# The psychology of punctual people vs late people according to lisalan **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 8, 2011, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875 "2011-01-08T13:58:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/121 "2011-01-10T01:34:58Z")
I hate being late. I drive on a regular basis two other families kids into school in the AM (or PM, which isn’t relevant here.) ONE family is ALWAYS late getting out of the house. EVERY FARKING MORNING. If you show up at 819 ( for the scheduled 820 pick up) the mom has a scowl for f’in up her plans. (she is a) not a morning person at all. b) cannot handle change at all. c) this is the mom with the son who I think is at the highest functioning level of asperger’s one can get. She’s a headcase too. I can understand being late the first week of school while getting on a schedule, but it is ALL FARKING YEAR. It gets very old and breaks down ties. It is downright lazy and rude. I’ve talked to her son about it and told him it is his job to be ready to walk out the door at 8am. He has never been early. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/122 "2011-01-10T02:06:20Z")
> [@lisalan](#): > > Or maybe they realized that pointing that out would be rude??? This is the Straight Dope Message Boards, where we correct each other’s mistakes. Preferably in a manner that is neither rude, nor invokes Gaudre’s Law (That is to say: When posting to correct someone else’s typo or grammatical error, your own chances of making such a mistake yourself skyrockets.) Again, sorry if you took offense, none was intended. Chalk it up to culture clash or something. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/123 "2011-01-10T02:52:13Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Am I late to this thread? > > [How a late person’s brain works](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9NgXIkyiwk) > > Note that he isn’t thinking mean thoughts about others. No, he’s just psychologically disturbed. > [@](#): > > I am punctual for somethings and ‘fuzzy time’ for others. If I say, I’ll be there around 5, that means from 4:30 to 5:30. Deal with it. If all you commit to is “Around 5,” and there’s no particular reason for you to be there earlier than 5:30, few people would care. Nobody cares when you show up to a party or if you’re just coming over for a few beers. If my bud says he’ll be over around 7 to drink beer and watch hockey, who cares if he’s not here at 7? Your friend is an asshole if he was pissed at you for being late for something you weren’t really late for. But when my ex-father-in-law actually was supposed to meet us at any given time because we were making dinner, or seeing a show, or had a specific engagement of any kind involving another party, and he was at least an hour late every single time, that’s passive agressive bullshit (and it absolutely was in that case.) When somebody is consistently late for work, that’s arrogance, sloth, or both. When a person is hours late for things that don’t have fuzzy start times and doesn’t call and doesn’t care, it means they’re narcissists. What it DOESN’T mean is that people have a physical inability to make good time. That’s pure malarkey. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/124 "2011-01-10T02:58:21Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > I have to say, **john b.** , that your post is strangely self-contradictory. You start out saying “I’ll try to prove you wrong” but end up describing it as “passive aggression” and end with “it’s an unattractive trait, and it needs to be addressed as such, like bad person hygeine.” Sounds to me like you are pretty much agreeing with the OP (or at least close enough). > > You say “I don’t think it’s a character flaw”, and then go on to describe in some detail what couldn’t be described as anything other than a character flaw. Okay, I was all over the map on the issue of tardiness, **iamnotbatman**. Maybe it’s defensiveness on my part 😃 I remember so well how difficult it was to be a late person and what a damnably difficult trait tardiness is to correct. Quite frankly, it’s painful for me to remember those times. With that out of the way: tardiness is probably more of a symptom of larger issues than a character flaw, however, that said, if tardiness is of such a magnitude as to impair relationships and work situations, then **it is the problem**. Forget the my mother didn’t love me, my father didn’t buy me a baseball mitt when I was in the third grade business. That’s over and done with. Tardiness is now the primary issue regardless of what caused it. A couple of things I remember about tardiness. First off, I never intended to do harm to others by being late. Some latecomers are lazy, always trying to get away with something. Others, like me, are good workers, will happily work late if late to work, will skip breaks, lunch hours and the like to make up for tardiness. But there’s a much more pernicious side to tardiness as to relationships, whether in work or at home, and that’s the fact that if one has this character flaw one is essentially always behind the eight ball. Everyone