Q.D., I don’t believe everyone here is accusing late people of malice aforethought. I think many are arguing that the failure to arrive on time has the effect of demonstrating a lack of respect for the person having to wait.
As an analogy, if your wife, mother, husband, father, etc. asks you to take out the garbage, and you fail to do so because you are busy playing video games, you demonstrate a lack of respect for their wishes. It doesn’t mean your intention is to insult them; it’s just that you’d rather play video games than take out garbage. But the effect of your inaction is to demonstrate a lack of respect. See the difference?
You know, you want me to give my friends/relatives/coworkers the benefit of the doubt although you have less information about them than I do. More than one has told me explicitly that he or she doesn’t want to be be early - because he or she doesn’t want to wait for the others. An amazing number of the coworkers I’ve had can’t get to work on time, can’t get to a meeting on time, etc. Now, maybe they look up 10 minutes before it’s time to leave for work, decide to start reading the paper and end up 10 minutes (or an hour) late. I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that not a single one of these people finishes a task 10 minutes before quitting time, starts another task and ends up working 10 minutes (or an hour) late. They either spend that ten minutes doing nothing or they leave work ten minutes early. One in particular made an amazing recovery from the “medical condition” that caused her lateness- when she started having her pay docked a few hours a week because she didn’t provide medical documentation , she was suddenly on time nearly every single day.
Substitute “appointment with me” for class. If you have a history of being late to our appointments, and I have expressed my displeasure about that, then you need to leave when you are ready, even if it means having to wait. If you know that playing the piano can get you off track, and you choose to do it anyway, then you have placed a higher value on my time than you do on yours.
Why in the world can you not set an alarm for the time you have to get up from the piano? That’s what punctual people do. You know you have to go to class. You know that if you leave now you will be on time. You know that if you sit down at the piano you might be late. What does ADD have to do with it? Set an alarm. Take responsibility for your commitments.
Allow me to present two alternate, more concise versions of these categories:
People who think that a person is responsible for his/her own behavior and its consequences, and
People who don’t.
I’m quite happy to absent myself from the latter category (whether your version or mine), because once good sense is abandoned, it can be expanded to make allowances for child pornographers, Nigerian 419 scammers, people who defecate on public toilet seats, and any number of other unique free spirits who “don’t behave identically” to me, but whom I am not at liberty to judge.
Setting aside how wise it is to start a new activity when you have to leave in 1/2 hour, why can’t you set a timer for 30 minutes when you start playing the piano?
Exactly. You disgregard the “early” thoughts and only pay attention to the “late” thoughts.
Again, I think this is just an unrealistic expectation about how precise your time estimates can be. If it occurs to you that you need to go to class any other time than almost the exact minimum allowable time to get there, you ignore the thought and keep doing what you’re doing.
You say your “thought-process” is that you won’t leave 15 minutes early because you “still have time”. But arriving 15 minutes early is hardly much of an incovenience. If that’s what’s necessary for you to be on time, why not just do it?
But this doesn’t jibe with your other comments. If you said, “I try to leave 20 minutes early, but I lose track of time and am unable to”, that would be one thing. But what you’ve said is that you don’t want to leave 20 minutes early. Only you can decide where to draw the line, but you seem unwilling to draw any line at all. You seem to favor being late over being early. I’m getting that you only want to be on time if you can be exactly on time, right at the last minute.
I’m confused, because in all of the examples you’ve given, you have allowed very little leeway, and have indicated that you consider it too extreme to do so.
If 15 minutes leeway doesn’t work, then you allow 45 minutes leeway. Why wouldn’t that work?
Ayup. I definitely lose time if I read or play the piano. So, I set an alarm.
I really really really really really don’t have preternatural time-measuring abilities, no matter how many times the tardy have claimed that my abilities must be so far beyond theirs. I have clocks. And I wasn’t born with a silver clock in my mouth, with a time-regimented childhood, or with a Von Trappian system of martial dedication. I just know when I have to leave (or do X) and I set an alarm.
I’m going to assume from Quiddity’s last post that she’s no longer participating in this thread, but I’ll address this post to her on the off chance that she’s still lurking.
You say that you’ve come just to bring knowledge to the thread and suggest that those of us who are punctuality snobs (my phrasing – I’m not putting words in your mouth) should give the benefit of the doubt to the habitually late because it’s possible that some of those who are tardy (and no one here on either side can provide actual figures) may have some kind of mental issue that prevents them from changing their behavior easily.
If that’s the point you’re making, I will gladly grant it to you.
Here’s what I don’t understand. You have stated repeatedly that the people who have these issues may not even be aware of it. And yet, there have been a number of brave individuals posting in this very thread who have acknowledged that they have this problem and that, although many have been unsuccessful so far, they have made efforts to change their behavior. They may not know specifically that they have ADD or some kind of mental defect, but they know that something isn’t working right for them, whether it be problems in their personal life, their professional life, or both.
