iraq, simply by observing where he chooses to stand on a particular day. I know what a Chicagoan thinks about the Bears by noting the excessive body paint. Behavior can reveal thoughts. It is really not all that difficult.

See, there’s where you’re doing the mind-reading. You assume she ‘chooses to be llate’.

I see that I must carve this point exceedingly fine. Amend it to "If she chooses to take action that she knows will make her late." I suppose you could argue that if I throw a brick through a window, it does not necessarily follow that I was choosing *to break *the window. Maybe just throwing the brick was all I had in mind. It would be a difficult point to support.

What is motivation if it’s not what a person thinks? You right there just said ‘she thinks her time is more important’. You are saying you know what she thinks. You do not. You are merely assuming. And you know what that does.

I have addressed that in my reply to Frylock. Please read it. Essentially, not every thought is a motivation. Can you possibly disagree?

[lowbrass]

@Maastricht

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.

Wow, interesting story. Now I want to psychoanalyze you a bit. Surely, when you were stuck in the hospital and your parents forgot to come get you, you must have had feelings about it. If you have no emotions about that incident, I can only think you must be repressing them. I can’t imagine that there’s a 5 year-old child on the planet who wouldn’t be affected by that. You must have felt dismay and anger, right?

So when you say “it is hard to imagine the anger of the punctual person who has to wait for me”, is that really true? Surely you felt some anger when you had to wait for your parents as a child.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

Again, I will bold some relevant passages

**nashiitashii **

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.

While I’m sometimes tardy, this thread is not about me. I had a bf with ADD which caused me to educate myself about the issues surrounding it. And meet the people you people scorn. And see how hard they struggle.

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?

It was just an illustration. It was long ago. And yes, when I was younger my powers of concentration were that much stronger so that whatever I was doing got my full attention.

**Zsofia **

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.

But, again, you are judging ‘too much trouble’. It’s not about that. You assume the person sees a choice and makes a choice. They forget to look at the clock. They forget to look at the date book. And because memory is a problem, they forget time and again.

Did you read the ADHD E-book? The part where you can punish a kid a dozen times but the kid will keep doing it because he forgets? Why is it so hard to explain a brain deficit to people who ostensibly don’t have one?

**Vinyl Turnip **

In your world, are human beings ever capable of acting upon their volition, rather than simply being pawns subject to the whims of external forces?

Something which is not functioning in your brain is hardly an ‘external force’.

As to the rest of that snark, it doesn’t deserve an answer.

**Contrapuntal **

Not all thoughts are motivations.

Forget I said the word motivation, ok?

When I say I know what someone was thinking by observing her behavior, I am referring to the former.

And you are making a false assumption. You have chosen to believe that a person’s behaviour signifies that the person has made a conscious choice. That is not the case. You have no proof that a choice was made. To make a choice indicates that a person is aware of what he is doing, knows there are two options, and picks one option over another. That is not what people with ADD do. They are in trouble right at the first bit; the ‘being aware’ bit because they are immersed, absorbed, fully concentrated, occupied, engrossed in what they are doing at the moment.

The thought ‘I should look at my watch’ does not occur.
The thought ‘I will be late if I don’t leave now’ does not occur.
The thought ‘gee, I’m supposed to be someplace’ may not even occur.
The only thought, unless something interrupts, will be whatever is going on in front of him at that time until it is finished or until he tires.

Do you get it yet? There is no choice because they don’t even get to any point where there would be a choice. It’s not ‘shall I leave now and be on time or leave later and be late’ at all but you assume it is. You are wrong.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

And you are making a false assumption. You have chosen to believe that a person’s behaviour signifies that the person has made a conscious choice. That is not the case. You have no proof that a choice was made. To make a choice indicates that a person is aware of what he is doing, knows there are two options, and picks one option over another. That is not what people with ADD do. They are in trouble right at the first bit; the ‘being aware’ bit because they are immersed, absorbed, fully concentrated, occupied, engrossed in what they are doing at the moment.

The thought ‘I should look at my watch’ does not occur.
The thought ‘I will be late if I don’t leave now’ does not occur.
The thought ‘gee, I’m supposed to be someplace’ may not even occur.
The only thought, unless something interrupts, will be whatever is going on in front of him at that time until it is finished or until he tires.

