Here ya go:
Very funny. 
Kalhoun said much the same about my description. I’m not feeling much like trying to convince people of my inadequacies, but I really do believe that things like time management are much more difficult for some than others. I guess I am not describing my problem very well, and I know that everyone has to have some way to keep track of things. All I can say is that, from my experience and what I see around me, my situation seems to be a bit extreme. And I exhibit many of the other classic signs of ADD, and always have since I was a kid. (Although my opinions of whether or not it is actually a disorder is a whole different subject.) Time management isn’t my only issue…it’s a whole host of focus/attention-span/organization problems that all add up to my life being one big chaotic mess if I’m not totally on top of it. And I know that not everyone is like that…my own family is full of super-organizers, who just seem to be able to remember stuff, keep track of stuff, etc., without driving themselves crazy.
I just don’t think any of it is an excuse not to follow through on obligations in life.
perhaps you should give people the benefit of the doubt and ask if they have brain damage? Isn’t that what you are asking of others to do here?
I think this is the crux of the issue for everyone here. People don’t default to a mental illness for most human behavior issues–because MOST human behavior issues are typically the result of human behaviors that CAN be modified.
If you come home and find your spouse in bed with the neighbor you do not default to find out if they are a bi-polar! If you do, you are a rare human indeed. Infidelity is a common sympton of being manic–yet I would never default to that. And I think we can agree (I don’t have the stats here) that bi-polar is much more common than the 4% of the population being ADD.
So I think most people would default to their spouse being a *)#)A cheater before they default and give them the benefit of the doubt that they might be bi polar. Wouldn’t you? Or would you make the assumption that your boyfriend has ADD and bi polar illness?
Once I knew his behaviour was caused by ADD, I realized how unfair I had been to be angry at him for things he couldn’t have helped.
I think ‘damaging’ is hyperbole. How are you ‘damaged’? Annoyed, maybe. Inconvenienced, maybe, but ‘damaged’? Come on. And, if you were reading, I have completely agreed with people who have changed their expectations. If someone is chronically late and you know it, then you tell that person that if he hasn’t shown by X time, you will proceed with whatever activity you were going to do. You don’t keep expecting him to change, particularly in the face of constant proof that change is not occurring.
It doesn’t affect me because I refuse to let it and others can make the same choice. I used to be. I remember being furious one day because a bus was late.
And I clearly remember thinking how stupid it was to be spending part of my life angry for something that is not in my control. The bus would be late whether I was angry or not and nothing would change that, so nothing was gained by my anger.
This whole entire debacle started when I said that chronic lateness may not be a ‘personality quirk’ at all but rather caused by ADD or another form of damage to the frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain responsible for ‘executive function’, which includes the abillity to plan,organize, and keep track of time. And that the reason people should give their late friends a break was that they might be in this group of people. I also then said that the course of action to take would be to suggest that some of the products available for people with ADD might help their late friends.
Why did you not tell the SO that you knew was chronically late that you would proceed without him (her?) after waiting a reasonable amount of time? Getting mad over something that you know happens all the time - where’s the sense in that? Continuing to expect someone to change when you have ample evidence that a characteristic is a constant of their behaviour is reasonable? Sensible?
I fully support that people tell their late pals that they will wait X amount of time after the appointment and proceed. That’s exactly what ADD spouses are told to do about their late partners. Don’t get mad. Don’t consider the person somehow hateful or inferior. Just realize the person has issues and adjust accordingly.
As to the rest, I see why someone said that topics in GD eventually degrade to people going in the same circles. I’ve already answered the points that keep being brought up.
Like I said, if it makes you (vous) feel good to get all in a froth with your friends, be my guest. It’s your heart attack.
I actually do 
I understand that, and the grief of people with ADD is that their particular conditon causes behaviours that look like ones that can be easily modified - but in those folks they can’t. Causes them an awful lot of grief. Horrible self-esteem. Feeling ‘hated by everyone’ as my SO used to say 
It’s very sad.
Well I would now because of all the reading and studying I’ve done. It made me realize how prevalent ailments of the brain - to different degrees - are.
According to NAMI there are 2.3 million Americans with bipolar which agrees with American Family Physician which says 0.3 to 1.5% of the population. Less than half of the number with ADD.
I would probably have noticed the other symptoms of bipolar first, however I have heard of more than one case of adult-onset bipolar, which according to the article I quoted above, can be secondary to another condition. So I would keep an eye out for that and I’d listen to his explanation and see.
