Because people who are on-timers can’t stand not having a time to reference.
“After lunch,” what do you mean “after lunch”?!?! What time is that?!
Unless it is a time-specific event like a movie or baseball game, I try to avoid referencing time without +/- an hour. When I say “around 12” that means 11- 1 or so.
I really just don’t have a problem waiting for people, though, so I guess my opinion is a bit rare.
Oh, so the “on-timers” are supposed to be psychic? This is exactly my point. If you mean “I’ll be there between 11 and 1”, I expect you to say it. But then you tagged the “or so” on the end, so what does that really mean, 10-2?
I have a few “late” friends, so we have a 30-minute rule. If we agree to meet at noon and they don’t show up by 12:30, we both agree the date is off and go our separate ways.
I am constantly plagued by people referencing a specific time. Maybe I’m just too laid back. If I felt like meeting you at a specific time I would offer it, you know? If you are obligated and must meet a specific time I will try to oblige, however.
I don’t expect anyone to be psychic. I expect time-insensitive events to be time-insensitive. I avoid offering a steadfast time whenever possible.
Eve, that’s the way to go. If it bothers you to wait then don’t.
I can’t say I’ve lost any friends over this, but I have gotten into quite a few arguments where people try and make meeting time contractual agreements. Christ, not like I’m signing a lease, I just felt like hanging out.
Some people have whole days off with nothing to do. Others have to visit the drycleaners, the school, the doctor, and the grocery store. If you make yourself inconvenient for the latter sort of person to see, then you’ll miss out on their friendship.
Just my opinion, though, and I’m pretty flexible time-wise.
Heh…I am SO type B that it doesn’t even bother me if I have to wait for someone. See, I know my friends well. I know who is going to be on time, who will be early (with me) and who will be late. I plan accordingly. I bring a book, I plan to people watch, I sit and dream. It helps that I am almost NEVER bored…I can always find something constructive to do while waiting. But even with someone like my friend Carol or my brother, (who will both be late for their own funerals, I can guarantee it) I am STILL early. I just can’t seem to help myself. See, I always have this boundless optimism…somewhere, SOMEDAY? One of them will surprise me by being on time. I want to be there to see hell freeze over, I guess.
I am extremely anal about being on time. I start with optimum drive times and factor in the time of day, (morning, lunch, after work rush) slow winnebagoes, stopping for gas, drinks, munchies, etc. If in the city, I factor in about 10 minutes per hour for traffic lights and I also factor in about 10 minutes lost time per hour (wrong turns, bad directions, etc…). I then factor in 15 minutes of last minute “I forgot to turn off the oven” stuff. I actually enjoy it as it’s a sort of brain teaser and a pride thing… (If a car with two adults and two small kids leave St. Louis, bound for X, at 1 p.m. on a friday afternoon, with 200 miles to go, full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes and wearing sunglasses…).
Traffic accidents are something that can’t really be factored so they aren’t. They are easy enough to verify and everyone understands the delay.
I’m so anal that if I get to where I’m going 10 minutes early, I will drive around for a bit to look at the neighborhood. Being early is just as bad as being late in my book. 3:00 means 3:00… not 2:55, not 3:05.
In receiving, I understand that most people aren’t as demented as I am and give them 15 minutes +/- before getting perterbed, 30 minutes for annoyed. 45 minutes is time to start subtracting major points. An hour without a phone call is just plain mean. Beyond an hour, you’ll be lucky if we are still home, and if we are, you better show up at the door nekkid to make up for it… or clothed, depending on who you are.
The OP can only be answered by someone who’s adopted both attitudes, not a type A’s evaluation of B, or vice versa. And here I am!
At an impressionable age, I was cast in an amature play which rehearsed every Saturday. Members who missed two rehersals were dismissed. I missed one, and thought I was safe until the next Saturday when I arrived at a locked theater. At the first rehersal I’d missed, the regular Saturday schedule had been changed, so I was out of the production. Since then, I’ve been a “Type A,” suffering thousands of small, sharp terrors to stave off the prospect of one big, dull disaster.
Until the scientists on the genome project isolate these “Type A/Type B” distinctions, punctuality should remain a virtue and not a quirk.
I mean, if you say you’re going to do something, well… then you’re supposed to do it, right?
Two issues: stress is purely subjective and which direction “stress” gets splashed.
The prompt truly practice the “courtesy of kings”, honoring other people as themselves. The chronically late are self-indulgent navel-pickers.