knows that you’re “that way”, and as such, one can become an easy target. It’s difficult to stand up to a bad boss or a meanspirited co-worker if that person has “the drop” on you, so to speak, can always come back with “you’d be late to your own funeral” or some such. Even if the issue doesn’t come up in so many words it’s there by implication. This leads to all kinds of resentments on the part of the tardy person, all quite understandable, and yet the person has to understand that what’s happened is that this trait has reached the point where one is in a sense “dug in”, stigmatized by it, as it’s “metastasized” and come to define who one is. I had to quit and start over again to get it right, and I did, and in my new job I had a reputation for being the first one there :), and boy, what a difference it makes! However one gets there, the tardiness business needs to be addressed straightforwardly _by the person with the problem_. No, it’s not your boss who’s doing it to you, nor the jerk across the hall, nor the public transportation system, the highway or whatever one’s excuse is. One needs to step back and take an objective look at _what’s really going on_. In my case it was a matter of “indeed, the boss is a jerk”, however I was making myself his scapegoat. He’s never going to change,–but I can. Tardiness has all kinds of complex side issues to it, some of it is or can be in a sense “fueled by others”, but in the end the tardy person has to take stock and act, and that often involves major life changes. Whew! I hope I was a little more clear this time. ---
**Author:** ![seanchai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@seanchai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seanchai)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/125 "2011-01-10T03:26:40Z")
Interesting excuses for those unable to be on time. I’d rather be an hour early than ten minutes late for ANY thing. I have very rarely been that “off” in my timing, and usually I bring something to read, so it really isn’t an issue for anyone else. One of my best friends is chronically tardy. If we’re meeting somewhere, I give her ten or fifteen minutes in case of traffic or whatever, and then I leave. She knows this, and is rarely, in 40 years, later than fifteen minutes. Why anyone here would promote tardiness by waiting for the late arrival is beyond me. You need to state that you will wait X minutes, and stick to it. If you are constantly late, you need to constantly leave earlier, not sit back and say you can’t help it (for whatever reason/s). If time means nothing much to you, fine. If you expect others to buy into that concept, you may learn differently if they stop waiting around for you. an seanchai ---
**Author:** ![lisalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@lisalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisalan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/126 "2011-01-10T04:17:23Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > This is the Straight Dope Message Boards, where we correct each other’s mistakes. Preferably in a manner that is neither rude, nor invokes Gaudre’s Law (That is to say: When posting to correct someone else’s typo or grammatical error, your own chances of making such a mistake yourself skyrockets.) > > Again, sorry if you took offense, none was intended. Chalk it up to culture clash or something. 🙂 No worries:) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/127 "2011-01-10T04:37:51Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > \ nor invokes Gaudre’s Law\ You mean Gaudere’s Law? 😃 (I noticed the spelling error in the OP, but didn’t bother with it.) ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/128 "2011-01-10T04:54:45Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > 🙂 Still, no area or state can lay claim to a universal character with regard to promptness or tardiness, because no culture is monolithic or static. It wouldn’t surprise me if Minnesotans were pretty “lax” about time in contexts that New Yorkers are stricter about. I learned by living in Switzerland that punctuality there is not some kind of absolute rule for all social interaction. No, and I didn’t mean to imply that there was. This is a sore point for me because someone I know spent a chunk of her childhood in Italy and in, I think, Brazil and she complains loudly and long that everywhere else in the word, being on time for things is rude and Minnesotans are so strange for insisting on being punctual and I just wanna scream, “Bitch, move to Italy then, in the meantime get your ass places on time or I leave without you.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/129 "2011-01-10T05:07:12Z")
My brother and sister are habitually late. It isn’t because they disrespect me and want to hurt me, but it sure feels that way. Selfishness may have something to do with it. It drives me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/130 "2011-01-10T05:47:22Z")
> [@seanchai](#): > > One of my best friends is chronically tardy. If we’re meeting somewhere, I give her ten or fifteen minutes in case of traffic or whatever, and then I leave. She knows this, and is rarely, in 40 years, later than fifteen minutes. And she’s still your friend? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/131 "2011-01-10T06:48:36Z")
