[QUOTE=lowbrass]
<snip>
But I do agree with those who are saying it’s not as easy to change one’s habits as some are suggesting. You can’t just tell yourself to be on time; it requires learning new behavior patterns. I suspect it’s rather like telling an alcoholic to “just stop drinking”.
[/QUOTE]
Except that your body doesn’t get addicted to anything by being late, as it would if you were an alcoholic or a smoker.
[QUOTE=AHoosierMama]
Except that your body doesn’t get addicted to anything by being late, as it would if you were an alcoholic or a smoker.
[/QUOTE]
Right - I didn’t say “lateness is equivalent to alcholism in every way.”
I think that many people that are habitually tardy don’t want to be in the position where they are waiting for someone else.
Could that be part of it?
It may not be a conscious choice, but it may be a fear of being the first to arrive.
I am sorry to see some of the sniping in this thread. But I am very confused that it seems to take such planning and forethought to just think ahead a little bit and decide to do something at a certain time.
This seems to me to be the gold standard of passive aggressive behavior. It’s nearly text book stuff.
Wiki
• Ambiguity
• Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
• Blaming others
• Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
[QUOTE=enipla]
I think that many people that are habitually tardy don’t want to be in the position where they are waiting for someone else.
Could that be part of it?
It may not be a conscious choice, but it may be a fear of being the first to arrive.
I am sorry to see some of the sniping in this thread. But I am very confused that it seems to take such planning and forethought to just think ahead a little bit and decide to do something at a certain time.
This seems to me to be the gold standard of passive aggressive behavior. It’s nearly text book stuff.
Wiki
• Ambiguity
• Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
• Blaming others
• Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
[/QUOTE]
Velly intellesting…
[QUOTE=AHoosierMama]
Add to the author’s observations of the Tardy my own discovery of what seems to be a need (conscious or not) for validation - or a test of your friendship. "I’m late again. *Still * wanna be my friend? I’ll test you again next week to remind myself that I am worthy (of waiting for) and I do have friends.
[/quote]
Very nice observation. (I say that without even being sure which way it plays in the debate on this thread!) This also describes both of the friends which I mentioned.
-FrL-
Fah, chronically late people are wasting my time, my life.
That’s all I need to know in order to make a “moral judgment.” You steal my money, I’ll make a moral judgment. You steal my time, I’ll make a moral judgment. Pretty simple, really: you’re stealing from me. Time, money, freedom… it’s still theft.
60 seconds = 1 minute
60 minutes = 1 hour
24 hours = 1 day
Sounds pretty concrete to me.
After all, it’s not like we’re travelling at relativistic speeds to each other. 7:00pm is 7:00pm.
[QUOTE=enipla]
I am sorry to see some of the sniping in this thread. But I am very confused that it seems to take such planning and forethought to just think ahead a little bit and decide to do something at a certain time.
This seems to me to be the gold standard of passive aggressive behavior. It’s nearly text book stuff.
Wiki
• Ambiguity
• Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
• Blaming others
• Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
[/QUOTE]
The idea that some of the latesters (especially in the case of the ones with no remorse for being late) have passive agressive behavior built in with lateness as a function of it is pretty accurate in many of the cases I’ve encountered with people who are late that annoy me with their lateness. The “blaming others” thing is pretty prevalent with my past experience with a lot of latesters, even outside of timekeeping issues.
Interesting.
[QUOTE=Frylock]
Very nice observation. (I say that without even being sure which way it plays in the debate on this thread!) This also describes both of the friends which I mentioned.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
I have decided the observation can be played in favor of the defenders of the tardy.
For if its true that a person is habitually late because he is making sure he is still worthy, i.e., worthy of being waited for, then it is clear that this tardy person values your time very much–so much so, that he determines his own self-worth in terms of it!
Well, anyway, I just said it can be played this way. 
-FrL-
It is clear that there are two sorts of people in this debate; one type that is unwilling to give a friend/relative the benefit of the doubt despite information that there may be a very good reason for behaviour which appears, on first analysis, to be a deliberate affront directed at themselves. Despite any reasons given for why they might wish to mitigate their wrath/frustration/desire to condemn, they will persist in doing so.