Do you get it yet? There is no choice because they don’t even get to any point where there would be a choice. It’s not ‘shall I leave now and be on time or leave later and be late’ at all but you assume it is. You are wrong.

First, let me make it clear that I don’t believe what you are saying about people with ADD or about people who are chronically late. I know people that have ADD that are punctual and have no problems holding responsible positions. I also know chronically late people that don’t have ADD that are generally responsible people.

But the person you’re describing here that evidently has ADD and is chronically late seems to have a pretty tenuous grip on reality. If someone is going to keep doing something until they’re interrupted or until they tire, I’d argue that those people shouldn’t be driving, have children or have jobs that involve machinery or be responsible for people’s lives in any way. The description that you’ve posted makes this subset of people out to be dangerous to themselves and others. If someone will keep driving and not notice where they’re going or ask themselves conscious questions until someone interrupts them or until they tire, that would make them a danger on the road. If someone can’t remember to feed their infant unless someone reminds them, they’re a danger to that infant. And so on.

Now, as I said, I don’t believe the description as you’ve painted it, so I’m not really worried that this applies to anyone. But I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favors by painting ADD sufferers in this light.

[Nava]

@Maastricht

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.

Ouch!

[stutteringjane]

Chronic lateness is a choice just as much as any other destructive behavior is a choice.

[Kalhoun]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

And you are making a false assumption. You have chosen to believe that a person’s behaviour signifies that the person has made a conscious choice. That is not the case. You have no proof that a choice was made. To make a choice indicates that a person is aware of what he is doing, knows there are two options, and picks one option over another. That is not what people with ADD do. They are in trouble right at the first bit; the ‘being aware’ bit because they are immersed, absorbed, fully concentrated, occupied, engrossed in what they are doing at the moment.

And maybe YOU are making a false assumption. The broad brush you apply to people with ADD is inaccurate. A small handful may fit your description, but society as a whole is neither observing this attribute, nor are we taught the attribute by the experts as we learn more about the disorder. This is not about ADD; it’s about chronic tardiness. Two different issues in almost all cases.

According to the CDC, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm, the exact opposite is happening. They are not hyper-attentive to a given activity. ADD sufferers are all over the board. The general concensus is that these folks have patterns of scattered attention; not hopelessly honed in on a given activity.

[nashiitashii]

@Heffalump and Roo

First, let me make it clear that I don’t believe what you are saying about people with ADD or about people who are chronically late. I know people that have ADD that are punctual and have no problems holding responsible positions. I also know chronically late people that don’t have ADD that are generally responsible people.

But the person you’re describing here that evidently has ADD and is chronically late seems to have a pretty tenuous grip on reality. If someone is going to keep doing something until they’re interrupted or until they tire, I’d argue that those people shouldn’t be driving, have children or have jobs that involve machinery or be responsible for people’s lives in any way. ** The description that you’ve posted makes this subset of people out to be dangerous to themselves and others. ** If someone will keep driving and not notice where they’re going or ask themselves conscious questions until someone interrupts them or until they tire, that would make them a danger on the road. If someone can’t remember to feed their infant unless someone reminds them, they’re a danger to that infant. And so on.

Now, as I said, I don’t believe the description as you’ve painted it, so I’m not really worried that this applies to anyone. But I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favors by painting ADD sufferers in this light.

Emphasis mine

I completely agree, as none of the ADD sufferers I have known throughout my life (and three of them were extremely close friends for a number of years) have had an inability to control their circumstances to anywhere near the point that QG has been describing. Also, as Kalhoun had pointed out, scattered attention is much more common than being so hyperfocused that reality outside of that one tiny focus disappears. Why, QG, must you insist on continuing this argument when you’re misrepresenting the majority of ADD/ADHD sufferers as you are? I cannot believe a word you say at this point because it’s just not true for the majority of the people you are describing.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

I am sick to death of people who use this ‘personal responsibility’ crap as a weapon.

It’s the all-purpose cure for the moral ills of the shiftless underclass and their defenders in the intellectual elite. The beauty part is, people with money can ignore it and substitute financial responsibility.

