Is punctuality a choice?

Great Debates
501

Several times you’ve suggested that “punctual” people need to make accomodation for “non-punctual” people. How exactly do you think it should be done?

In private life, it’s fairly easy. You can use some combination of not making ‘time critical’ meetings with the NPP (invite them to your open house type parties, rather than going to concerts with them), lying to them if they are ‘reliably’ the same amount later, and so forth.

But how about at work? What about when YOUR progress on a project is dependent on THEM doing their part punctually?

For example, suppose you have NPPs as coworkers on a project. You need to have a meeting to discuss progress, and the meeting is pointless unless all members of the team are there to report on their portions and learn what’s going on with the other members. You want everyone there at 10 a.m.

Do you send out individual announcements about the meeting to each person, and give each person a personalized start time, based on your best estimate of how late each one usually is? And hope no one ever compares notes so Ms. Always A Half Hour Late and Mr. Strolls in Ten Minutes Late and Mrs. Right On The Dot don’t realize that you are lying to two of them?

Do you tell everyone the meeting is at ten, and resign yourself to the fact that all the Punctual People will have to waste a half hour of work time waiting for the tardiest of the NPP to finally show?

Do you start the meeting on time, and then have to interrupt and recap what has already been discussed for each of the NPs as they arrive?

What if there is a ‘natural order’ for how the reports need to be given, and you can’t progress sensibly without hearing from a NP who isn’t there?

Maybe you should you assign a ‘handler’ to each NPP to drag/goad them to the meeting on time?

All of those solutions require devoting (‘wasting’) extra time and effort – how much of that should coworkers/the business have to do?

Are their other solutions you can suggest?

502

Atomic wedgies, from orbit.

It’s the only way to be sure.

503

Complete and total misquote of me, Contrapuntal. Kindly reread what I posted. I was talking about what ‘miniscule’ is and said that .0009% would be deemed ‘miniscule’ as opposed to 4%. Nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of this thread - just the semantics of ‘miniscule’.

Because living with someone with undiagnosed and untreated ADD (and several other comorbid disorders) is exceedingly difficult. Because he’d blame all his issues (lateness was not one) on having dyslexia and, when I read further, I discovered that while dyslexia isn’t related to the issues, a lot of people with dyslexia also have ADD, which does. He had a whole lot of the other behaviours. The most difficult was probably forgetfulness, followed by lack of ability to plan.

In the research I did, I learned that chronic lateness was one of the more common symptoms (not the medical diagnosis symptoms but the ‘what it’s like to live with people with ADD’ symptoms from all the links I posted). I also read a lot of information written by people with ADD about their struggles with all these issues. And the hard part to listen to is how terrible their self-esteem is because people insist on seeing as character flaws things that the ADDers were not able to fix by ‘just trying’.

And then I met people and physicians and experts and attended conferences and learned a lot more. And I read boards populated by ADDers and learned more from them.

But the upshot of it back when I read the ADHD e-book, particularly the part about little kids in school getting punished for the same thing over and over because they forget lessons, can’t foresee consequences, and are bad at planning made me realize that nobody would continue to get punished and continue the behaviour unless something was truly amiss with them.

One of the sayings I’ve always loved is that one ought not judge someone until one has walked a mile in their shoes. Unless you know what it is to be ADD, you have no right to judge them for how they are. What’s very poignant is the huge struggles they go through just to appear normal.

And, for those who insist on reading everything I say to mean ‘every single person with ADD’, that’s not the case but it is for a significant number of people. I think humans are sadly unwilling to extend a bit of compassion to one another in these hard-assed days and that’s a huge shame.

And for the umpteenth time I’m not saying everyone who’s late has ADD etc. only that it’s worth giving someone the benefit of doubt and finding out.

504

Management issue. Find out if the person has some problem. If so, figure out what accommodations need to be made. If not, point out the different helping aids available and even (if you’re a real nice boss) offer to assist them in getting one or two. Or find out if they can be reassigned to a job where time isn’t an issue. There’s plenty you can do if you are a good boss.

505

This is what you said.

In response to this question.