The other sort don’t require that all other humans obey their dictates and think and operate exactly as they do. More willing to acknowledge differences and accept that not all humans are identical, won’t behave identically, and are still not wrong or bad because of it. These folks will make allowances.
I’d be willing to stack up the M-B types here. I’d bet the former are Js and the latter Ps.
And never the twain shall meet.
I’ve done my job; I’ve handed out a stack of information plus reasons to absorb it and change one’s reactions (including that anger is bad for you). People will accept it or not and I am powerless over that; I can’t pound it into anybody’s head (much though I might wish I could) and any further remark from me would just constitute me doing that.
It just depresses me to see the degree to which people are eager to convict people of malice when, in most cases, humans aren’t as bad as all that. It does my poor little heart good to see that at least a few people are on the ‘P’ ( 
) side. However it is saddening to see how furious the other side is and how willing to cling to their beliefs even when different information is presented.
Just do your friends a favour and, if you actually do care about them, send them the information I’ve given you. And, just maybe, chill.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
It is clear that there are two sorts of people in this debate; one type that is unwilling to give a friend/relative the benefit of the doubt despite information that there may be a very good reason for behaviour which appears, on first analysis, to be a deliberate affront directed at themselves. Despite any reasons given for why they might wish to mitigate their wrath/frustration/desire to condemn, they will persist in doing so.
The other sort don’t require that all other humans obey their dictates and think and operate exactly as they do. More willing to acknowledge differences and accept that not all humans are identical, won’t behave identically, and are still not wrong or bad because of it. These folks will make allowances.
I’d be willing to stack up the M-B types here. I’d bet the former are Js and the latter Ps.
And never the twain shall meet.
I’ve done my job; I’ve handed out a stack of information plus reasons to absorb it and change one’s reactions (including that anger is bad for you). People will accept it or not and I am powerless over that; I can’t pound it into anybody’s head (much though I might wish I could) and any further remark from me would just constitute me doing that.
It just depresses me to see the degree to which people are eager to convict people of malice when, in most cases, humans aren’t as bad as all that. It does my poor little heart good to see that at least a few people are on the ‘P’ ( ) side. However it is saddening to see how furious the other side is and how willing to cling to their beliefs even when different information is presented.
Just do your friends a favour and, if you actually do care about them, send them the information I’ve given you. And, just maybe, chill.
[/QUOTE]
Those of us in the real world do not excuse the bad behavior of an entire sub-group of people because a couple of them may or may not have brain damage. The REAL evidence…the observable behavior of the consistently late (but only for things they don’t put a high priority on) trumps an obscure website that attributes a small percentage of the population of latesters’ behavior to brain damage every time.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Those of us in the real world do not excuse the bad behavior of an entire sub-group of people because a couple of them may or may not have brain damage. The REAL evidence…the observable behavior of the consistently late (but only for things they don’t put a high priority on) trumps an obscure website that attributes a small percentage of the population of latesters’ behavior to brain damage every time.
[/QUOTE]
J or P?
So the whole world appointed you as spokesperson? Glad to know it.
sigh. bye.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
J or P?
[/QUOTE]
I have no idea what that code means.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
I’ve gone back and read the last three pages and while I agree that the level of debate is not of the highest, I see little evidence of this name-calling that you refer to
[/QUOTE]
That might be due to the fact that I have made no accusations of “name-calling.” (Note that no one has been Warned for name-calling–a direct violation of SDMB rules.) What I pointed out was that instead of an actual debate, we have lots of claims that late people are bad and lots of claims that punctual people are mean with lots of anecdotes and moral indignation and only the very rare post that addresses the issue. Since no one is actually learning anything, here, an no one is being persuaded, and since the level of civility (never high) has fallen just as has the level of actual discussion has deteriorated, I would prefer to close a pointless thread before anyone is so angered that they actually begin breaking the rules over a rather futile dispute.