Not that I’m biased or anything.
Everybody runs up against niggly logistical crap. The question is, “who makes allowances for it?”
One of my absolutely best friends was chronically late for everything. By at least an hour. Great person who just never “got it” that the rest of the world didn’t owe her endless slack. The crunch came when we were both members of a wedding pary and I was literally assigned to ‘get her to the church on time’.
The bride and I lied about the time of the ceremony–and she STILL didn’t make it. Talk about self indulgence–her presence was sincerely desired but she blew off EVERYONE by dithering and lollygagging. Bullying, yelling and nagging didn’t help. Finally the clock ran out and I drove off without her.
Know what’s sick? She was pissed and outraged that the wedding proceeded without her. Forget everyone else, all the nerve-chewing accomodations. She finally waltzed in as the ceremony ended and STILL didn’t understand what she’d done wrong. Everyone else–weddding party, guests–were somehow at fault for not adapting to her variable needs.
Extreme example but rudeness is plain RUDE and blithe oblivion doesn’t matter. It still comes down to “my needs matter; your’s don’t.”
There’s nothing wrong with expecting people to stick to their word. What bothers me, as someone who deliberately avoids referencing time, is that it is expected that one be on time. That is, it is expected that there is a time, and one be punctual with it.
I find that to be vaguely arrogant. “Well, look, my schedule is just so positively busy that I have to schedule you in… how does 5:15PM next Thursday sound?”
I swear to you… try setting up an event without referencing an exact time some time… try to shoot for something like “12 or 1”, “after lunch”, or “tomorrow evening.” Unless you are doing this with someone like me, you will not be able to do it. Period.
“Well, which one? 12 or 1?”
“What time do you eat lunch.”
“So see you at six?”
If I meant twelve, I would have said so. If I meant 1:25 in the afternoon, I would have said so. If I means six, I would have said six.
It isn’t that my day is so completely free that I have unlimited time to spend on other people. It isn’t. But my time isn’t so absolutely valuable that I can’t be pretty damn flexible with it. Hell, if being punctual is so damn important people should set beginning and end times to meetings. You’ve got stuff to do, right? Can’t afford to wait, right? They are just being rude, right? You’ve got better things to do, right? “Sure, I’d love to have dinner tonight. How about six to eight?” If the 6 is important, then the 8 is important; otherwise, don’t get all pissy when 6 turns to 6:30… the end time doesn’t matter anyway, right?
Sorry, on-timers, but those of your clan that I know are just as annoyingly arrogant.
I just want to make sure I understand you correctly.
You understand that many people have to live by a schedule, and that it angers them if you are late or don’t want to arrange a specific time to see them.
You also understand that you are in the minority opinion on this subject, and your actions will probably continue to cause stress and frustration to other people.
But,
And you don’t understand how this attitude is arrogant, selfish, or rude?
As to the rest of it, there are many times when I have open ended times for people to hang out. As far as making appointments to see other people, any one I am likely to hang out with is just as busy as I am, so there is usually a negotiation involved. This is from a real email exchange of last week:
me “Hi, do you want to have dinner next week, I’m going to be in your neighborhood Monday and Thursday around 7, on my way home from work. Or maybe we could do something Saturday?”
friend “Thursday is the only day I’m available, but I have study group until 7:30, and I want to make it an early night and be home by 10:00 because of my exam on Friday. Are you ok with a short dinner, or we could push it to next week when I have more time?”
How is anyone being “vaguely arrogant”? We are all busy professionals with other friends, spouses, kids, school, whatever. If we don’t schedule it, it isn’t going to happen.
Oh, and I seem to have addressed your end-time suggestion too. If I need there to be an end time, I let them know, and they do the same for me.
You can complain and bemoan the fact the rest of the world doesn’t see it your way until you’re blue in the face.
In the end, either you are there when you say you will be, or you’re not, and that’s what counts.
And what is the “on-timer” supposed to do while waiting for you?
I tend to be much more relaxed about informal situations, if we’re meeting at home or at my office or anywhere that I have other things to do while waiting.
But if I’m meeting you in a resturant, do you or do you not think it’s at all rude to expect me to wait for you, alone, for thirty minutes, with nothing to do?
slackergirl, your name is wonderfully ironic in this thread
At any rate, allow me to respond.
It isn’t that I “just don’t care” about you, its that I don’t care so much about time. Your time is no more valuable and no less valuable than my time. Calling one rude for failing to adhere to your time is not inconsistent with a response that you, in turn, are being rude by feeling that your time should override my time.