In fact, if someone begins to act very uncharacteristically, that’s something to be concerned about because it could indicate the onset of a mental ailment or an underlying medical condition that is affecting the brain. A friend’s mother died at 47 after having seemed extraordinarily depressed and moody and having balance issues. They thought it was menopause. It was a brain tumour.
Point being, if you see ‘bad’ behaviour, don’t be too hasty to consider it ‘bad behaviour’.
But the point is, as crazy as it might make you, you ARE coping. You’re putting forth the effort and doing what is expected of you the vast majority of the time. You’ve made it a priority, as difficult as it is sometimes. You could be the poster child of hope for the whiners who try to push the problem off on everyone else! 
That is a lie, as I have pointed out above, and to which you have chosen not to respond. Unless, of course, you are compelled by forces beyond your control not to respond. The word ‘miniscule’ did not appear in the exchange. You were responding to a question which had been asked many times before; to wit, what per cent of the four per cent of ADD sufferers are tardy as a result? It is clear to most of us that you have no idea, if for no other reason than you had to be pressed repeatedly before you answered.
And when you did you said “it doesn’t matter.” Is that still your position? Does it matter whether the incidence of ADD related tardiness is such that only thirty people in America have it?
From QG:
The “even if” sentence is ambiguous as it stands. It could mean “Even though it is” or it could mean “Even if it were.” To determine which was intended, we must look at the context.
Admittedly, the immediate context of the post does not disambiguate the sentence.
But later comments in the thread have given context to the post in the following fashion: QG has given comments explaining what she meant. And here comments clearly disambiguate the sentence as having the “even if it were” sense.
I do think QG is wrong to think this is something anyone who can read should have been able to know without her clarification. I think the sentence is ambiguous, and required her clarification.
But now, she has clarified.
-FrL-
I disagree. The lie comes from claiming that the .000009 figure was referring to ‘miniscule,’ rather than to 'what per cent of four percent? … ’ Furthermore, if we accept the ‘even if it were’ meaning, she still maintains that .000009 per cent is enough of a chance that we must treat it as if it were 1/1. It is only hypothetical because she does not know what the correct per cent is, not because she is trying to make some rhetorical point.
No one is holding her to the .000009 figure. Fine. It’s hypothetical. The question I have been asking her, that she has avoided like the plague, is whether such a hypothetical obtains for any other circumstances, like rapists, and psycho killers, and evangelical ministers. In other words, why assume someone has ADD related tardiness even if (hypothetically) only nine in one hundred million have it, but not assume anything else with the same (hypothetical) chance of being true? What is it about ADD related tardiness that gives it this special status? Her response? IT’S HYPOTHETICAL! THERE! IS THAT LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU?
Maybe you could ask her for me.If the .00009 figure is to be disregarded because it is hypothetical, are we to disregard “it doesn’t matter” as well?
FWIW, I didn’t think it was ambiguous, and I took it the way QG says she intended it–not that she was asserting that this was the actual ratio, only that even if it were, that would be enough to support a benefit of the doubt. I disagree with that assertion, but I knew what she meant. That said, Contrapuntal’s last points still stand, AFAIC.
Contrapuntal is picking an endless number of nits thinking that somehow counters what I’ve said. Contrapuntal is welcome to believe that.
Bottom line:* give your fellow human a break. You’ll want a break one day. Behave in a way that’ll mean you deserve one, yourself.
You wish to think ill of people even when you have information that explains why you oughtn’t? Go ahead. I think it’s unfair but then maybe you are suffering some sort of disorder that prevents logical and ordered thought.
*(vous)
Betting on the 4% odds while ignoring the 96% odds is a suckers bet.
You’re telling me that there’s a 96% chance that somebody is being an asshole when they’re habitually late and not ADD.
So why default to the 4% odds? Why should I give 24 people a pass because 1 uses a mental condition as an excuse for being late?
Wow, interesting thread. To trot out a cliche, I know anecdote is not the plural of data, but I’ve worked 8, 10, and 12 hours shifts in airline ops. While salaried, these are the sort of jobs where the desk can’t be unmanned, so if your relief doesn’t show up, you wait! It’s inconsiderate and inconvenient to me when my relief (who I showed up on time to relieve the night before) arrives late the next morning when I’m ready to go home. So, yeah, someone does it repeatedly, I’m going to talk to them about it. If they still don’t figure out how to get to work on time, after I finally write them up (which it takes a LOT for me to do) they eventually get fired for tardiness or absenteeism.