I have not closed it, yet, and if the level of discourse improves, I will not. I am not interested in simply closing threads for fun (without profit). I just see no reason to leave the temptation to flame out here as a near occasion of sin when the discussion is not going any where.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
I’d be willing to stack up the M-B types here. I’d bet the former are Js and the latter Ps.
[/QUOTE]
What are M-B types, J’s, and P’s?
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Frylock]
What are M-B types, J’s, and P’s?
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
I just realized you’re talking about the Myers Briggs personality type thing.
I can’t find a quick good website about it online, but people can look up the phrase “Myers Briggs” to find a summary.
I always come up INTJ, with the T and J being borderline.
INTJ means “Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging.” I forget what the opposites of these terms are supposed to be. (I think the opposite of the “thinking” category is called “feeling” and the opposite of the “judging” is called “percieving.”
On edit: Here’s a Wiki.
As I’ve long suspected, it looks like the usefulness of the classification scheme is not supported empirically. Still, its fun.
-FrL-
QG, if I may be so familiar, let me explain something. If someone’s picking me up at 7:00 or meeting me at 7:00, to me that means I should be ready at 7:00 if not a little before. If that person then arrives at, say 7:20, that means I’ve spent 20 minutes idling, killing time, and generally finding some interuptable way to occupy myself until that person arrives. I’m not an especially patient person and I don’t like waiting, but the person I’m meeting has left me little choice. Now, lest you accuse me of being judgemental, I picked 20 minutes because my best friend is usually 20 minutes late for everything, although she’s become more punctual as she’s gotten older. The gentleman I’ve been seeing and hope to marry is routinely about half an hour late, to the point where when he asked me when he should pick me up once, I said “7:00, but I’ll expect you at 7:30”. Still, knowing and allowing for these two people doesn’t, in my mind exempt me from the requirement of being ready a few minutes before we agree to meet because it would be rude of me to keep them waiting.
I’ve seen you claim ADD, brain damage, and mental illness as reasons for your chronic tardiness in this thread. My best friend and gentleman friend are among the sanest, most competent people I know, yet they are the ones who are usually running a little late. I’m somewhat worse off than them, yet I’m usually early. Some of that, no doubt, is due to my own neuroses, but most of that is due to courtesy. I haven’t seen a link the link between mental illness and tardiness you do, no doubt because we move in different circles.
My morning commute takes me through the worst rush hour my city has to offer. Of the four people in my department, I also have the longest commute. Nevertheless, I’m almost always the first to arrive because I watch the morning news and, if traffic is heavier than usual, I leave earlier than usual to allow for it. It’s a simple thing to work out, and one reason I do it is my coworkers will be inconvenienced if I’m late. I admit another factor is the later I leave, the worse rush hour will be.
Kalhoun, I believe Quiddity is referring a personality test, Meyer-Briggs, if I recall which puts people on four scales, including J to P, with J standing for “Judgemental” (I’m afraid I forget what “P” stands for). It was quite popular a few years ago and we had a few threads on it.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, if I don’t leave now, not only will rush hour be worse, but I won’t have time to bathe and change before meeting friends for dinner.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
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.
[/QUOTE]
This was fielded well by QG in post 320. But I want to add a bit to it, because I think we’re not effectively communicating the difference. Let’s assume I’m headed to class from my home; based on my experience, when I’ve left 30 minutes prior to the start of class, I’ve been late once (the one time I was late was when the entire road was shut down due to a med-evac landing and it took me 2 1/2 hours to get there, so that doesn’t count; and NO, I’m definitely not going to allow 2 1/2 hours to drive 8 miles, thank you).
Let’s say I’m ready to go to class, and it’s an hour prior to the start of class, so I decide I’ll practice on the piano for a bit. When I’m playing, I don’t “randomly” think, “oh, it’s time to go to class” and it’s not something that’s constantly on my mind. Let’s say I do “randomly” think that, 15-20 minutes before I’d planned to leave, my thought process is “oh, I still have time, because the 30 minutes I scheduled is more than enough.” Then I continue playing, and it’s back into the same problem. If I “randomly” think more like 5-10 minutes before I’m ready to leave, then I know to leave. If I don’t “randomly” think it’s time to go to class until after that time has passed, then obviously I’m late.
