I used to be very bad about not knowing where my keys were, and it made me late on a few occasions, which was enough to prompt me to get a key hanger and screw it into the wall right next to the front door (though irrelevant, it’s just like this one :)). Now, the second I walk in the house, my keys get hung up, which means that all I have to do is grab them off the hook on the way out the door. It really is a perfect and simple solution.
My mother is chronically late, which is why I don’t even hear her when she discusses time. If she asks me to do something at a certain time, I do it at my convenience. Sometimes, that works out for both of us, sometimes it doesn’t work out so well for her. If she complains, I remind her of all the inconveniences she’s put me to over the years.
That sounds like a terrible way to treat your mother, I’ll admit, but she agrees with me that she is hardly the appropriate person to hold someone to a timetable, and I would never let her down if it were something important.
I deal with all that stuff after I deal with my keys. All it took is getting locked out on a cold day when I was a teen to cure me. Now my keys are in my right front pants pocket at all times.
I will admit to losing them a few weeks ago, though. I left them in my apartment door lock. :smack:
Heh. Yeah, that’ll be me.
People are just lazy, they don’t want to change, and they definitely can’t take any constructive criticism. Put your keys in the same place every day and you simply can’t lose them. Yes, starting a habit like that might be slightly inconveniencing, because it’s a tad bit more effort than just letting the keys end up wherever you feel like putting them down that evening, but an adult should have the foresight to realize the benefit of such a trade-off. Same goes for teaching yourself to think ahead enough to be punctual. The good news is, once stuff like that becomes a habit, it’s no longer as painful as it once was, but yes, you’re going to have to put some effort behind your self improvement initially.
Y’know, I’ve read this over a few times since I posted it, and I think I’ve worded this much too strongly (not that anyone’s likely to care).
My attitude is not actually that cavalier. I’m a very punctual person, and it makes me extremely anxious to be late. However, in the last few years, I’ve decided to let go of that anxiety when it comes to being somewhere for Mom. For one thing, I’m almost never late, whether I’m stressing about it or not. For another, she tends to not even notice whether I show up at the agreed-upon time. I have realized that when Mom says “4:30” or any other specific time, she might as well have said “green o’clock” for all the meaning it holds.
Ok, you owe me a pack of monitor wipes. And some kleenex to wipe my tears. That’s frickin’ hilarious! “Green o’clock.” I’m definitely going to have to remember that one.
Monitor wipes & Kleenex are in the mail. 
At the risk of posting a “Me too”, wipe, please?
You’ve got a brain and you’ve got opposable thumbs. Those are all the tools you need, and I’m not even sure that you need the thumbs.
I don’t wear a watch. I’m disorganized. I’m scatterbrained. I’m clumsy. I’m forgetful. And I’m not late.
There are few things in the world that are so much in your control as being on time.
It’s the same with me. Everyone in our family has learned that mom can’t get anywhere on time. Every time I visit my parents, I’ll hear, “OK, I’m ready to go. I just need to water my roses, run in the bathroom, do my hair, put some makeup on and call Grandma.” I’ve pointed out that if she still has all of those things to do, she’s not “ready.” She just laughs and says, “well, our time is our own today” (meaning we have no pressing engagements). Meanwhile my sister and I are fuming as we sit around waiting for the next 75 minutes. Mom never understands why we’re mad.
I had one friend in law school who was chronically late for every social event. She could make it to class on time every day, but she routinely showed up late for dinners. The rest of us would be waiting at the restaurant for up to 90 minutes before she’d waltz in with the explanation that she had “other stuff to do” before she showed up.
I’m sure that some people honestly have trouble keeping a schedule. (I never knew that was part of ADD! I learned something here today.) For some people, though (like my law school friend), the failure to show up on time appears to be a lack of consideration, pure and simple.
Perhaps, but I think there are TWO types of habitually late people.
Those like Obsidian who simply mis-manage time and don’t make allowances for minor interruptions. My Mom is the opposite, she could get ready for work in a half-hour, but she get’s up an our earlier than she needs to so once she is ready she can be leisurely and enjoy her morning coffee while readin the paper, then saunter out of the house. But other people just don’t understand how to be leisurely and navigate through time and space. Things just take longer than they think it should.