I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 11. It manifested itself as my inability to sit down and do my homework 90% of the time. I could rarely finish anything I started. 20 years later, I still have difficulty completing projects (you should see how long it’s taken me to get around to responding to this thread). However, I’m aware that I have a problem, and I don’t expect people to just throw up their hands and say, “Oh! Well there’s something wrong with you, so nevermind! All is OK!” The responsibility to get things done is mine because I’ve taken on the job. It’s up to me to figure out how to get that done, even if it involves enlisting the help of others. If I failed to do something for which I was responsible, I wouldn’t get mad at other people who were counting on me to get the job done because they expressed frustration, particularly because I don’t make a point of telling people that I have ADD. I find a way to get it done or I suffer the consequences, period. And sometimes, I fail. But I take responsibility for that failure when it happens, and I don’t ask other people not to ask like normal people when they have to deal with the consequences of my failure.
Similarly, I don’t understand why someone who is habitually late (for whatever reason) or their defenders would expect others to NOT have a normal reaction (frustration, anxiety, etc.) when someone has been waiting on them without knowing when the individual will show up and perhaps NEVER getting an answer as to why the person was late. It strikes me as being very unfair for you to suggest that all of us who are punctual should suppress any tendency to react normally when we find ourselves in such a situation, particularly based purely on the possibility of a mental issue that you acknowledge we may have absolutely no way of confirming.
The OP’s original question way back on Page 1 was whether or not being punctual is a choice. Your answer is that, in some unknown number of cases, it isn’t a choice. I would argue that even if someone’s mental condition makes it difficult or impossible to be punctual, it still remains a choice for them to either do something about their problem or not. I’ve made a choice to not seek out medication for my problem because my issue is mild enough that I can cope in other ways without it. A person who can never be on time, left to their own devices, makes a choice about whether to continue life in that fashion or to take serious strides to alleviate their problem and the frustration that friends and family might feel when they run late.
I believe that the frustration many of us feel on this topic is when it appears that the habitually late has chosen to NOT do anything about their problem, but rather to ask US to change our behavior for them. I’m sad that you feel this is my way of “requir[ing] that all other humans obey [my] dictates.” It just seems like normal human frustration to me.
Perfect. I can’t wait to hear the response to this. (“I’d think about setting the alarm. But then I’d think, well, I have plenty of time to set the alarm, I don’t need to do it right now…”)
Asimovian My most sincere thanks to you for saying that your lateness may cause others difficulties because of a problem that you are trying to deal with.
And thank you for admitting that if you cannot keep your commitments, that is your fault and not those of the people that expect you.
Good luck to you. Those of us that are on time are not as judgmental as some would like to paint us. We do appreciate it when someone that has problems with time to admit it.
I’m sure it doesn’t matter because QG has given up (which, disagree with her as I may, I don’t blame her for - clearly there is no progress to be made here, since we obviously inhabit profoundly different universes and have no desire whatsoever to switch), but I’m right between the J and the P on the Meyers-Briggs. I generally come out as INTJ, but the J is awfully weak.
In other words, I perceive that here I am, sitting at the airport with my luggage, trying to decide if I can sleep on the sidewalk or if they’ll blow me up with my luggage, and I judge your rude ass for leaving me there and making me worry about you and the underwear the bomb squad is about to explode all onto the sidewalk.
I’ve thought about this issue for many, many years. And nothing so far that I’ve seen in this thread is very different than I’ve heard before. ETA: Oh, except for QG’s position which seems self-contradictory to me, or is very unclear.
This is a GREAT example because it shows what NPP people do that makes them seem self-centered. In this example, the damage to the PP (punctual person) is downplayed and the damage to the NPP is more accurate or exaggerated.
In this example, the PP does not wait for just twenty minutes. They did not magically appear on the sidewalk at the appointed time. They each got there between 5-30 minutes early (conservatively) so that they wouldn’t miss the appointed time. So first off, the amount of damage as to time is downplayed in the NPP’s mind. The actual waiting time is more like 25-50 minutes. Now, you may argue that the NPP didn’t tell them to get there early. But as has been said repeatedly, in order to be punctual, earliness is required.
Then the 20 minutes standing on the sidewalk isn’t just a matter of standing there and having a great time. The average conversation goes like this. After 5 minutes passes, someone asks if they should buy the tickets so they can get in the door if NPP shows up in the next couple minutes. After 10 minutes pass, someone wants to get the tickets and leave the NPP standing outside and another person says to wait for a couple more minutes. After 15 minutes, it becomes clearer that it’s going to be a stretch to make it in the door, and disappointment starts to set in. This kind of limbo state where people are required to make alternate plans every few minutes based on factors that are not in their control are not pleasant for most people I know, especially on their night off. After 20 minutes, NPP shows up and everyone realizes that not only did they give up what they had planned for the night to see this movie, they won’t even get to see the movie. And then they get to spend the rest of the night with NPP trying to pretend that they’re not disappointed but probably not doing a very good job of it.
After the evening is over, the PP will have to sit in quandry about whether they want to ditch this friend. Friends are not always easy to come by, but missing events is not fun either.