The issue at hand, for me, is precisely what QG is talking about; I either I’m often hyper-focused, which means these “random” thoughts, are far more sporadic because the only thought on my mind is my current activity. That is, while these thoughts of “oh, it’s time to go to class” might happen every 5 minutes for you, but for me, it is completely unpredictable.
Might you say, if I notice 20 minutes before my scheduled time to leave I should stop playing? What if I notice 30 minutes before? Sure, that would reduce the frequency of my tardiness somewhat, but where do I draw that line? I’ve had a number of times where I’ve literally completely lost more than a couple hours when I’m playing, does that mean I should stop playing if it’s less than two hours prior to my scheduled time to leave?
I’m not assuming that a punctual person can necessarily get the time down to a minute or two, but from my experience, I can’t estimate my morning better than a 20 minute window making up almost 50% of the average time, while several others mentioned they could estimate their morning with a much higher degree of accuracy. I try to account for it by allowing more time than I expect I’ll need, and most of the time I can do that, but it’s not uncommon that I fail.
I absolutely agree that it is good to be early but, as I stated, it’s difficult for me to judge how much leeway to give because of my tenuous relationship with time… one day I’ll allow much more time than I need, resulting in a scenario similar to the above, or another time I don’t allow enough. Either case, there’s not a small probability that I’ll end up being a little late.
[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]
So when you remember these items that you forgot, do you sometimes choose not to do them? Even if not doing them will make you early? For instance, in your working out example, you said that you forgot that you had to drink some water at the water fountain. When you remembered this, have you ever not done it? I think most people have experienced a time when they had planned to do something but they ran out of time. At this point, they make the choice to continue with their original plan which was obviously unrealistic or be late. My contention is that punctual people would choose to forgo the original plan. I know I have done it many times.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not always that simple, and for one with a memory as lapseful (is that a word?) as mine, it’s more difficult. You’re right, in most cases, I can choose whether or not to skip things; if I’m at the gym, and I misjudge my time, I can choose to miss an exercise, or cut down on cardio time, etc. If that is all I forget, then there’s seldom an issue with my punctuality. Many times I forget essential items. Refering back to an earlier example where I have to work out and see the gf thereafter. Let’s say I feel right on time but, oops, I forgot to account to account for taking a shower which can add an unexpected +/-30 minutes (10-15 for a shower, 5-10 to get dressed, 5-10 to do the “going out with the gf” stuff, yadda yadda) and I don’t realize this until I’m on my way home from the gym–and yes, this has happened more than once. This isn’t a case where I can “forego” what I forgot; I’m not about to go have a nice dinner with my gf all sweaty and smelly in my gym clothes. Sure, I can rush through that stuff, and probably get it down to the 15-20 minute range; and when I have forgotten this sort of thing, that’s 15-20 minutes into my leeway. Combine that with likely a couple other things I forgot, and completely unpredictable Friday or Saturday night traffic, and I end up being late.
If you want cites, QG[ul]
[/ul] I’m not going to find articles on “what it’s like to be chronically late” that account to anything more than a more “official” source accounting anecdotes. Obviously, my anecdotes can’t be generalized to all cases, and I’m not expecting that they should be. I’m simply trying to give a different perspective…
It’s not “magical thinking” it’s just “different thinking”. To me, this debate feels like when I’m trying to explain to my girlfriend something that is distinctly a “guy thing”, like why I like violent movies, a good hit in a football game, etc. Just like I can’t understand her desire to watch chick flicks, get her hair done, etc. Or the familiar example of trying to explain the concept of red to someone who has been blind since birth. The similarity here is, it’s difficult to explain what it’s like to think differently because the way “normal people” think is just as bizarre to me as the way I think is to you all.