> [@lisalan](#): > > No worries:) Here’s a related question: What constitutes “Late” to people here? Because I’m betting we’ll get some interesting variation in answers. I’m in the Air Force, and there are some situations where late could be “One second after the assigned time”, and other situations where late is “Not fifteen minutes early”. For day to day stuff, a lot of it depends on where you work and who you work for, but my supervisor at my last base was of the “one second late” school of thought. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/132 "2011-01-10T06:50:58Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > You mean Gaudere’s Law? 😃 > > (I noticed the spelling error in the OP, but didn’t bother with it.) … Why do I keep misspelling that of all words? :smack: > [@suranyi](#): > > And she’s still your friend? Obviously, **seanchai** is just far more fascinating to hang out with than you seem to be assuming! ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/133 "2011-01-10T07:27:14Z")
_shrug_ I try to get places on time, but I don’t always. It’s not a big deal to me either way. However, if I’m meeting someone who I know prefers that I be on time, I’ll usually put more effort into it. Also, if I’m supposed to meet up with someone, and they’re late, it’s not a big deal to me. If they’re gonna be more than a half hour past the time we were supposed to meet up, a call would be nice, or I’ll call them and ask what the situation is. Yeah, a half hour late without word is about where it gets to be inconsiderate. Unless you _know_ that they’re one of those people who is always late, in which case I’ll be sure to show up 15 minutes late, and then I’ll only have to wait for 15. Which is fine. Seriously, it’s not a big deal either way. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/134 "2011-01-10T07:47:20Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Yeah, a half hour late without word is about where it gets to be inconsiderate. Maybe it depends on the context. If you have a dinner reservation for 19:00 it is very inconsiderate to arrive without word at 19:25. It’s not “getting to be” inconsiderate. It is. It is inconsiderate to the other person sitting at the table alone for 25 minutes, wondering when they should give up on you. It is inconsiderate to the restaurant, if they are busy. Actually, unless someone is meeting me at my house, or a coffee shop, or some other place where I might enjoy myself while waiting, 25 minutes is very inconsiderate. I’m not guaranteed to have an electronic gadget or a book or something to occupy myself with. I may have to literally sit, bored, for 25 minutes, when I know there are a number of other things I would rather be doing with my time. In the worst case, the person I am waiting for is late because they are doing one of the things that I would prefer to be doing at that moment, but postponed in order to be on time. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/135 "2011-01-10T08:01:36Z")
Ah. See, I always have a book or electronic gadget or something. I’ve never understood why people wouldn’t have one. (My main requirement for a purse: Must be big enough to hold all my usual crap, plus a mass-market book.) Hell, if I forgot a book and my gadget is out of juice and whatnot, I can take out a pen & doodle, or make lists of things to do later, or something. I don’t really understand the “MY TIME IS TOTALLY IMPORTANT!!! I MUST NOT EVER EVER EVER HAVE IT WASTED!!!” attitude. Dude, that’s what time is _for_. ETA: Unless, of course, the amount of time that we can spend doing whatever is restricted by outside forces (Boss only allows a half hour for lunch, for example.) In that case, yeah, being late would be hella rude. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/136 "2011-01-10T10:06:19Z")
And if you didn’t carry a purse around with you? Say you were, oh I don’t know… A MALE. And to hell with all of you if you start suggesting a man-purse as a solution. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/137 "2011-01-10T10:27:46Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > And if you didn’t carry a purse around with you? Say you were, oh I don’t know… A MALE. And to hell with all of you if you start suggesting a man-purse as a solution. I dunno about purses, **iamnotbatman** but wrist watches and alarm clocks set three to five minutes ahead can work wonders. I try to make punctuality as simple as possible, as _it is simple_. It’s g’d tardiness that’s complicated. :mad: If a tardy person could only come to recognize this he can change his life. 🙂 Forever! ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/138 "2011-01-10T11:01:28Z")
> [@john\_b\_2](#): > > I dunno about purses, **iamnotbatman** but wrist watches and alarm clocks set three to five minutes ahead can work wonders. I try to make punctuality as simple as possible, as _it is simple_. It’s g’d tardiness that’s complicated. :mad: If a tardy person could only come to recognize this he can change his life. 🙂 Forever! Well, not _forever_. I am willing to bet money that you punctual folks will still be late for your own funeral. 😉 (Took me _two decades_ to realize that was a pun) ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/139 "2011-01-10T11:24:41Z")