The sad thing is I know 2 people who both claimed to want their job, and got fired for missing it. And this is a VERY understanding company, but what you get are people who don’t want to use up their vacation and sick days so they can miss days, but expect to impose on their coworkers within the dept to take up the slack for when they routinely arrive late. We’ve had several people who couldn’t take the schedule and stress transfer to other positions. But if you’re hired on for a certain job and shift, and find you can’t do it, accomodation does not include moving you to a less demanding, generally lower responsibility and lower paid job at the same salary. In unusual circumstances, I’ve picked people up for work, we’ve loaned people company cars, we allow people to leave during shift for essential errands (as long as the desk is covered, etc, etc) I am a marshmallow. Give me a good enough excuse, that’s all I need. But if the excuse is once a week, you need a different child care/vehicle/sleep schedule or a different job because of your CHOICE to be routinely late.
And by the way, one of the other ALWAYS on time people is a single mom with 2 kids.
Bottom line, I won’t work an extra 30 minutes every day so someone else can work 30 minutes less. The math is really obvious by my work schedule, but that’s essentially what being chronically late does to those you stand up. Your benefit is their detriment, because, believe it or not, the people who made it there on time ALREADY DID all the the things that most of the chronically late people in this thread don’t want to do.
1)If they don’t already know, the consciously figured out how long it will take them to get ready and get there (I love mapquest so much. Calling ahead to wherever you’re going works too)
2)They allowed some extra time if it’s somewhere unfamiliar or hard to get to.
3)They may even have adjusted their sleep preparation schedule the night before if it’s their first appointment of the day.
My experience is the longer the shift, the more people tend to come in late. So for most people it seems to be a sliding scale, and the less time off you have to get ready to be back at work, the more difficult it is to get there. The other possibility is, the less time off to get ready to go back to work, the more job resentment you may have, and then passive-agressively take time back by being chronically late.
Personally I’m horrible with time. I bought one of those dual alarm clocks, one to wake me, one to tell me I have 1/2 hour left to get out of the house, and 1 have the alarm set on my phone to go off 5 minutes before I have to get out the door. And the crucial part is, all those time are based on the LONGEST it takes me to get to work…if I miss all the lights and there’s a traffic jam at the airport, etc.
So usually I DO get there 15 mins early, and my coworkers don’t know, cause I’m in the parking lot reading mail or having a smoke.
If I run really early I treat myself to Starbucks on the way to work.
Conversely, if I run late, I don’t eat dinner before I come in, and then order when I get there.
To my coworker who hasn’t learned this MAGIC SECRET of time management, it may appear I effortlessly arrive at work 5-15 mins early everyday.
I spent years being late to everything, then I decided what what I wanted to do career wise and it is not forgiving of tardiness. So I freaking do what I have to do to get there because it’s important to me.
I have no secret time sense. I can’t tell time in my head. MOST PEOPLE CAN’T, that’s why alarm clocks and kitchen timers exist!
Anyone whose monkey brain is good enough to figure out how to post to the SDMB, also has the skillz to set an alarm clock. or several.
What nit am I picking? I am not holding you to the .000009 figure. Why should we assume ADD related tardiness even if the odds are one hundred million to nine against it? Is there anything else which should be given this consideration? When you said “it doesn’t matter” was that hypothetical, or real? Do you have any idea what the real percentage is? These are really quite simple questions. Why are you avoiding them? The simplest way to shut me up would be to provide an answer.
Now, whether or not it’s difficulty of schedule or deliberate or unconscious choice to BE late is very interesting. I had not thought of it being a passive agressive behavior, but WOW, that is spot on.
Now I’m thinking that might even be MOST of the explanation when it comes to chores or work you hate.
It’s harder to understand why someone would be passive agressive about standing up their friends (I’m NOT saying people don’t do that, people TOTALLY do that. I just don’t understand it, myself. If your friends piss you off that much, I gotta say, instead of standing them up all the time, we’d just stop being that good friends and probably wouldn’t hang out much at all. But I know lots of people who seem to cherish their relationship drama, I’m sure keeping everyone waiting can also be deliberate (subconsciously or consciously) when it comes to friends and family.)
I would posit that each instance of lateness is a choice. But also hating what you have to do, and therefore being very resistant to changing what you have to change to make it (as classic passive agressive behavior), would make choosing lateness a lot more common in your life. Seriously something to think about for me, on the deadlines I find most difficult (taxes, anyone? visiting my parents instead of friends on the weekend? So many examples, not enough time!)
See - that’s my point. Chronic lateness CAN be helped, even if the person has ADHD. Why is it up to everyone else to fix these people’s problems? If you’re chronically late and people are constantly getting pissed off, why does none of the onus fall on YOU to explore some reasons to the cause? Why does everyone else have to make accomodations for YOUR problem? FWIW - I have a good friend with ADHD. He recognizes that it’s HIS problem and takes steps to correct and deal with his particular issues. You keep saying “Oh BooHoo! What if the person has ADHD?!?!” Well - what if they do? Get help, get the hell over it, don’t let your issue be a problem for others. Period.
