Is punctuality a choice?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=AHoosierMama]
So let’s imagine you’ve arrived at the gym for your 2.5 hour workout - maybe a little later than you thought you might, due to traffic. You lift, run - whatever and every now and then you glance at a clock. You realize that you are due for your date in one hour. It takes you 30 minutes to shower and 30 minutes to get to your date. You’ve only gotten in 2 hours of your workout. Do you cut it short to make your date? Or have you just not considered any of the clocks all over the gym? The heart of this question is probably to address the “time just gets away from me” theme I’m getting from some of the posts.
[/QUOTE]
Well for me, I start magnifying the consequences of whatever it is that I’m working on.

i.e. “I’ve got to get this report finished and submit my timesheet before I can leave, or the client will be pissed and I’ll get yelled at by the accounting people, and jeopardize my job” vs. “My wife will be annoyed at me for coming home 30 minutes late again.”

For the gym rat, he may be thinking, “If I cut my workout routine short, it’ll screw up my whole weekly workout schedule, and I’ll never get back on track, and the next thing you know is that I’ll start losing muscle tone or getting fat” vs. “My gf will be annoyed at me for showing up 30 minutes late.”

22

[QUOTE=enipla]
I don’t really see how this has to take so much extra work and preparation. Sure, If your going to leave at 7am you should be prepared to leave a 7am. This may mean that you need to get in the shower at 6am. I completely fail to see how this requires any significant amount of planning.
[/QUOTE]

Elaborate planning was an overstatement. I should have said it isn’t always easy to be on time, but I usually manage it. I don’t have to be at work until 8:30 or 9 a.m.-ish each morning. My commute is 10 minutes tops. But my alarm is set for 6 a.m. beacause I’ve got to walk and feed the dog, wake a 2.5 year old and a 4 year old. Make breakfast. Clean up breakfast mess. Shower. Dress and fix hair for self and kids. Pack any stuff they need for school. Deal with any unexpected’s like kid poops in outfit - start a load of laundry and dress again. Get 'em to school - an on and on. Just like everyone else I also need to make sure I have my cell phone, lock the door, close the garage etc.

It isn’t easy to get up at 6. It would be easier to sleep in and be late. But then it would be harder to keep a job.

23

I think for a lot of people it’s a matter of low prioritization, combined with the negative reinforcement of constantly “getting away with” being late in social situations where there may be no repercussions beyond the annoyance of a few friends and family members. (In contrast to a job, for example, where that kind of consistent lateness is likely to get you fired.)

I suspect that almost all of these congenital latesters would, if told to be somewhere at 8:00 on the dot in order to receive a barrelful of cash, damn well find a way to get their dawdling butts there in time.

24

[QUOTE=robby]
I’m in the exact same situation as Obsidian. I tend to be late for everything. Not by a tremendous amount, but consistently late.

If I’m running behind schedule (and I’m always running behind schedule), I can rarely catch up, because the anxiety of running late tends to dramatically increase my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
[/QUOTE]
Do you start off behind schedule? Is it possible that you are over scheduling? Do none of your clients complain about your chronic tardiness?

25

[QUOTE=robby]
For the gym rat, he may be thinking, “If I cut my workout routine short, it’ll screw up my whole weekly workout schedule, and I’ll never get back on track, and the next thing you know is that I’ll start losing muscle tone or getting fat” vs. “My gf will be annoyed at me for showing up 30 minutes late.”
[/QUOTE]

Then perhaps the gym rat could escalate the other side and tell himself that the next time he’s late, his gf may leave him. Rest assured, this may be far closer to reality.

If the balance still is that he’d choose the workout, then his priorities are clear and his gf isn’t that important. As has been said here, we all choose our priorities.

26

[QUOTE=robby]
For the gym rat, he may be thinking, “If I cut my workout routine short, it’ll screw up my whole weekly workout schedule, and I’ll never get back on track, and the next thing you know is that I’ll start losing muscle tone or getting fat” vs. “My gf will be annoyed at me for showing up 30 minutes late.”
[/QUOTE]

So if the gym rat chooses to be late rather than throw off his workout schedule, IMHO girlfriend has every right to be POed since gym rat sez with his actions “I disrespect you. My workout schedule is more important than your time.” No?

27

[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]
Then perhaps the gym rat could escalate the other side and tell himself that the next time he’s late, his gf may leave him. Rest assured, this may be far closer to reality.