Then there are those who are always late because other people’s inconvenience is unimportnat to them. It a matter of taking loved one’s for granted or not having respect for the party they are meeting. My ex-girlfriend was one of those. She was the latest when it came to her loved ones because those were the ones she took for granted the most. “They won’t mind.” was her pilosophy.
Once we were meeting friends at a theatre, 8pm curtain time. It was about a half hour cab ride to get there. She was fooling around on the computer, emailing a relative in a different time zone. “I’ll be just one more sec,” she said. I was ready and had my coat on, because it was 20 to eight… takes us 30 minutes to get there, were were going to have to RUSH. I was waiting for her to grab her coat so we could go.
Finally she logged off. “Okay,” she said, “I just need a quick shower…”
We left at 8pm.
Most annoyingly, I once overheard her telliing someone else “Cellphone is always tardy.”
Bitch.
The problem with this theory is that I am terribly forgetful and disorganized, to a fault. So much so it’s mentioned every year as my one weakness at work. I am, in fact, famously forgetful among my friends and family with regards to most things. But I’m never late, barring an actual act of God like a blizzard or something. In fact, I’m almost always early. I simply don’t allow myself to be late. If you’re consistently late for work, leave even earlier, for God’s sake. On the other hand, my father in law, who is very is reasonably neat and organized, is almost comically, insultingly late.
The simple truth is that he isn’t really aware of other people’s concerns, and I am.
Actually the other day, I mis-placed my keys. This never happens they are always in one of three places: The little dish for keys, the hook by the door for keys, or attached to me physically by a carabiner. (And normally I have an extra set in the dish, so I wouldn’t even care, but my mom has the extra set right now.) The other morning, I had keys in hand, since I was about to leave. Oh, look! My bootlace is undone. Tied my bootlace… and then had no fucking idea where my keys were. Fuck, that pisses me off.
Took me twenty fucking minutes to discover that I put them on top of a book on the bottom shelf of my book case after I had crouched down to tie my bootlace. Do you have any idea how difficult that was to find??? It was beyond retracing my steps. I was pantomiming all my actions.
That’s rare however. 98% of the time my keys are in the dish or on the hook.
I have a co-worker who once, while exhausted, tossed her keys into the pot of one of her houseplants. Took her the longest time to find them.
Heh. On Tuesday I put my ice tea bottle in the fridge to get a little cold while I was feeding the cats. I was on the porch before I remembered the bottle, so I run back in, keys in hand, grab the bottle and catch the box of leftover wedding cake that falls over. Go back outside, where I realize I have no keys.
Bottom shelf of the fridge, behind the wedding cake. How did I even do that?
It sure behaves like it more than it does an actual damaged brain which does not choose which times it can function.
Perhaps I’ll explain more in the thread in GD. I haven’t decided if it would help increase comprehension to do so yet.
I’m not sure you understood my intent there. I don’t find planning ahead bothersome because I know it has to be done. So I can either do it with a bad feeling about it or I can do it with a positive attitude. Since I must do it either way, I choose not to find it to be horrible.
It’s a software package called BratFactor Planner. It is supposed to tame the inner brat that is undisciplined and cries out for attention at inappropriate times.
It encourages you to set as many reminders as possible as early in the cycle as possible so that it gives you adequate time to plan ahead.
IANAD.
Yes, we’re all given one brain and one body. What we decide to do with that IS the choice.
You seem to be bringing two different types of issues into the mix. One is more physical–the coordination and the other is more mental/emotional–the chronic lateness. They’re only related to the extent that one affects the other at times.
I don’t like judgmental people either.
Have you ever had a negative thought or spoke a negative word about a murderer, a child molester or a rapist? If you have, then you’re judgmental too. If you haven’t, have you ever had a negative thought or word about anyone? If not, I’d be very surprised.
We’re all judgmental. We discern things about people to protect ourselves from getting hurt.
When you say you don’t like people to be judgmental, you’re saying that you want people to accept you as you are while you don’t have to accept everyone as they are.
Having said that, I personally try very hard to separate the people from the actions but sometimes find it difficult due to fear. And I also take actions to distance myself from dangerous situations.
So then you may say that since you don’t cause any harm by your actions of being late, people shouldn’t judge you for them. All I can say is that people in my life who have been non-punctual have created more harm than they probably imagine.