Understand, this is an argument about one thing: failing to live up to a promise. It has absolutely nothing to do with the value of time itself. If it does have something to do with time itself, as so many seem to imply, then I feel your blade is double-edged.
I agree it is rude to say one thing then do another.
“Oh, look, I expect people to conform to my ideas of personal interaction, and when they don’t they are rude.”
I don’t expect people to live as I do, with a carefree attitude toward creating obligations as a social structure. I expect that some people enjoy having their days planned out +/- ten minutes. Go ahead. Many situations I agree with you, and I’ll be there on time. But when it is supposed to be a carefree social situation to begin with, I’m not going to impose some arbitrary restriction like +/-30 minutes time on it. I’ll see you when I see you.
Some people, you see, aren’t like that… they will plan their spontaneity, for Eris’s sake. I think we are the same people here; on time when we feel we should be, carefree when we feel we should be. But one of us expects we all view those circumstances equally, and considers the other party rude when they don’t.
How true that is. And how double edged, too!
podkayne
I might add that your name is not, to my knowledge, ironic at all with regards to the discussion.
Sit and ponder the idea that they shouldn’t expect me to live the same way they do, and that we will try and work on something managable to both parties. Read a book. Smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of wine and admire the decor, if there is no decor watch the bar’s television. I don’t know, do whatever one does when alone. I always bring a book with me for situations which involve the possiblity of waiting on another person (friend or not); I noted to myself a long time ago that such situations occurr daily and adjusted accordingly.
Not particularly, as if we were to meet at a restaraunt I wouldn’t have referenced a specific time, and probably shown up before you expected me to. Rather, I would have arranged a meeting place other than a restaraunt where there is little to do other than eat, for those of us who travel with only our clothes.
Try carrying around a little paperback book for a week. Ease up on the stress of waiting for anything: you’ve always got something to do. Carry a journal around and write snippits of thought, computer code, doodles…
Whatever, man. Time itself is enough of a stresser without you lugging it around as an artificial construct when it isn’t necessary. Let go.
Honest suggestion to all on-timers
I, too, used to be really stressed about being on time for stuff. One day I saw the simple, breathtaking solution: don’t wear a watch.
You can still get to work on time as there are alarm clocks and such at your residence. Work, of course, has clocks all over so there is no worry about working later than you thought it was.
At first, I must say, it is REALLY stressful. You are always asking people what time it is. At least, I did. I have worn a watch since I was old enough to tell time. No lie; I never went without one. I was a time freak. I knew, from referencing my watch, what time my microwave said, my alarm clock said, the main clock at work said, the bank sign’s clock…etc etc.
So for about four months I stopped wearing a watch. At home I would turn clocks on their face, or turn them away so I had to deliberately find out what time it was, I could no longer just glance over and see.
Oh, what a change it made. I am back to wearing a watch, it feels just as good, but the stress I had from referencing time itself is gone. I am now only obligated to events; they just happen to occur at a certain time. And if those events don’t need to occurr at a certain time, well, damnit I’m not going to make them.
<<You can still get to work on time as there are alarm clocks and such at your residence. >>
There speaks a person who has never had to stop and get cigs, cough drops, or lunch before work; and who never, ever has appointments scheduled before work on the other side of town; and whose employers would not fire them for being ten minutes late.
I’m done with the debate. There’s a reason I don’t have any friends with your attitude anymore, and my life is significantly more stress free because of it.
However, I thought you might like to know that I don’t own a watch. The only clocks in my apartment are my clock radio in the bedroom, and the little one in the corner of my computer screen. The ones in my microwave and vcr are never set, and the one in my car doesn’t work.
The majority of my life I don’t have a time reference for. I make appointments for two things, conference calls at work and friends. These are two things that are important to me for different reasons, and I am rarely late. I am also never stressed over getting out the door in time or being late. I know my commitments and I meet them. It’s simple, it’s painless, and I never force anybody to “Read a book. Smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of wine and admire the decor, if there is no decor watch the bar’s television” if they aren’t prepared to.
erl, What makes you think I don’t carry a book with me? At the moment, it’s Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and I have a Project Guttenburg copy of Peter Pan on my Palm. I don’t have a problem with the numerous little delays that occur in my life: waiting for the bus, waiting in line at the bank, etc.–more time for me to read, or daydream, or whatever.