The exact same thing happens at work. The PP cannot set up meeting times for normal work hours that include the NPP. They cannot rely on the NPP for their input during morning hours. The company loses money not just based on the productivity of the one NPP but for the entire group of PP that the NPP holds up.
I’m not sure what to say about this. The SDMB is large. If one opens a thread in GD called “Is puntuality a choice?”, wouldn’t one expect to find people who believe that punctuality is a choice?
Well, it’s hard to say who’s enjoying it more, but one such NPP has not found it necessary to address the charges and admitted that there was a problem for her and decided to address it. You’ll find the link to her testimony in the Pit thread within the body of this thread.
I think that if NPPs think in ways that you describe above, they don’t take into account the full impact of their behavior. Based on your examples above, they seem more involved in their own damage to be worried or concerned about the damage to others.
It is for this reason that I don’t tend to run late. And if I started to develop the habit, I’d work on it harder or not make firm commitments with other people until I could demonstrate to myself that I could make it on time for arbitrary commitments I made with myself.
I would feel some compassion for people like those above. But for example, the smoker with emphysema, I’d feel more compassion for his/her family since they not only had to put up with the smoker’s smoking habit, they also have to pay for the consequences for the damage in caring for the person’s illness.
That analogy works for me. So if more practice is required, the person can practice keeping commitments to themselves many times a day and get practice this way. Since I don’t know what the dozen other factors are, I can’t speak to those. Let me say that the difference between a good golfer and one not as good is practice. If we’re talking about a pro golfer, that wouldn’t fit the analogy, since there’s no competition among punctual people as to how close they can come to the goal.
I think that you might see people taking it personally because some people feel that they have suffered a lot of damage at the hands of NPP. Some debates about religion can be just as heated because some people feel very damaged by religion.
I apologize if my post was unclear, but I want to make sure that I don’t take credit when it isn’t due. I’m chronically early for things and tend to be very unhappy and anxious when other people run late, like a lot of others in this thread.
What I was trying to say is that people who have difficulty getting their brain to function in a way that gets them to appointments on time are similar to people like me who have ADD and can’t stay focused on completing tasks. And in both cases, I think we have to be responsible for recognizing that we have a problem and take steps to avoid inconveniencing others and hurting ourselves because of it.
This seems like a strange point to make. If we’re not associating with latesters AT ALL, what difference would it make how we feel about them internally or how we devise our moral system?
If we cut all latesters out of our life, including those that we work with if we have control over them, what would we have to be angry about?
And if the Bible says anything about people being punctual, is she saying that people who believe in the Bible should change their belief/moral systems also?
And I was wrong. This is not her website. Sorry. This is just her article pasted on someone else’s website. Her website is the one listed in the quote.
And the citation she’s referring to looks like this: citation
I couldn’t copy the citation, but let’s just say that some of the punctual people here were more polite about it.
To two new respondents (meaning I’m not going around the same circles) (my bold)
**
Siege **
Please, please don’t confuse ‘brain damage’ with ‘insanity’. Neither is it the case that people with disorders are incompetent. At least any more than others may be. Your chronically late pal may be a math whiz. It’s not about intellect or sanity; it’s about one portion of brain that governs some behaviours not doing its job well. Asimovian
Did I say that? No. I said ‘give people a break, assume they’re not doing it with the intent of causing you grief, and inform them that they might check into ADD and into the products that might help.’ I’m also saying that people who decide to believe that the ‘NPP’ ‘disrespects’ them then give themselves leave to do the same in return. And that’s not nice.
Is it ‘normal’? Cite, please.
And H&R, it’s not about ‘respect’. Yeesh. From your own quote:
It seems to me like all of your commentary is based on the assumption that we don’t give our late companions the benefit of the doubt, which is false in the case of the majority of people who have posted here. Most of us have made some effort to find out what’s going on with the people who have shown up late, just as we’ve made an effort to find out from the folks in this thread who are habitually late what causes this to happen. What I’m saying is that the people that most of us know (again, I realize this is anecdotal evidence) don’t actually think they have the type of problem you’re suggesting. Many of those anecdotally referenced don’t think there’s a problem at all.
I don’t know if this was intended to be snarky, but I hope you realize that I haven’t directed any snark your way – I’m genuinely trying to appreciate your position and understand why you don’t appreciate ours.
I don’t have any statistics in front of me that prove that it is “normal” for people who are very punctual to be unhappy when their friends repeatedly don’t show up on time. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable statement, particularly based on the commentary in this thread, but I don’t know if there are any studies that would back me up. Do you think it is not a normal reaction? And if so, why?
I didn’t see that. What I’ve seen is repeated assertions (based on assumption only) that the wicked late ones are guilty of disrespect and lack of consideration and that they wilfully and with intent ‘choose’ to inconvenience their friends.
Why is questioning an assumption considered ‘snarky’? I’m saying what makes you say it’s ‘normal’?
Right on this thread we’ve seen a variety of reactions. Some people don’t sweat it, others do. People are not all alike. They vary in reaction. Some seem to get extremly irritated to the point that they’ll write people out of their lives. Others just adapt. I put it to you that there is not a ‘normal’ at all but a variety of responses.