[VinylTurnip]

@Beware of Doug

It’s the all-purpose cure for the moral ills of the shiftless underclass and their defenders in the intellectual elite. The beauty part is, people with money can ignore it and substitute financial responsibility.

Maybe, but I don’t think anyone’s been talking about the underclass v. the rich in this thread; flakiness is a trait that seems to transcend financial and class boundaries. (I guess it could be argued that rich folks can rely on their personal assistant and chauffeur to ensure they get to appointments on time, but I’m not sure that’s the point you were trying to make.)

I can relate to the dislike of the “personal responsibility” theme, though. As a naturally lazy kid, I really hated being told to pick up my clothes from the floor, brush my teeth, do my homework, etc. If only I’d had the resources available now, I might’ve been able to pull enough Internet cites to convince my taskmaster parents that it was unreasonable to expect me to manage these things for myself, suffering as I did from acute Chore Avoidance Disorder, with several additional symptoms suggesting Slackerson’s Syndrome (a hereditary disease that generally skips several generations, making it difficult to observe in living relatives).

When I think of all the castigation my parents subjected me to resulting from their ignorance of my illness (“Your room’s a sty, clean it up!” “Put those clothes in the hamper, not on the floor!” “The lawn needs mowing this afternoon!” “Hurry up or you’ll miss this bus!”) it just makes me feel really, really tired. I’m glad we’ve come so far, and that today there are sensitive people who understand the Herculean effort people with my disability put forth every day.

[Kalhoun]

@Vinyl Turnip

Maybe, but I don’t think anyone’s been talking about the underclass v. the rich in this thread; flakiness is a trait that seems to transcend financial and class boundaries. (I guess it could be argued that rich folks can rely on their personal assistant and chauffeur to ensure they get to appointments on time, but I’m not sure that’s the point you were trying to make.)

I can relate to the dislike of the “personal responsibility” theme, though. As a naturally lazy kid, I really hated being told to pick up my clothes from the floor, brush my teeth, do my homework, etc. If only I’d had the resources available now, I might’ve been able to pull enough Internet cites to convince my taskmaster parents that it was unreasonable to expect me to manage these things for myself, suffering as I did from acute Chore Avoidance Disorder, with several additional symptoms suggesting Slackerson’s Syndrome (a hereditary disease that generally skips several generations, making it difficult to observe in living relatives).

When I think of all the castigation my parents subjected me to resulting from their ignorance of my illness (“Your room’s a sty, clean it up!” “Put those clothes in the hamper, not on the floor!” “The lawn needs mowing this afternoon!” “Hurry up or you’ll miss this bus!”) it just makes me feel really, really tired. I’m glad we’ve come so far, and that today there are sensitive people who understand the Herculean effort people with my disability put forth every day.

<snort!> My son has been a lifelong sufferer of Slackerson’s Syndrome. I’ve been able to control mine using techniques learned in CST (Common Sense Training). There is hope.

[Contrapuntal]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

**Contrapuntal **
Forget I said the word motivation, ok?

Absolutely. Motivation is irrelevant. Can we forget about mind reading too? We may be on the path to understanding.

And you are making a false assumption. You have chosen to believe that a person’s behaviour signifies that the person has made a conscious choice.

How do you know I chose it? Are you a mind reader?

That is not the case. You have no proof that a choice was made. To make a choice indicates that a person is aware of what he is doing, knows there are two options, and picks one option over another. That is not what people with ADD do. They are in trouble right at the first bit; the ‘being aware’ bit because they are immersed, absorbed, fully concentrated, occupied, engrossed in what they are doing at the moment.

Here is my post to which you first responded. Read it again. I’ll bold the important part. Then tell me what ADD has to do with it.

@Me

It isn’t so much a matter of being in a situation where respect is important. It isn’t the matter of respect that pisses me off. It’s that the other person values her time more than mine, and is unconcerned whether mine is wasted. ‘Disrespectful’ is just a label.
I would never accuse anyone of such behavior unless I knew that they were in fact capable of making appointments. It bugs me to hear a bunch of bullshit excuses when we both know that they can be on time, they just choose not to when it involves me. No one in this thread has claimed that it is impossible to be punctual, only that in some circumstances it is not worth the effort. For me to be told that I am not worth the effort is an insult. I choose not to associate with people who insult me.