Of course, this kind of harm may not be on anywhere near the same level as violent harms or other invasive harms, they are still harms.
I’ll give a quick example. When I was in elementary school, my mom used to pick me up from school between 30-90 minutes late every day. By the time she picked me up, every student, teacher and even the principal had gone home for the day. So I sat next to an empty building in front of an empty parking lot. During that time, I would have frequent nightmares of someone driving by to cause me harm and I would have no one to turn to since all the adults had left for the day. In those days, being late to pick your child up was acceptable. Today, if you go beyond a set time to pick up a child, the school will alert the police and I believe they can charge the parent with child neglect. My mom clearly thought it was no big deal. The laws today show otherwise. So sometimes being late can cause harm.
Would it comfort you at all to know that now, the teacher who draws the short straw has to sit there with the kid? No kid sits in front of an empty school, alone, waiting for a parent, not anymore. However, parents still pull this bullshit all the time. Every school dance, some poor lone kid is standing outside with the chaperone a half hour after everyone else is gone, with the chaperone on the cellphone desperately trying to get a hold of the jerk ass parent. Since this is the Pit, I can say, if you do this to your kid without an extraordinarily good reason, you are a complete fucking asshole.
This one made me snort too. Partly because I recognized it! My in-laws are like this, and we have simply stopped expecting them to be anywhere on time. We learned this very painful lesson when I was getting my master’s degree, and we planned to wait for them at our apartment so they could follow us to the university. They were (happliy, carefree-ly) late, I was a nervous wreck (by which I mean it nearly ruined the entire day, I freely admit that I wasn’t quite myself because I had just lost my first pregnancy), and we did make it to the ceremony but just barely.
So now, we only invite them to come over when we don’t have to do anything and we expect them to be hours late. I suppose they miss out on doing a lot of things with the kids, but at least I’m not rendered unhappy any more. I’ve learned to plan around them because I have to, but I’m not making any more plans that depend on them, and I’m not doing it for anyone else either.
I find it bothersome in that it’s difficult for me to do. All the positive attitude in the world doesn’t change that it’s hard for me. Doesn’t mean I don’t do it. I don’t get just choosing to feel something. I’m saying this honestly. I don’t understand that. I never have. I hate that it’s apparently not enough that I manage to get my shit together. I have to be happy about it, too.
I will look at that software.
Oh, no, I’m good and judgemental in the right situation. I said that badly. What I meant was, I don’t like people who are judgemental about petty things. (I know, I know. . . everyone’s definition of petty is different).
I don’t know where you get the idea that I don’t accept people as they are. I actually do. I’m a big believer in letting people be as they are. I think accepting who you are is the first step to being a better person. Accepting the way I am is the only way I learned to work around it, so I wouldn’t be so friggin’ late to everything. Judgemental is looking at me and saying I’m selfish. It’s ignoring that I’m trying, it’s ignoring me even when I ask for help, it’s reading insult and disrespect and malice into every failure. (Not saying you are doing this-- just explaining what I mean by judgemental)
If being late will harm (because it drives them batshit or because they’re sitting in the cold) whomever I’m meeting or picking up, I’ll go early. I will inconvenience myself so I don’t inconvience them. (Though sometimes, despite my best efforts, I still fail.)
But let’s say you are my friend. And you’re not in the cold, and waiting doesn’t bother you a lot. You know that when you say 6PM, it won’t be hard for you to be there at 6. You know it will be hard for me. You know that to make 6 with certainty, I need to be there at 5:30 (50/50 I make the 5:30 deadline, say). So you think, “Well, Obsidian will always be the one to wait, because timeliness is the correct behavior, and she should suffer because she is in the wrong.” Or do you ever think, “Well, maybe this time I’ll be the one to take a chance at having to wait. She’s my friend, and I don’t like the thought of her having to sit around alone/stressing out/driving like a maniac any more than she likes the thought of me sitting around alone, bored, and staring at my watch.” Compromises are offered to me, and I’m lucky because I have good friends. They are considerate of me, and I am considerate of them. I am not even remotely oblivious. We all work with each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
No, it’s that people have different abilities and deficits and ones you have he doesn’t have and vice versa.