> [@john\_b\_2](#): > > I dunno about purses, **iamnotbatman** but wrist watches and alarm clocks set three to five minutes ahead can work wonders. I try to make punctuality as simple as possible, as _it is simple_. It’s g’d tardiness that’s complicated. :mad: If a tardy person could only come to recognize this he can change his life. 🙂 Forever! Maybe this is a _woosh_ on my part, but I was responding to the ability to keep one’s self entertained while waiting for late people. I was not referring to the ability to keep track of time. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875/140 "2011-01-10T13:05:04Z")
> [@kapri](#): > > Also, I think people have different ideas of of what “late” is. Today I met several friends for lunch at noon. One of the friends and I ran into each other as we were walking into the restaurant at about 12:04. Another friend didn’t show up until 12:15. Were all three of us late? Technically, yes. But in my mind, showing up for a noon appointment at 12:04 falls well within the range of being on time. For casual meetings, five to ten minutes late is okay but not great, but if it’s not a close casual relationship, lateness of more than ten minutes without notifying me first annoys the crap out of me. For the chronically late friends, I either agree to meet them on a more flexible schedule or purposely plan in “bullshitting time” into the schedule because I know I’ll need something to do until they’re ready. I don’t get angry about it, but I do tend to schedule fewer things with them because they’re late. For work and business, I call if I even think I’m going to be late as a courtesy to the person who is expecting me. On occasion, it’s benefited me, and on other occasions, I would call to say I might be late and arrived within a few minutes of scheduled time, only to find myself waiting for the person I was to be meeting with for nearly an hour. > [@moejoe](#): > > I’m the on time type in general, but I’m often late for work on purpose. This has caused some staff issues since one of my coworkers is the 15 minutes early = on time type, and the other one is often at least 30 minutes late. I’m usually 15-20 minutes later than my contracted start time, but I stay late so often that I don’t think it matters. > > So the early bird spends the entire morning thinking she’s keeping her steaming anger to herself when in fact we’re all walking on eggshells knowing full well that she’s pissed off that we were late. The thing is I’m the manager, they both work for me. I had to actually sit down with early bird and tell her to knock it off, that our organization doesn’t judge or punish people for arriving after she does, and that her behavior was inappropriate. Our coming in later does not impact her in any way other than to ruffle her moral sensibilities. > > I don’t really care at all if someone is late for work as long as their work gets done once they arrive. If I’m late it’s because I decided to nix the outfit and try a new one, or one of my kids started an interesting conversation in the kitchen as I was filling up my coffee to go cup and I just felt those things were a higher priority for me than what time I show up at work for the day. > > Nothing interesting ever happens before I get there anyway so, you know, I don’t feel tardy. I haven’t worked in an environment where tardiness didn’t affect other coworkers in a while, which is why I’m so conscious of whether I’m going to be late or not on any given day. In my last job, tardiness meant that people couldn’t go home, we couldn’t open the library on time, coworkers would miss their breaks and/or lunch time, and patrons would get pissed off in the process. In my current job, being tardy doesn’t work either because it’s a school and it runs on an equally tight schedule-- if a teacher doesn’t show up on time for their classes, than he or she has that time taken out of the lesson for the day and the students complain about having to wait outside the classroom until the teacher shows up. If I don’t show up on time to meetings or information sessions, my coworkers are annoyed, as any meeting a teacher has with me cuts into their teaching or planning time. If I worked in an environment where flexible schedules were the norm, I wouldn’t care when my coworkers came in as long as we had some overlap when we needed to meet to discuss work-related things. If I were manager, my priority in regard to “tardiness” would be that the person coming in late was staying on for the full shift and not stepping out early every day in addition to being late. Overall, it’d be more important that they got their work done correctly and in a timely manner than if they came in at 10am and worked until after 6pm to get it done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-psychology-of-punctual-people-vs-late-people-according-to-lisalan/566875.md?page=8)