[Zsofia]

@Quiddity Glomfuster

**Zsofia **

But, again, you are judging ‘too much trouble’. It’s not about that. You assume the person sees a choice and makes a choice. They forget to look at the clock. They forget to look at the date book. And because memory is a problem, they forget time and again.

Did you read the ADHD E-book? The part where you can punish a kid a dozen times but the kid will keep doing it because he forgets? Why is it so hard to explain a brain deficit to people who ostensibly don’t have one?
The thought ‘I should look at my watch’ does not occur.
The thought ‘I will be late if I don’t leave now’ does not occur.
The thought ‘gee, I’m supposed to be someplace’ may not even occur.
The only thought, unless something interrupts, will be whatever is going on in front of him at that time until it is finished or until he tires.

Do you get it yet? There is no choice because they don’t even get to any point where there would be a choice. It’s not ‘shall I leave now and be on time or leave later and be late’ at all but you assume it is. You are wrong.

Do you even bother to read? I said, get an alarm. The point is, there are coping mechanisms. You know you’re always late. You know you make me miss the movie, or make your clients furious, or miss a test. People who are capable of functioning in an adult world are capable of responding to that and doing something about it. You don’t look at the clock? Set an alarm. You forget to set an alarm? Write yourself a big fat note and stick it on your alarm clock. I mean, a whole store full of tools to help out has been linked to, I think it was even you who did the linking! If you don’t avail yourself of tools to help you be on time, yeah, I don’t see why you think it’s so outrageous for me to assume that you can’t be bothered.

[Kalhoun]

@Zsofia

Do you even bother to read? I said, get an alarm. The point is, there are coping mechanisms. You know you’re always late. You know you make me miss the movie, or make your clients furious, or miss a test. People who are capable of functioning in an adult world are capable of responding to that and doing something about it. You don’t look at the clock? Set an alarm. You forget to set an alarm? Write yourself a big fat note and stick it on your alarm clock. I mean, a whole store full of tools to help out has been linked to, I think it was even you who did the linking! If you don’t avail yourself of tools to help you be on time, yeah, I don’t see why you think it’s so outrageous for me to assume that you can’t be bothered.

…not to mention Ritalin, which most diagnosed ADDers I know have good results from.

[Blaster_Master]

Wow, I’m late getting back to this thread (NPI). It looks like there’s a significant amount of talking past eachother with regard to the points being made from both sides, thus I want to clarify a couple of things.

To those making the point “if you’re completely unaware of time, you should be late 50% of the time and early 50% of the time”, it simply doesn’t apply to the situations in my life, or those others here are describing. When I lose track of time, that has a value of time that is never negative; when I forget to account for items, that has a value of time that is not negative. When I do not lose track of time or forget to account for items, I am on time or early; when I lose track of time or forget to account for items, I am often late (though still occassionally on time if the impact isn’t sufficient).

Further, my entire reason for participating in this thread isn’t to debate whether or not I can help myself when it comes to being late. I do, however, contend that it is not as easy for some as it is for others (whether it is because of ADD, other brain disorders, or whatever other cause it may be) AND that it is patently unfair to assume disrespect because of tardiness.

On another point, I have been doing the best I can to pay attention to the amount of time I’ve spent doing specific activities over the last few days and here are some of my results. Monday, I had class and left late (due to unforeseen circumstances, not due to a lack of awareness of time). I left at about 4:05 and was parked and in the classroom by 4:33; mind you, on most other occassions, I have been late leaving as early as 3:50. I was absolutely certain I was going to be about 10-15 minutes late because of when I left and cannot figure out what could have possibly gone differently; in fact, I distinctly noticed several times getting stuck behind other vehicles going at or below the speed limit.

Tuesday morning, I went through my normal morning routine and I’m quite sure I left nothing out, it took about 25 minutes before I left the house. This morning, it took 40-45 minutes before I left the house, and I did nothing extra, certainly nothing that I can imagine adding an extra 20 minutes.

Similarly, I had to walk to a place and back; the total time it took was within a minute or two of one hour. It took me about 35 minutes to get to the place, but only about 25 minutes to get back including a quick pit stop.