If the balance still is that he’d choose the workout, then his priorities are clear and his gf isn’t that important. As has been said here, we all choose our priorities.
[/QUOTE]

Jinx :smiley:

28

[QUOTE=robby]
If I’m running behind schedule (and I’m always running behind schedule), I can rarely catch up, because the anxiety of running late tends to dramatically increase my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. (Did I remember to grab my cell phone? Did I close the garage? Did I lock the front door. Did I remember to bring all of the files for the meeting? Better stop/go back and check.) Whatever it is that I am doing, from getting ready in the morning to finishing up a couple of things in the office in the evening, it always tends to take a little longer than I figure it will, making me run late.
[/QUOTE]

This is a pretty common reaction. Do you schedule additional time lto get ready for the OCD to kick in?

29

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Do you start off behind schedule?
[/QUOTE]

Usually. It’s irrelevant, though, since I have far more work to do than I have time to do it in.

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Is it possible that you are over scheduling?
[/QUOTE]

Absolutely.

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Do none of your clients complain about your chronic tardiness?
[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t usually affect them. Everything that has an actual deadline usually gets done on time, even if it makes me late getting home in the evening.

30

As a follow up to my remark that no one is naturally punctual – I am very forgetful. I have a specific place to put my keys that I usually use. However, I have two back-up sets stashed away just in case. I write down what I have to do and copy it in several different places (calendar, e-mail, notebook, etc.) I ask friends to remind me if we have something really important scheduled. And I allow for plenty of extra time to get ready. If I am ready an hour early, then I can catch up on e-mail, or read a book, or give the dog an extra walk. The point is that punctuality is not a natural characteristic; it takes work, and a comittment to keeping one’s word.

31

[QUOTE=Sapo]
Obsidian, I don’t know if your lifestyle allows this (feeding animals, dropping kids at school, etc will screw this) but maybe you need to wake up later. Yes, later. Leave everything ready the night before, go to bed showered and with your hair done and under a net, choose your clothes, prep breakfast. Put the alarm clock at 15 minutes before the time you know you need to leave the house to get there on time (allow some extra minutes to make up for that idiot in the blue malibu). When you wake up you just hop into your clothes, grab a bite and take off. The more things you have to deal with before leaving, the more chances you will get distracted and be late.
[/QUOTE]

I think you may be right Sapo. I can list what I do every morning before I go to work with frightening detail. Forty-five minutes is what it takes to do this, and I get up 45 minutes before I leave, so I don’t do anything else.

32

[QUOTE=robby]
It doesn’t usually affect them. Everything that has an actual deadline usually gets done on time, even if it makes me late getting home in the evening.
[/QUOTE]

Robby, it seems like you are not really chronically late, if it is necessary for your job, you are successful at what you do, and being home late is understandable and unavoidable. “Punctual” is just redefined as “getting it all done,” and no one’s feathers are ruffled.

33

[QUOTE=MGibson]
Why does it require so much effort on your part? Barring unforseen circumstances I don’t find it all that difficult to be where I am suppose to be when I am suppose to be there. I don’t say this to be rude but are you suffering from a mental disorder of some kind?

Marc
[/QUOTE]

I am really sorry I posted in this thread. People were so nice in the Pit, I thought thought this wouldn’t be a problem. But honestly, I can’t hold up to a point-by-point in GD. You’ll win. I’m no where near articulate enough to tangle with y’all without putting my foot in my mouth. I’m still struggling with remembering to hang up my keys every day.

Contraputal, AHoosierMama, if it takes effort for you than you are probably more like me than Mr. Gibson above. That is exactly what I was talking about about flip and insulting. He just magically shows up on time. It’s all very simple. I have to set alarms to remind me when to leave the house. I appologize for whining about it-- I usually don’t, the thread just got me thinking about it, probably too much. People seemed genuinely, intelectually curious about why I was like this, so I tried to explain, and I got carried away attempting to defend myself.

I don’t want to get into a debate defending something I’m not proud of and in fact hate about myself. In my adult life I’m not usually late by anyone else’s standards, because I pad my own time. But I only make the time I set for myself (which I set knowing I’m like this) about half the time, so I feel chronically late, and stressed out whenever I go somewhere with a time deadline. I can do this under most circumstances, but not all. I make an effort to avoid circumstances where I know I can’t be on time. My friends would rather I not do this to myself, and they give me a little breathing room because they love me. That’s all I meant.

I work in graphic design, by the way. Heads down and tune out all the way. Sometimes I’m at my desk until midnight because I lost track of time, I was so into my work. I’m very good with deadlines-- my whole life is a deadline.

[Quote=robby]
For things that I simply cannot be late for (like taking a state licensing exam, for instance), I now aim to be there an hour in advance.

If I did this for everything in my life, like a lunch meeting, I wouldn’t get anything done.
[/quote]

This is what I was trying to say. This is why I don’t do lunch meetings. For me to be absolutely certain I’ll be somewhere on time, I need to be an hour early. Life does not always allow you to be an hour early for everything.