And I think that you’re chronically late and you don’t like the idea that your inconsideration is ‘damaging’ other people. Fine - tell yourself whatever you want but there is a concept as “monitary damage” - if I buy expensive theatre tickets and am unable to use them because my date fails to pick me up in time to get to the theatre, I am monitariy damaged as I cannot get that money back.
Heh. Just like others can make the same choice to be on time, and not let their tardiness affect other people. They can REFUSE to be late. There, wasn’t that easy?
No, actually I think it started when you suggested that even though the number of adults in the world with ADHD is 4%, and even though a much smaller portion of those people are chronically late - 1% - if you have 10 friends out of 100 that are chronically late you should assume that all of them have ADHD and play armchair psychologist and randomly start diagnosing your friends with shit. I’m sure that would go over very well. If some people are late because of diagnosed ADHD, it doesn’t change the fact that some people are late because they are unmitigating assholes with no concern for other people’s time, or providing a minimum level of respect for their friends. I guess it depends how close you are to the person as to if you try to figure out which it is, but frankly, if a person elects not to bother and just decides not to be friends with that person, I can’t say as I blame them. If your (vous) bad behaviour pisses your friends off all the time, it’s on YOU (vous) to figure out what your problem is - not them - and that includes if you (vous) have a diagnosis of ADHD.
Ah yes - it’s MY fault that he was constantly late. If I had only TOLD him that it bothered me, he would have stopped. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait - I did. However, when you make plans with someone, say that you’re going to pick them up and they insist “No, no - I’ll be on time - I’ll pick you up.” and then they’re late again, I think you’re (I’m) perfectly allowed to be annoyed. And no, I didn’t get “angry” - I was dissapointed. After a certain amount of dissapointment he was no longer my boyfriend. And you can’t imagine his shock and outrage when I announced that the reason he was no longer my BF is because of his chronic lack of attention to my feelings about these things. “You’re breaking up with me because I’m LATE sometimes?!?!” I believe were his exact words. But I guess I shouldn’t have broken up with him - I should have assumed that he had ADHD and help him through it, the poor little poodle, because he’s not an adult, and has no control over his own actions. Oh wait - he was an adult. He had complete control over his actions, and just didn’t give a shit if they made me late along with him. And, for the record, he does not have ADHD.
And when you do that, and your pal/spouse/co-worker reacts by screaming and yelling and calling you and insensitve slob, THEN are you allowed to get annoyed with them? Really, how bad can a person’s behaviour be before you’re allowed to be upset with them?
No - you keep saying the same thing over and over again, it doens’t mean that you’ve answered the points. In my opinion, you haven’t. You yell (figuratively) and say "Read my links! Read my links!" assuming that we haven’t. Assuming that we haven’t read your links and discovered more questions for you which you refuse to answer. Guess what - we’ve read the links. They don’t answer many of the questions put forth in this thread. If you don’t know the answer to someone’s question, it’s more honest to simply say “I don’t know.” then to try to put it off on the other person not having read the material you’ve supplied. I’m sorry, but you’re not debating honestly - you’re just yelling louder and louder and hoping if you say the same thing often enough it will somehow make it correct.
Because being upset with someone when they do not deserve it is a very grave offense.
If someone is consistently late, then stop relying on them. (No one’s suggesting you give anyone “a pass” in that sense.) But unless you know more about them than just the fact that they tend to be late, you should withhold any judgment of their character and any emotional reaction toward them. Otherwise you run the risk of doing something very wrong: Being angry with someone or thinking badly of them without just cause.
-FrL-
As one of the “Defenders of the Tardy” on this thread, let me re-iterate: I do not see any problem with the procedure you are describing. Someone who is consistently late to work, especially when their position makes it important for them to be on time, probably should be fired in my opinion.
Can I ask a favor? Could those “non-defenders” who have read my comment here please note that fact? I want to make sure my position is not being misunderstood or lost in the noise. I’ve seen several comments (for example the quoted one above) which may indicate that this is happening.
-FrL-
Read Contrapuntal’s posts. Do you hold this position for any offense or bad behavior you can imagine? Do you provide the benefit of the doubt for everything? Because all “bad behavior” could have such a reason behind it, however remote the possibility.
Your point isn’t lost on me. It’s not entirely logical though. How can we hold someone who may have no control over their actions responsible for their actions? If I shouldn’t consider the behavior offensive, why would I punish the person for it?