Thanks for the link that bolsters my side of the debate. If you’re chronically late, you can fix it. Even if you’re one of the tiny minority who is brain-damaged. Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re aware of ADD and it’s symptoms (which are most often identified by scattered attention; not hyper-attention). If you choose not to see a doctor, if you choose not to adopt strategies that help you maintain a schedule, then you are being wilfully rude. Those who are chronically late are most likely rude and not brain-damaged.
Oye. More of the brain damage excuse.
Why is it so hard to comprehend that the very small group of ADD sufferers that may have a problem with being on time does not even begin to excuse or explain the amount of people that are chronically late?
An explanation is “I had a flat tire” an excuse is “I ran out of gas”. The second is avoidable with a little bit of forethought.
GAAAAAA! Do you like to worry? I spoke to this earlier. I don’t like to worry either. When someone is late, I worry about them.
When they show up with a hand wave that they “lost track of time”, I may be a little steamed that they didn’t have any consideration for me.
Why is that so hard to comprehend?
It’s possible that monkeys might fly out of my butt, too…but I’m pretty sure people aren’t assuming that’s the case when I show up late for a movie.
If you think about it you’ll see that the Non-Punctual Person (NPP) is damaged more as a rule, not an exception.
If the NPP is 20 minutes late to a movie theater and his friends have to stand around and then miss the movie, the NPP also has to miss the movie. On top of which, he has to be upset with himself over inconveniencing his friends, then apologize, then spend the evening with people who are annoyed with him. If it happens a lot, then his friends will just think less of him in general. These are all much worse consequences than having to stand on the sidewalk for 20 minutes.
The same exact problems occur for someone who is chronicaly late to work, but that’s even worse for the NPP because aside from losing the respect of his peers, he may also lose his job, and he’ll certainly hurt his career in general.
(And then the NPP arrives home at night after getting scolded at work and glared at by his friends, logs on to a message board, and is excoriated by relative strangers for being honest about his problem, though he’s done them no harm. Seriously, who do you think is enjoying this thread more: the NPPs who have to address the charges of selfishness and lying, or the punctualists who are leveling the charges?)
What makes you think the NPPs don’t take into account the effect of their lateness on other people? Surely that’s sometimes the case, but usually they’re quite aware that everyone invovled is hurt by their lateness. They get reminded of that fact by the other people almost every time.
I agree with that, but my argument is that they’re incorrect to see it as self-centered. For that to be the case, tardiness would have to be to the benefit of the NPP, or at least non-detrimental. When you’re running late, is it ever fun? Afterwards, do you ever think, " Damn, I wish I hadn’t inconvenienced my friends, but being late sure worked out swimmingly for me." Being late doesn’t really do anything for the NPP, and what little good it may sometimes bestow is far outweighed by the consistent, negative consequences.
You don’t have pity for the smoker with emphysema, the alcoholic who losed his job, or the chronically obese guy? NPPs don’t have problems that are quite so severe, of course, but it’s a matter of degree. In all cases, yes, it’s within the person’s power to fix the problem, but it’s difficult – a lot of people fail, and a lot of people suffer because of it.
I’m saying they don’t “know” how to fix the problem in the same what that I don’t “know” how to be a really good golfer. More and better information would help, but practice and a dozen other factors are also required. (Not a perfect analogy, but clear enough I hope.)
You’re right, I think that must be a factor; you see flare-ups and accusations in all sorts of debate threads, so to an extent it’s natural. It just seemed much worse here than elsewhere, like people are taking it really personal really quickly.
As Strother Martin informed Paul Newman …
Obviously our brains work quite differently such that further attempts at communication between us are of questionable use.
4% is not ‘tiny’. There’s 100 people in your office. 4 could have it.
SO untrue. Clearly you have not worked in advocacy at all.
And you obviously didn’t read the other five or six links dealing with hyperfocus, nor the section of that link that did.
Explanation.
How many people are chronically late and do not have it? Cites, please.
That’s your interpretation. Mine is that they’re a bit flaky and not harmful.