[Quote=enipla]
I’m really not trying to be snarky. Obsidian, does it take you significantly different amounts of time to get ready on different days, or for different occasions?
[/quote]

It actually does. Sometimes less because I missed something, sometimes more because something happened. I have to allow time for the worst, but be careful not to allow too much time, so that I end up getting distracted by something else. It’s a ballance. My tendancies to distractedness and clumsiness are far worse in the morning than at any other time.

I can be somewhere by 8. I can not be somewhere at 8. It’s a small but very signifigant difference. Punctual people have this ability to show up somewhere at a particular time that just blows me away. I have coworkers who pull into the parking lot at 8:55 every single day. How in hell do they do that?

34

My Dad was late for anything you care to name … parties, events, Religious observances … it was horrible and passed the eye roll stage into rage with me as a young person.

But after several sessions with Stuart Smalley , and some significant (IANAProfessionalPsych) Independent reads I feel pretty strongly that “more often than not the lateness is about the chronic tardy person and not about the chronic waiter.”. They - the chronic/systemically late person may get a thrill from being late, they may be passively aggressively hoping for a fight or thrilling when one doesn’t occur and no one calls them on their B.S., they may be passive aggressively hate being held to a timeframe or hate what they are meeting for …

Whatever. Is it a “Choice”? Only to the extent that being a hothead or a$$h^le or overly sensitive is a choice – it is a part of a person’s nature and needs to be controlled and channeled in socially acceptable ways - and if they don’t find a way to fix it to the extent that it doesn‘t hurt/impact others - it isn’t “Oh that’s the way they are” … they are being rude.

35

[QUOTE=AHoosierMama]
So let’s imagine you’ve arrived at the gym for your 2.5 hour workout - maybe a little later than you thought you might, due to traffic. You lift, run - whatever and every now and then you glance at a clock. You realize that you are due for your date in one hour. It takes you 30 minutes to shower and 30 minutes to get to your date. You’ve only gotten in 2 hours of your workout. Do you cut it short to make your date? Or have you just not considered any of the clocks all over the gym? The heart of this question is probably to address the “time just gets away from me” theme I’m getting from some of the posts.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, when there are clocks in the gym (there aren’t right now because of remodeling), and I notice I’m running late, I will adjust to the best of my ability to be on time. Case in point, last week I had a raid at 8:00 and because the clocks were down, I was running very late (unusual distractions due to the remodelling), and since I normally check the time before I start cardio, I skipped out on cardio and went home, but I was still 30 minutes late because I didn’t account for the ride home or the queue (I always seem to forget about the queue).

To make my classes on time, I know I need to leave work around 3:45-3:50, everything was going fine this Monday, but because I took a late lunch, my internal clock was off by an hour, I looked at the clock thinking it was 3:00, noticed it was 4:00, and ended up being about 15 minutes late to class. The professor was upset with me, he probably felt disrespected, but it was simply because my internal clock wasn’t set correctly.

The same thing happens to me in the gym. I know for a particular work out about how long it takes within 10 minutes or so (barring lot’s of superfluous conversation), but as it draws near the end, I forget to account for time to change weights, drink some water, do my intermediary exercises, etc. and I end up thinking I have more time left than I do. That is, my thought process goes much like this: I have two exercises left, then cardio, I have 75 minutes. Assuming each exercise takes 15 minutes (correctly), and 45 minutes for cardio, I’ll be done just in time. But I forgot to account for the ab set I do between sets (1 or 2 minutes), I forgot to account for getting a drink of water between each exercise (1 or 2 minutes), I forgot to account for using the restroom before hitting cardio (2 or 3 minutes), etc. Next thing I know, I’m short 5-10 minutes, and I have to really think back to figure out where I lost time).

Generally, my internal clock is very accurate, assuming my basis is correct (which it wasn’t for the class example); I can normally estimate the time within about 2 minutes. However, as I’m trying to point out, it’s not because I have a lack of perception of time, but simply that I just plain can’t seem to account for all the activities that intervene.

36

[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]
Then perhaps the gym rat could escalate the other side and tell himself that the next time he’s late, his gf may leave him. Rest assured, this may be far closer to reality.

If the balance still is that he’d choose the workout, then his priorities are clear and his gf isn’t that important. As has been said here, we all choose our priorities.
[/QUOTE]

Actually, she doesn’t have room to complain, because she’s less punctual than I am. Usually, even when I call her and tell her I’m running a little late, when I show up she’s still doing her hair or putting on makeup or whatever. In fact, just this past weekend, the guys and the girls were getting together separately, and she was supposedly running 1 1/2 hours late for an event, and ended up being 6 hours late. A couple hours for a general party-esque gathering, no one could care less about, but 6 hours late was different and we discussed it.

