Subject pretty much says it all. For the better part of 6 months now I’ve been car-pooling with two guys; we meet at a gravel park-and-ride spot off the highway.
The first guy is pretty good, although he is a minute or two late usually. The second guy is always late. We are supposed to meet at 6:30, and he is never there at 6:30. He will arrive at 6:33 if we’re lucky, or 6:38 if we’re unlucky.
Hey, I know it’s only 3 to 8 minutes, but for fucks sake, why can’t he just leave home 10 minutes earlier? It is starting to drive me batty.
I’ll get a text message at 6:32 saying “2 mins” and he will still be another 6 “mins.”
I’ve thought of saying something but don’t want to come across as a total prick.
And because of the initial 8 minutes late leaving for work, we’re 8 minutes leaving to go home. Which may not sound like much, but we work in a facility with 3,000 people. If you arrive 10 minutes earlier, and leave 10 minutes earlier, it makes a HUGE difference on time on the road.
Oh, I forgot to mention our commute is 100 miles each way. I hate getting to the park-and-ride at 6:28 and having to wait till 6:38 for him to show up.
What if you send a text message when you’re 10 minutes away from his house that says “I’ll be there in 5 minutes”.
For people that I know are going to be late, I just adjust the schedule so that their late becomes my on time. That is, tell him you’ll be to his house in 5 minutes, then get there in 10 minutes. Set the dinner reservations for 6:30, but tell the couple that’s always late to meet you at 6:15 etc…
It’s the Dope, so people are going to tell you to just keep driving or stop giving him rides or whatever, but that’s the suggestion I’d try. That or bring a book/kindle/smart phone so you have something to do for the 5 minutes while you sit there. I’ve had friends that are just always late. There’s usually not much you can do about it.
If we have an agreement to meet at 6:30, and I’m there at 6:28 and have to wait 10 more minutes it kills me. Especially when he knows he’s late and sends pseudo-apologetic “2 mins” messages when he really means 6 mins. I can leave my house and get there on time. He has essentially the same drive and can’t. Maybe I’m OCD about this. I’m just looking for opinions because I’m losing patience. You can’t be there on fucking time, ever?
Sometimes people are chronically late because they don’t think the people they’re late with care so much. Sometimes all it takes is for the on-time people to mention nicely that the lateness really bothers them and could the late person please try harder to be on time. It’s worth mentioning.
I tend to be a later person rather than an on-time person, and definitely never an early person. Most of the time it’s just because I get distracted or something happens while getting ready that I didn’t account for in my timing, and if no one mentions it, I might get more lackadaisical about it as time goes on. Whenever it’s mentioned that I need to get on-track with being on time again, I do it. I need a reminder every 6 months or so.
How badly do you need this guy? How much do you save driving with him? Can you get someone else to drive with? If it is $50 or more a month and there is no one else, I would put up with it and kindly try to get him on board with keeping the schedule. Ingratiate yourself to him. If you are a good sport, it might work out.
The cost of gas is about $35 a day. If he drives one or two days a week then I save about $210 a month. No, there are no other people to commute 100 miles with.
Oh, I mention it all the time. “So, 6:30 tomorrow, right? We’re meeting at 6:30? See you tomorrow at 6:30!” To me it’s insulting for someone to be chronically late. Like I said, if you’re 8 minutes late every fucking day for 6 months you can’t realize that you should leave 8 minutes earlier from your house? What’s the worst that could happen, you arrive (like me) 2 minutes early?
For him, it might just register as “the usual time” when you say 6:30. Could you push back and say “and not 6:38 like usual” or “we should meet earlier, like 6:20, because 6:30 is getting us to work late every day”?
Edit: My husband had a coworker who was 5 minutes late every damned day, and this is a job where they pay attention to that kind of thing. He always blamed traffic but refused to leave 5 minutes earlier. For him, it was a “fuck them, they can’t tell me what to do” thing and it showed up in other ways in how he did his job vs. how he was supposed to, and he eventually lost his job over refusing to stop that kind of bullshit.
Try being a little less indirect in your complaints. Take him aside or call him up at some time other than when you’ve just had to wait for him, and tell him how much it bothers you to be ten minutes late every day. Let him know that it’s not a minor thing for you, that it matters to you to be on time for work, and that it’s really, really driving you nuts to be late every time he drives. Ask him to aim for 6:20 if he’s constitutionally incapable of being on time.
I speak as someone who tends to be chronically late. If I think that someone doesn’t really mind if I’m a little late, I’ll be a little late. On the other hand, if I know that someone feels that I’m deliberately slighting them by being late, I’ll do what it takes to be on time. For instance, I know that if I’m late to meet my friend at the theater, she’ll be fretting and pacing by the time I get there; I make a conscious effort to be early, and that means I make it on time. If I’m meeting my in-laws for lunch, eh, we’re always a little late, and they’re not going to care if I don’t make the effort to get there on the dot.
When my wife and I were in a van pool, you had a 1 minute slop time. If the van was supposed to leave at 6:30, then at 6:31 we left. We have left people before and they were never late after that. But we also were driving to catch a ferry-the ferry doesn’t care about your issues, it leaves when it leaves.
So my suggestion is to leave the guy and either he will adjust to be there on time, or he will end up driving by himself. He will only do that for a bit until it gets too expensive.