Why is that so hard to comprehend?
Actually, there’s a thread about ‘visualizing’ time which might provide insight into the reasons for such dichotomous perceptions about this. Seems to some people, time is as concrete a concept as a brick wall. Boggles my mind, frankly.
And of those four, one might have the inability to tell time. Or give a shit about learning.
Another professional opinion, huh? Oh…that’s right…no ADD coverage on TV, radio, or in the press. Without those door-to-door ADD Excuse Salesmen, we’d be completely unaware of the problem.
The problem is overwhelmingly identified as scattered attention issues.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/symptom.htm
http://healthyplace.com/communities/add/nimh/symptoms.htm
http://www.bobseay.com/littlecorner/newurl/quick.html
These same people have stated that if it is important to THEM they can be on time. Making others wait for them, wasting others time therefore is not important.
Did you read Hilarity’s post?
I mean, you don’t have to believe it, but did you even read it? You know, the post the very point of which is to talk about the very point you’ve brought up here? That one?
-FrL-
Actually, no. I’ll go back and do so now. I thought it was summarized in a later post, but I don’t remember actually reading **Hilarity’**s, now that you mention it.
Dishonest? No. Irrational, yes. People don’t know themselves as well as others can know them.
If we want to insist there’s dishonesty here, then we should probably say the latester is being dishonest with herself. But I’ve never understood how it is possible to “lie to yourself.” My own opinion is that there is a kind of mind-blindness going on here, which renders judgments like “I’ll be there on time” for this kind of person irrational (which is no huge condemnation–we’re all irrational) but not necessarily dishonest.
-FrL-
This thread is making my head hurt.
QG, I disagree with you on a lot of points in this thread - possibly all of them - but I’m going to focus on a few specific ones. First, this:
Cites? That people are chronically late? Exactly what sort of cite did you have in mind for that? Would you really contend that less than 1% of the general population could be characterized as chronically late? If so, then your experiences with people are dramatically different from my own.
It’s not. It’s nice that you don’t consider it harmful. But, I mean, to some extent, the degree to which a particular act harms someone is defined by the person at whom (for lack of a better phrase) the act is aimed. An example: I have a pair of friends, one male, one female. The male, for reasons lost to antiquity, when he is angry, calls the female a “fat slut.” This does not bother her at all (her usual response is “your mother.” They’re very mature). Does the fact that female friend doesn’t mind being called a fat slut automatically mean that everyone shouldn’t? If male friend calls a new acquaintance a fat slut on their first meeting, should the new acquaintance not mind because female friend doesn’t? If not, then why should I automatically agree that I am not harmed by habitual latecomers just because you say you don’t think they’re harmful?
I work a lot in community theatre. Our rehearsals generally begin at 7:00PM, and we are evicted from the building at 10:00PM sharp. There is no negotiating on this point. This is unpaid - an activity that everyone participates in to have fun and produce a show of which we can all be proud. In every production, there are three or four actors (usually out of 15-20) who are habitually late. I mean, late to every rehearsal, by 15 to 45 minutes. Sometimes we cannot start without them. We’re not permitted to rehearse later than 10. So: (1) a group of grown-ass people, with jobs and families, sit around literally doing nothing instead of chores, dinner with spouses, or what have you, waiting for the late people; and (2) we don’t get a sufficient amount of rehearsal in to make an optimal show. Sometimes: (3) we have to add additional rehearsals, giving up more things that WE enjoy, to get enough work in. Are you genuinely contending that those three or four latecomers are not harming me, and the other actors who are in the show, at all?
Now, this would not be a problem if we knew about it in advance. We could either plan rehearsals so that we work on material the late actors are not in from 7-7:30, or simply choose not to invite the late actors to be in the show at all. But that leads me to my final contention:
Dishonesty. There is no definition of dishonesty, however tortured, under which telling people you will be there at 7 when you know that you most likely will not, does not apply. It’s not actively lying, I guess, but it is withholding information that will allow the person who is trying to plan a life around you to plan more efficiently. Why is this a bad thing? Since we’re talking about harm, what possible harm is it to you, as (for example) an actor, to just say, “hey, look, I sometimes have a little trouble with time; I’m going to try to be here at 7:00 every night, but honestly, I may not be able to get here at 7 on the dot every night?”