This may not be surprising to you, but it is absolutely baffling to me. Why should the exact same walk take a significantly different amount of time? I could understand a 5 minute difference or so, but 10 minutes… including a pit stop? Maybe this is precisely case in point on why my ability to predict time is so horrible.
This is an excellent question, because I think it will help illustrate our fundamental difference in our relationships with time; I will use my qualifiers as an example since they’re still relatively fresh in my mind. As I understand, most people look at an essay/short answer exam, see n number of questions and have t time, so they spend t/n time on each question… time is never even a factor for me at all. As I stated earlier, futily perhaps, I don’t plan “event 1, t1 time, event 2, t2 time… event n, tn time; therefore, total time = sum(i=1,n,ti)”, I plan a simple order of events.
Here’s how I do an exam:
I begin by scanning each question. As I go through, I mentally gauge the difficulty of each question; that is, “Do I immediately know the answer?”, generally for definition or algorithm related questions, “Can I calculate the answer?”, generally for drawing graphs, running algorithms, doing calculations, etc. “Can I remember the answer?”, as in, I don’t necessarily know the answer off the top of my head, but if I think a bit I can probably remember, and finally “I have no frickin’ clue.” This is actually a relatively new step for me, and it’s not really necessary, but it helps reduce test time stress.
Next, I start back at the beginning, and if the problem is one of the first two types, then I start working on it, because, even in the best case where all the problems are that type, these are the minimum cost, maximum gain problems. If it is not one of those two types, I skip it.
If I reach the end before time is up (and if I know my stuff, then the time limit should always be sufficient), I go back to the beginning and start on the problems that I have to rack my brain on. If I get to a point where I feel like I’m not getting anywhere (again, a gut feeling, completely unrelated to time, I KNOW whether or not I’ll figure out the answer or not), I down grade it to the last category and move on.
If I reach the end before time is up (and at this point, this still hasn’t happened to me yet), I go back and start think about the ones I think I have the best chance of coming up with an answer, and work toward the complete guess problems until I either have come up with a solution or have a guess for each problem or I run out of time.
This exam taking process is essentially something I’ve adapted from Greedy Strategies and I’ve never run out of time unless I REALLY didn’t know the material, and in the cases where I did run out of time, I’ve guaranteed I’ve answered the questions I had the best chance of getting right, and only ignored the ones I probably wouldn’t have gotten right anyway. As I mentioned early, time is never a factor, it’s never “if I don’t think of something in five minutes, I’m moving on”.
I must get going, I’m running late on getting the gym 
.
Regarding BlasterMaster’s test taking strategy, I wish to mention that this is exactly how I do it as well. I don’t see that there need be any overt time management skills involved. (Arguably the strategy as a whole is designed to make efficient use of the time, but importantly, execution of the strategy does not require any use of time concepts at all.)
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Frylock]
I just realized you’re talking about the Myers Briggs personality type thing.
I can’t find a quick good website about it online, but people can look up the phrase “Myers Briggs” to find a summary.
I always come up INTJ, with the T and J being borderline.
INTJ means “Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging.” I forget what the opposites of these terms are supposed to be. (I think the opposite of the “thinking” category is called “feeling” and the opposite of the “judging” is called “percieving.”
On edit: Here’s a Wiki.
As I’ve long suspected, it looks like the usefulness of the classification scheme is not supported empirically. Still, its fun.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I knew I recognized it. Yeah…almost as if “judging” was a bad thing. We all do it. Some more effectively than others.
For instance, I would have to judge a customer’s ability to pay or an employee’s ability to arrive on time if I wanted to have a successful business.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Thanks. I knew I recognized it. Yeah…almost as if “judging” was a bad thing. We all do it. Some more effectively than others.
For instance, I would have to judge a customer’s ability to pay or an employee’s ability to arrive on time if I wanted to have a successful business.
[/QUOTE]
I do not believe the MBTI implies that “judging” is inferior to “percieving.”
-FrL-