Okay, that’s passive aggressive. Text him earlier telling him you’re leaving at 6:30 and not a minute later. Then follow with what you said. But don’t wait until 6:33; that’s too late for your comfort. Stick to 6:30.
Found the thread I mentioned earlier: My friends who are late for lunch dates. Obsidian (who is female) was the chronically late person, whose epiphany came in post #95. I’m going to PM her and ask her if she’d like to weigh in about whether she was able to form new habits.
No, no Leaffan - as previously mentioned, the earlier departure time is only for him.
You still get to arrive at your usual time - and if he’s had to wait for you for a change, so what?
I agree with needscoffee that your text plan is passive aggressive; how a well educated, mature man pussyfoots so much around the simple and reasonable request for being on time is beyond me.
You: I’m going to come clean and say that really pisses me off when you’re not here at 6.30.
Him: Really?
You: Yes. I like that we car pool, I enjoy your company, but from now on I’m leaving at exactly 6.30. Not 6.33, and definitely not 6.38. It makes me a pedantic prick, but not an aggravated pedantic prick. So - thanks for making that so easy - how’s your morning?
So, I avoid lateness threads like the plague, generally, because some of the things said piss me off to no end and I don’t want to wade in. . . but I’ve never been paged before in my nine years on the dope, so here I am.
I possess an abysmally poor sense of time. I can’t even begin to accurately guess how long it takes me to get somewhere (or perform a task). I’m easily distracted and prone to losing time. If I’m going somewhere, I look up directions & drive time on my phone, and assign myself a precise departure time (and I don’t mean “around 8:15”. I mean “8:13 exactly”). I set a reminder/alarm on my phone, which beeps at me at the set time. When it beeps, I drop whatever I’m doing and leave the house immediately. I do this each and every time I go somewhere that timing matters-- even if I have been there many times before. Every morning my alarm tells me when to leave the house for work. I owe a lot to technology.
I take the train. It doesn’t wait, and the one that hits my suburban stops only comes once an hour, so I have to make it. If I can do it, so can this dude.
To the OP: Despite what’s some people will tell you, he’s probably not doing this because he’s malicious, selfish, playing a power/control game, thinks his time is more valuable, etc. etc. He’s not cackling at the thought of you sitting there waiting for him. It’s much more likely he’s a clueless, disorganized idiot with good intentions and poor planning skills. And you have spent 6 months silently telling him that 6:38 is ok. Tell him straight-up that it’s not anymore, and that to get to your job on time, you must leave no later than 6:30 to arrive on time. 6:30 is pull away from the curb time. Then do it. I promise you won’t have to do it more than twice. But you owe him the heads up, because he doesn’t know it bothers you, and will be justifiably angry if you just decide Monday to drive off.
Heads up? Dude’s a freaking adult!
I am chronically late for work every day. I try, but I dawdle and putter and meander and even if I am on schedule with what I need to get done before I leave, I do two or three unnecessary things and end up leaving a few minutes late. I get away with it because my boss is tolerant and knows I will stay late if needed, but it still irritates me about myself that I am like this.
I think the suggestions you have received are good ones. Like O**bsidian’s ** train, the carpool pulls out at 6:30. Warn your tardy friend that going forward, that’s what is going to happen and stick with it.
I guess I don’t understand. I’m sure I don’t understand. I guess it comes down to scheduling and what you do before work. I know how long it takes me to do something like getting ready for work because I’ve done it thousands of times before.
For myself at least, it is as simple as getting up when the alarm goes off, getting ready for work and leaving for work. That takes 45 minutes. I don’t start other tasks because it will make me late.
I guess I have certain times of the day that I will do certain things. When getting ready for work, that’s what I do. Nothing else. I don’t do bills, I don’t do any other ‘chore’. I get ready for work.
If I’m getting ready for any appointment, I set a time that I must leave. And. I. Simply. Leave.
Why do people start other tasks when they know it will make them late?
I used to carpool with my habitually late boyfriend to our university. I had a pre-paid parking pass for the lots closest to school. He did not.
The first few times, he was late picking me up, I made a fuss about it. But the first time he actually made me late for class, I quit fighting. I simply told him that if he was not at my house by x time, I’d leave without him. And I did.
After that, things went much more smoothly. He arrived on time most of the time. On the occasions he was late, I didn’t take it personally. I just left. It helped that I held the power aka the parking pass.
On my first date with my new boyfriend, I was so happy to arrive to the movies, not only in time to get popcorn and Coke, but to also pick out our seats before the lights were dimmed. It was an epiphany to realize that I didn’t HAVE to live with the stress of dating a habitually late person.
Make it up on the other side.
If traffic is loose enough that you are able to drive so consistently that length of drive isn’t more variable the this guys departure time then just increase driving speed according to how late he is.
Let’s assume normal speed is 65mph. That takes 92 minutes, 18 seconds to do your 100 miles.
If he is 1 minute late you say “better peg the cruise control at 65.68 mph, we have a minute to make up!”
If he is 2 minutes late you say “better peg the cruise control at 66.4 mph, we have two minutes to make up!”
If he is 5 minutes late you say “better peg the cruise control at 68.7 mph, we have five minutes to make up!”
If he is the full 8 minutes late you say “better beg the cruise control at 71.5 mph, we have eight minutes to make up!”
Yes, it is annoying that he is regularly five minutes late, but have you checked that his watch isn’t four minutes slower than yours? Maybe he thinks he’s two minutes early much of the time.