A question, I might add, that you have finally attempted to address after multiple requests to do so, only to avoid it altogether. It doesn’t matter? It really doesn’t matter? You give an example that amounts to fewer than thirty people in the entire country and state that we should assume that everyone who is late possibly has this affliction? Do you really live your life that way. Do you assume that everyone you meet is a murderer? Thief? Child molester? Terrorist? Arsonist? Rapist? Millionaire? Evangelical minister? Senator? Presidential candidate? Suffering from dementia?

How can you say it doesn’t matter? Why is ADD a special case when it comes to statistics? There is every reason in the world to discount the possibility that a situation that occurs nine times out of one hundred million is actually present. You have a better chance of purchasing a winning lottery ticket every time you buy one.

506

Even if

507

See, I think this is exactly the wrong attitude to have, if a person wants to gain control over their problem. The second you decide that it’s management’s problem to figure out how to deal with it, you abdicate reponsibility for doing so yourself. It is nice when management can accomodate different personalities and situations, but depending on the number of people involved and the types of tasks involved, that can become an impossible task.

508

Is this your response? The chances of the person sitting beside you on the bus being a psycho killer are much greater than nine out of one hundred million. ***Even if ***it were *only *nine out of one hundred million, would that be your default assumption? Would you treat him as a psycho killer? Do you treat every random person on the street as a rapist, ***even if ***the odds are only .000009 per cent that they are?

509

That’s what you think. It’s not all about you, you know. And I’m not just talking about the actual murder. I’m also referring to when I was stalked, and when I was chased up the stairs, and I was cornered in a dark room while the maniac waved his axe about menacingly. The whole time, I managed to “own” my feelings and take it in stride.

And now you come in and piss all over my axe murder, while all I’m doing is oozing all over the linoleum, looking for a little peace, love and understanding. Try to see it from my perspective, okay?

510

Great–have you consulted a lawyer about this gross violation of your employee handbook? Because I think that if you were told anytime between 7 and 9, but you got fired or harrassed or reprimanded in any way because you didn’t show up at a more specific hour than your employee handbook specifies, you’ve got a pretty good case. I suspect more went on here than we’re being told as well.

On your other job, were you lying when you told him you had to get your kids off to school before 9 a.m.? Because if you weren’t, this kinda implies that you are in fact, when you choose to be, capable of doing important things before the hour of 9 a.m… Or is there something about showing up at work, as opposed to giving your kids your attention, that you’re incapable of doing? At any rate, did you get it in writing that you were to be completely and totally exempt ever from showing up before 9 a.m.? Seems that was what you absolutely required, and you should have requested that letter from your boss, if not immediately following your interview, then the first time you had the slightest hint that this was going to become an issue.

511

See? That’s the kind of reaction I was hoping for.

512

I don’t have the first clue why you wrote this sentence, and this causes me to doubt I understand your post as a whole at all.

-FrL-

513

Your story is making my point for me. The story is absurd because it is well known people don’t have the kind of control you are ascribing to yourself.

Which, in turn, renders your story irrelevant to the argument the story is trying to make a point against.

-FrL-

514

One more instance of you failing to consider my perspective. Typical.

515

Are you suggesting maybe I wasn’t really axe murdered?

516

Even if there is only a nine out of one hundred million chance that you were, we must treat it as if it were so. Can I have your stereo?

517

If your jokes have relevance to the present discussion, I have failed to see it.

-FrL-

518

Everywhere I turn, insensitivity.

519

Heh. The odds are bad but you have nothing to lose. Make sure to get rid of the video tapes in the lower drawer.

This thread is so far out there that it is hard not to crack a joke…

But. One last try.

So you now agree that having someone in your life that is always late is exceedingly difficult.

And, ummmm. Isn’t this what we have all been saying?

I’ll repeat it. Exceedingly difficult.. Those are your words.

And you claimed that this behavior is not damaging?

Would you agree that someone that is habitually late can cause troubles for those that wait for them? Yes or No. If we can get beyond this simple question, we can continue.

Yes, or No.

520

And your failure to see my point of view is my problem?