Tell him, starting tomorrow 6:30 is 6:30, if you are late we will leave you–and then leave him. Tough love–it is the only way my friend. Good luck.
There are various schemes that might help, like an agreement to pay a forfeit (e.g. must buy lunch) if you’re late more than X days a week or month.
But this is a vexed issue. Some people are compulsively punctual, and can’t understand what they see as the savage rudeness of the chronically late. Others are always late and can’t understand what they see as the obnoxious obsession of the on-timers. The best that’s possible in many cases is an uneasy truce.
He thinks he is getting there at 6:30. “6:30” is a large wedge of the clock to him, and it may or may not include the actual 6:30.
ETA: Or, since you say he’s always sending apologetic-sounding text messages, he could just suck at timing trips. He knows in his heart that it takes X minutes to get to the meeting place, but there’s always traffic! or a long light! that keeps him from getting there on time, and he doesn’t factor thing that make him go slower into his calculation of how long it takes to get places.
I’ve sort of tried this by saying “Can we leave at 6:30 tomorrow?” And then as mentioned, I get a text at 6:32 saying he’ll be 2 minutes, which actually turns into 6 minutes. How do you tell someone who texts you that they’ll be there in 2 minutes that you’re fed up and leaving. I’m not good at conflicts and I don’t want to lose this guy as a chauffeur once or twice a week. It sucks.
Maybe I will just text him back and say “Sorry. I’m leaving.” I’ve come very close on a few occasions.
No!!! You are not mentioning it all the time. He already knows he’s supposed to be there at 6:30. What he’s hearing is that his past conduct is okay since you just accept it.
You’ve shown, time and time again, that you are prepared to just accept his inconsideration. Turn off your phones. You don’t need to be lied to again. Leave at 6:30. Tell him you are going to do this and then do it.
Sure, it will cost you some money for awhile. Yes, he will get his panties in a wad and try to convince you that either 1) you are being mean to him or 2) he’ll do better in the future. But you aren’t being mean to him, he’s being an asshole to you. He won’t change his behavior unless forced to.
It will cost him twice as much a month plus he will probably get tired of not getting that extra bit of sleep on days he isn’t driving.
You don’t need the jerk, he needs you. Tell him so in no uncertain terms. Tell him if he’s late he’s driving by himself. Stick to it.
Well in our case since the ferry we were trying to catch was going to leave we left the person. Texting me that you are two minutes late wouldn’t help me because the ferry has already left if I am late.
Look at it this way, you don’t want to lose him as it cuts your costs in third right? Well he doesn’t want to lose you two either as it increases his costs by two thirds. He has more to lose than you do.
So why don’t you go grab a beer with him and the other guy one night and lay out the new rules. Let him know you will leave regardless of a text that he is two minutes away. Either he adjusts or he doesn’t. So the best case scenario, he now shows up on time and everyone is happy. Worst case scenario, he doesn’t and you and the other guy now pay 50% of the costs but he now pays 100% of his costs. Who do you think will fold first? (this all assume the other guy is pissed about him being late too though!)
Honestly, you’re not being direct enough. You don’t have to be confrontational, but saying “we’re leaving at 6:30” over and over isn’t registering with him. It wouldn’t register with me, either, if you’re always still waiting and not with a red face and steam coming out of your ears and yelling at me that I’m LATE AGAIN!!! I would think it was a constant ribbing and standing joke if you were just tolerating it and not doing one of two things: either being totally obviously frustrated and angry, or simply telling me sometime during that long-ass car ride that it really bothers you and you really need me to get my butt out of the house 10 minutes earlier.
I never have taken offense with someone asking me to make sure I’m on time. People who know me, know I run a little late. Either they’re cool with it, or I notice they’re fuming about it and I become more on-time, or they say something and I apologize and almost don’t do it again (say from 100% late to 90% on-time). If I have a job that docks for lateness, I’m almost always on time (can’t say I’m perfect, but I try harder). If I have a job that doesn’t care so much, I’m usually about 20 minutes late.
The threat and follow-through of leaving at 6:30 exactly, no exceptions, and really doing it, would work with me. Just telling me, in a direct manner, that it really bothers you would also work.
I used to do appointments and scheduling. Being on-time is really a fluid thing with people and many interpret it in different ways. We changed the scheduling at one point from putting people down in the book at exact 10 minute intervals, to booking 5 people every 30 minutes. So we would tell 5 people their appointment was at 8am. One would be early, one would be on time, and the other three would show up anywhere within the 8-8:30 range to no-show. It worked a peach, and the “late” people were able to be seen no problem because they weren’t really late. We would simply see people in the order they signed in, and we were actually able to see more patients than we used to schedule every 10 minutes.
I also like this idea. I’d make the penalties pretty stiff, though - he pays for gas every time he’s late, for example. Make him really understand that the Leaffan train leaves at 6:30 SHARP!
I think this guy is one of the flexible time people, too - he probably figures 6:38 is close enough. It would drive me crazy, too - late for work is late for work, whether it’s one minute or eight minutes or an hour, and someone else making me late for work (which can jeopardize my job) would be unacceptable.
I understand your pain, I hate late comers and find it really inconsiderate.
I would take a direct approach:
‘Look, you are late every day which means we’re standing around waiting for you. You perhaps haven’t realised but it really pisses me off. Please be on time next time or I will leave without you’.