I’m a extremely punctual person, without putting any effort into it, but so long as other people aren’t making me late for something I find I’m not really bothered by their tardiness so long as I have a book with me. If reasonably direct complaint hasn’t changed the behavior and it is only 2-6 minutes most of the time then I’d just chalk it up to other people exist in the world and often they’re suboptimal. At best you’re going to going to fix the days you drive and still have the issue on the other days, at worst you’re going to sour things and eat the added cost of always driving yourself.
But if it is a big brain melt for you (and I have my issues so understand that a pique is hard to unpick) I’d look towards maybe a much more fuel efficient car. You say 200 miles of driving is $35/day in gas. For my car that would be about $16 (Civic Hybrid, consistently gets about 48mpg freeway). With that you could just drive yourself for about the same money.
If you weren’t late to the thread, you would have had time to read post 71.
I’m guessing, and hoping you are being sarcastic. And this whole post is a whoose.
Yep, I did miss that. But if traffic is that bad then I would expect that the actual travel time is so variable than a few minutes on the front end doesn’t make much difference.
No so much sarcasm and certainly not intended as a whoose.
But definitely sincere in that placing your personal satisfaction on another person changing their behavior is not a great recipe for achieving satisfaction. Definitely make your feelings known but only push the issue so far as you’re willing to live with things getting worse, which is probably about as likely as them getting better.
Then the rest of the way you have to figure out how to make yourself more satisfied with what is happening. Stop putting yourself in that position, figure out how not to stress about it so much. Figure out how to be annoyed for 2-8 minutes and then let it go.
Yes, saying “I"m leaving at 6:30 with or without you” is a perfectly acceptable plan. So long as you’re willing to live with the outcome of him saying “well screw that noise, I’ll find another carpool or just go by myself.” It might make him shape up, but it might not and it sounded like the saving the $35 was more important than having him be punctual. Winning is cool, but you have to be ok with losing.
But then if anything about this really perplexes me it is spending four hours a day in a car with someone and not developing enough of a relationship that you can just talk about it.
Wow, thanks, I think I actually missed this thread the first time around. And thanks also to Obsidian for stopping by.
Yes, and 6 months ago I’d have agreed. But after uncomplainingly cooperating with the later start time for so long, the OP has, for all intents and purposes, agreed with 6:38. He gave up the moral high ground a long time ago. Now he’s changing things, and a warning is appropriate.
I suggest texting him the night before and saying, “Thanks so much for being on time Friday! I would appreciate it if you would make an extra effort to do so everyday. I will see you at 6:30 sharp! Have great evening.”
What if you leave him and he gets fired? Now you have all that extra gas to pay every day.
You work about 200 days a year.
This person “steals” from you, on average, 5 minutes each day
That comes out to 5*200=1000 minutes, or 16 hours every year that he’s getting from you.
So, this person is effectively demanding of you that you give him 16 hours of your LIFE … dedicated to waiting for him, so he can do whatever he damned well pleases, while you wait for him.
Are others waiting for him as well?
You will likely never be able to get him to “value” your time, he’s a self-centered, selfish person, this is simply what he does to everyone.
You’re not going to get him to change unless you can make it important to him.
And, he might value his “way” of life more than the savings of going with you. So you have to be prepared to lose him as a contributor IF you decide to force the situation.
You can let him be as he is, you can let him know how you feel, or you can force the issue.
If you decide you have to force the issue, then you have to be prepared to lose him as a ride share.
IF you are prepared for that eventuality, then you must talk to him. Explain the math to him. Show him what it means. Let him know unequivocally that you value your 16 hours per year, and that (while you value his friendship, and you’re sorry) you won’t stand for him making you wait for him, then give him the choice to ride with you or go by himself; that you will NOT wait for him if he’s not there, period.
It’s extremely likely that there is NO “in between” with this guy, you can’t give him a minute or two and expect him to be on time “most of the time”.
You have to draw the line and not cross it. Let him be the one who waits. When you get there, if he’s not WAITING, go without him.
Most likely, he won’t be left behind more than once or twice.
For myself, it’s because I notice something and become distracted. I forget whatever I was supposed to be doing and focus on the distraction. I also actually don’t know how long each morning task takes, despite having done it a thousand times. My impression tends to be off. For example, off the top of my head, I think it takes 5 minutes to drive from my house to the train station. Checking my phone, I see it’s 7-10 minutes depending on lights. (This is why I rely on math and alarms, and not my internal clock)
As I said, I have an alarm for anything important (I use the calendar & reminders apps on my iPhone for this). I don’t put every morning task on one, but I do my getting ready tasks in a specific order, so if I do get distracted the important ones are more likely to be done. So I always get the dog out (which is first). I only get my hair actually styled once a week or so, since it’s last. Sometimes I’ll forget one of the ones in the middle, for whatever reasons, so I keep a full set of toiletries in my office just in case.
It’s very hard to grasp for someone who’s brain doesn’t work like that. Some people will chose not to believe me, and that’s fine. And yes, I realize discussing it in the context of punctuality makes me sound dysfunctional, but it has it’s upsides. I have a highly creative job which I could never do if I wasn’t prone to mental wandering.
Here’s what I do the night before:
- Make sure coffee is set up.
- Make sure my lunch and snacks are ready for the morning.
- Make sure the kids’ lunches and snacks are ready.
- Know what I will be wearing.
- Know that I am fueled up if it’s my turn to drive.
- Know whether tomorrow will be a “shave day” or not. (I shave every second day.)
- Check the weather forecast to adjust for snow, freezing rain, frost, etc.
I’m willing to bet Mr. Manager of Business Planning doesn’t do any of these.
This reminds me about a saying we have in the Marine Corps, “The Seven P’s”: Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance!
Sounds like you are plenty prepared.