But if I arrange to meet with you at 6:00, I want to be with you at that time, not reading a book, which I could do any time and in the comfort of my own home instead of in a public place, checking my watch every five minutes, wondering where you are, whether you’re dead in a ditch, and whether I should just bag it and go my own way.
Don’t you see that the closer you are to on time, the happier I will be? The sooner you get there, the sooner I see you, the sooner I’m happy! Longer I wait, more uncomfortable I am, less happy I am in general! You honestly don’t care about that? Why would you bother to hang out with me in the first place if my happiness is of no concern to you?
Look, I’m not totally uptight about this–like I said earlier in the thread, I’ve got “late” friends, and I just accept that about them. It’s a trade-off. I enjoy their company, so, depending on the circumstances, I’m willing to put up with their tardiness in order to see them. But I certainly hope that they don’t share your deluded attitude that they’re doing me a favor by wasting my time. I can decide, on my own time, whenever I wish, that I want to stare off into space or doodle or jot down some thoughts in my journal or catch up on my reading. I don’t need you to forcibly inject dead time into my day.
Well, we are all proactive in our own way. Sorry to see you leave this open expression of opinion.
Corrvin, no I never have had a job like that. In fact, when I am in the “accepted for work” or “secondary interview” phase of pre-employment I am sure to ask for the company policy on working hours. McDonalds, back in high school, was the most demanding of these. solution? Eh, just became a manager. That way I certainly wasn’t going to write myself up for it!
All the employees loved working for me, too, because I’d let them be late without writing them up. Interestingly, almost none of them were ever late for me. Reverse psychology? It is an idyllic world I live in
Actually, I roll my own cigarettes, so I only purchase tobacco once a month or so since it is so much cheaper for the same quanitity.
As well, much of my job involves travelling, so getting to the airport on time is always a concern for me. In fact, I might mention that getting to the airport on time is seemingly impossible to do. If determined, I can get anywhere on time except the airport. Damn and blast those things. I think they broadcast stress from those funny towers…
Someone once slotted US into a time sensitive culture, which means that our productive day is ruined by the rude, purposely late people. Fullthroated concur!
Ever notice that those like erislover “who just don’t care about time”, never arrive EARLY by two hours!? Is that because …
"I’m one of thoe habitually late people, largely because I just don’t care."
Hey the log-in name was a tipoff! What, was Narcissus already taken?! Anyone in the SMDB land ever notice that the rude late arrivers can’t stand to have anyone be later than they are? Destroys their lateness primacy, don’t cha know. Watch in HORROR as they escalate their lateness until they never see each other again!
Face facts, you couldn’t give two shits about other people, and you’re probably a rude, line-cutting, Arnold Rimmer type. Type A/Type B distinction is chaff – Considerate type B’s will allot more time for themselves, inconsiderate type A’s will consciously figure how much more they can get done before they arrive late! Oh yeah, and people without time sense (an actual mental defect) will arrive ridiculously early and late in equal measure! Good news, yer not whacked in the head? Geez, could it be … rampant assholism? Ching!
Loudly seconding TVeblen, YES! Inconsiderate bastards will complain when you and your five friends cease waiting for them after 30 minutes. DUMP these people, they have all the empathy of garden slugs, give them a “Am I sociopathic” pamphlet, anything. UNFORTUNATE BUT The only cure for this kind of sociopathy i’ve seen in the field is for the patient to have sex withheld until their effect on other peoples feelings can be properly contemplated. Sorry I can’t help you there, eris “lover”!
Had you the perspicacity to read into my previous posts, you’d note that I mentioned I often arrive ahead of friends to gatherings.
This is because I largely avoid referencing time for such gatherings, and so cannot be “early” or “late.”
When there are specific times mentioned I am almost guaranteed to be about 5 to ten minutes late. Not because I don’t care about the people, man, but because I do keep myself occupied with the things I do all day, and time-- not being the ultimate consideration in my life-- slips away from me while reading, writing, chatting online, posting to the SDMB, cooking, cleaning, or doing any of the million other assorted things I do.
Allow me to state this very clearly: everything I do is important to me. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. No one thing is more important than any other one thing, and so it often happens that I get distracted by the current task at hand.
I don’t find your flaming post offensive, but irregardless I think it borders on being against the forum rules. Feel free to insult me all you like, however; it doesn’t bother me. You might want to try the BBQ Pit in the future.
I do wonder, though… what exactly does my login name have to do with anything? That was an intruiging bait that I’m not sure how to respond to…