The choice isn’t a simply choice of gf vs. workout, it’s (gf vs. workout vs. work vs. PhD studies vs. family) + complete absent mindedness due to being burned out with taking on so much. I feel bad when I’m late, and I often apologize, but I won’t let them make me feel bad because they feel disrespected.

37

Punctuality, like many other desirable outcomes (e.g. maintaining a healthy weight, or using a credit card responsibly) can be achieved by almost everyone, with effort and self-discipline. But the amount of effort required can vary widely from person to person.

38

I actually wanted to add a coment about work deadlines, since work has been mentioned. The difference between a client delivery and an appointment is you can really pad a delivery in a way you can’t with going somewhere. I subtract a day off of every due date and have my work done then, a day early. Even if I need to work late to meet this (essentially) arbitrary personal goal. Plenty of time for all the disaster in the world. I was always a procrastinator with homework, so I’m good with compressed schedules.

However, I do not think my dentist would be amused if I showed up on Tuesday for my Wednesday appointment. The smaller a window I have to work in, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.

39

[QUOTE=Obsidian]
It actually does. Sometimes less because I missed something, sometimes more because something happened. I have to allow time for the worst, but be careful not to allow too much time, so that I end up getting distracted by something else. It’s a ballance. My tendancies to distractedness and clumsiness are far worse in the morning than at any other time.

I can be somewhere by 8. I can not be somewhere at 8. It’s a small but very signifigant difference. Punctual people have this ability to show up somewhere at a particular time that just blows me away. I have coworkers who pull into the parking lot at 8:55 every single day. How in hell do they do that?
[/QUOTE]

Excellently put, this is the point I was trying to hit at. Of course I can schedule an extra hour to account for the distractions or things I forgot, but even that doesn’t always work, and when it does, and I’m 30-60 minutes early, I end up wasting that much of my time. Last time I tried that a few weeks ago, I was all ready with 20 minutes to spare. Next thing I know, I had gotten distracted, and was 20 minutes late instead of 20 minutes early (the gf was still getting ready though :wink: ).

[QUOTE=enipla]
I think you may be right Sapo. I can list what I do every morning before I go to work with frightening detail. Forty-five minutes is what it takes to do this, and I get up 45 minutes before I leave, so I don’t do anything else.
[/QUOTE]

I can’t speak for the others, but this isn’t always true for me. I do the same things in the same order every morning, it generally takes about 40-45 minutes but sometimes it takes as little as 25-30 minutes, and sometimes it can take an hour and I have no idea what I did different when I find it took too long or I was done faster. Strangely, even on days where I cut something out because I’m running late, I still end up taking about the same amount of time.
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[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Punctuality, like many other desirable outcomes (e.g. maintaining a healthy weight, or using a credit card responsibly) can be achieved by almost everyone, with effort and self-discipline. But the amount of effort required can vary widely from person to person.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps you’re right. I can’t comprehend people who can’t find the motivation to work out, stay out of debt, go back to school, etc. and I look at it as merely a lack of effort on their part.

40

I am always on time. I’ve been that way my whole life. I have a timer in my head going all the time, and I’m constantly counting down to the next thing I have to do, “Okay, it’s 3:20 now, my mom will be here at 6:30, that leaves me 3 hours and 10 minutes to be ready. I need to put in a load of clothes, they take 20 minutes to wash, then I’ll put them in the dryer and give myself 10 minutes for the water to heat back up. I can shower for 20 minutes. I can do my makeup and blow dry my hair in half an hour, by then the clothes will be done. I can get dressed in packed in about 10 minutes. That means I can sit here another hour, and then get started, and I’ll be ready in time to call my friend before I leave, if I schedule an hour to talk.” And then I list what I need to talk to my friend about. I actually write it down and stick it in my pocket. So, basically, I’m crazy, and I cannot help it. BUT, I’m never late.

My boyfriend is always late. You guys who said “Oh, they’d be on time if I were giving out $100”; well, he wouldn’t be. While I have everything planned to the last second, he has nothing planned to any second. He’s late to work, every day. He’s late leaving, every day. He’s late for every date. We have never gotten to the movies on time, ever, in the three years we’ve been together. And I don’t mean just missing the previews; I mean like 30 minutes late. And I almost dumped him over it, several times, in fact, because I felt like everyone else on here. I thought it was a choice, and he was disrespecting me, and all that. But, it isn’t a choice for him. And he does respect me. So, I deal with it. I have no idea why he can’t be on time, it makes no sense to me. But I like him, and I don’t hold it against him. I’m not perfect either.

These days, I’ve decided he’s here to teach me patience. And, he is.