These are types of discrepancies with time I’ve been talking about. In each case, two items that should have taken just about the same amount of time have a non-insignificant difference.

[lowbrass]

@Blaster Master

To those making the point “if you’re completely unaware of time, you should be late 50% of the time and early 50% of the time”, it simply doesn’t apply to the situations in my life, or those others here are describing. When I lose track of time, that has a value of time that is never negative; when I forget to account for items, that has a value of time that is not negative. When I do not lose track of time or forget to account for items, I am on time or early; when I lose track of time or forget to account for items, I am often late (though still occassionally on time if the impact isn’t sufficient).

How can that be? There must be some point when you are engaged in an activity that you have the thought: “I need to go to class”. If you never had that thought, you would never go to class. Obviously you do have that thought at some point. If you were simply unable to keep track of time, the thought “I need to go to class”, would still occur randomly, sometimes early and sometimes late. Clearly, when you have the thought early, you are disregarding it, because you don’t want to be early. So you’re making the choice to only act on the thought that you need to go to class if that thought occurs too late.

On another point, I have been doing the best I can to pay attention to the amount of time I’ve spent doing specific activities over the last few days and here are some of my results. Monday, I had class and left late (due to unforeseen circumstances, not due to a lack of awareness of time). I left at about 4:05 and was parked and in the classroom by 4:33; mind you, on most other occassions, I have been late leaving as early as 3:50. I was absolutely certain I was going to be about 10-15 minutes late because of when I left and cannot figure out what could have possibly gone differently; in fact, I distinctly noticed several times getting stuck behind other vehicles going at or below the speed limit.

Tuesday morning, I went through my normal morning routine and I’m quite sure I left nothing out, it took about 25 minutes before I left the house. This morning, it took 40-45 minutes before I left the house, and I did nothing extra, certainly nothing that I can imagine adding an extra 20 minutes.

Similarly, I had to walk to a place and back; the total time it took was within a minute or two of one hour. It took me about 35 minutes to get to the place, but only about 25 minutes to get back including a quick pit stop.

These are types of discrepancies with time I’ve been talking about. In each case, two items that should have taken just about the same amount of time have a non-insignificant difference.

I still think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to be punctual, though. A punctual person would, as a matter of course, always allow at least an extra 10 minutes for things like that. If I were walking somewhere that took 1/2 hour, I wouldn’t dream of trying to time it down to the minute; I would consider that absurd. I feel like you have an unreasonable expectation of how precise your time estimates for activities can be. You admit that you are bad at knowing how long a particular activity is going to take, yet you allow less leeway even than people who consider themselves good at estimating time.

I’ll give you an example from my schedule: I have a rehearsal that starts at 8:00. With no traffic, it takes 30 minutes to get there. On the absolute worst day ever, it took one hour to get there. I know that it’s probably going to take longer to get out my door than I anticipate - it always does. So in my mind, I plan to leave the house at 6:30. If I don’t get out the door until 6:45, I still have more time than the worst-case scenario. That’s the kind of thing I need to do to be on time. Most likely, I’ll get there extremely early. Being early is good; it shows that I’m serious about the job and that I have a good attitude.

If I tried to time how long it’s going to take me to get ready and get out the door down to plus or minus 10 minutes, I’d be sunk.

[Kalhoun]

That’s it in a nutshell. If it requires more of a cushion, then it just does! Just do it! Leave 1/2 hour earlier than you would.

[Dinsdale]

My family’s activities are such that I make frequent trips of 1.5 to 3 miles straight down a somewhat busy street. The longest of these trips “should” not take more than 10 minutes, at an average speed of 30 MPH (40 MPH for the end of the route) with a couple of stop signs.

But approx 1 mile from my house this street crosses a very busy street, with a stop light. Going my direction, if you miss the green, it is 3 minutes before the next one (we have timed it). In fact, if traffic is bad or someone is dicking around, you might miss 2 lights. Presto chango, your 10 minute trip just expanded to 16 minutes, while you did nothing different.

So what does the responsible (and IMO considerate and respectful) person do? Leave 10 minutes before an appointment and then damn their luck - and the unexplainable mysteries of the universe - should they be late? Or leave 20 minutes beforehand?

It ain’t rocket science.

But no. Things are so much harder for you and only you to figure out!