We can debate on whether being punctual is a choice all day long, but being honest about whether or not you are punctual is definitely a choice.
If I have a brain disease - a rare seizure disorder - that causes my right arm to abruptly punch to my right, utterly beyond my control unless I am concentrating very hard, and I accidentally punch you, well, you’ll probably be understanding. If you explicitly ask me if it’s OK to sit to my right because you don’t want to get punched, and ask if I’m likely to punch, and I say, “Yes, it’s fine, I won’t punch you,” and then I do anyway, then I’m kind of a jerk.
Okay then. 
-FrL-
Okay, if this is the post you’re talking about, I did read it. What part of my statement that she needs to be self-employed does it contradict? Failing that, to do her job so superbly, and to explain her own bodily needs so eloquently, that the boss would value her performance despite her chronic inability to work at the times he prefers her to. Instead, we get “My boss is so unfaaaaaaaair!”
Really? So in addition to having whatever brain dysfunction we’re postulating makes someone incapable of managing time effectively, they are also incapable of observing a simple series of facts - “I usually arrive at 7:25 for a 7:00 event” - and extrapolating a fairly obvious conclusion: “There is at least a chance that I will not arrive at 7:00 to any given event scheduled to start at that time?”
And we’re imagining that our world is full of people with these twin dysfunctions, so many as to constitute a significant portion of the population, and yet our society functions?
I take the main point fom QG to be: You don’t have to meet with latesters, you don’t have to be friends with latesters, you don’t have to make appointments with them, you don’t have to associate with them at all. Feel free never to speak to them if that’s your wish. But in the absence of further information, you have no reason to be angry with them, and you certainly have no grounds for a moral judgment of them.
As for the dishonesty issue, see my previous post on this page. You presume they “know full well” they won’t be there on time. I agree with you they should know they won’t be on time, but it doesn’t follow that they do know they’ll be on time.
Of course you may know more about these people than what you’ve said in this brief post. But if all you know is “They are usually late for their appointments” you just don’t know enough to justify any emotion towards them or any moral judgment of them.
-FrL-
-FrL-
Yeah, people can be pretty blind about themselves. Think of the person for whom every human interaction turns into a fight, but who believes this is always the other person’s fault. Many of us know such a person. And we know about this person that there is a very simple and easy inference that person should draw, but which s/he honestly has not drawn. Very irrational, and some would say “dishonest with themselves,” but I would not say they are necessarily being dishonest with others when they say “It was the other person’s fault.” They’re reporting what they genuninely believe.
Here’s a more mundane example. Yesterday I told my wife about a time when I was a kid when I stole some onions off my neighbor’s tree. My wife looked at me funny. I said “what?” She asked me whether I really think that oninons grow on trees.
:smack:
Of course I don’t. But back then I for some reason had a notion that onions do grow on trees, and what was on my neighbors tree were onions.* I reported the story yesterday believing they were onions–even though I know full well onions don’t grow on trees.
People can fail to draw some very simple inferences which they should draw, and that with suprising facility. 
-FrL-
*The neighbor’s kids had told me they were onions. Thats why I thought they were onions, even though looking back they hardly even looked like onions!
-FrL-
She is on time for other events. She is not on time for me. How much more simple can it be?
She still has a job. She makes all her plane flights (meaning she is early). She makes dentist and doctor and vet appointments on time. If she needs something from Home Depot, she always gets there before they close, even if it means standing me up. She has a side business as a court reporter, and always gets her documents delivered on time. What else do you want? Do you think I have been lying to you? Is it incredible to you that some people are just lazy, thoughtless and undisciplined unless it hits them in the pocketbook, or otherwise has immediate tangible negative repercussions? This special pleading you are making for ADD is simply unsupported by the facts or by general experience. Anyone who is as dysfunctional as you describe would be unable to dress themselves.