What would you do about a car pool mate who was constantly 3 to 8 minutes late?

In My Humble Opinion
161

Lol.

Dude, what are you complaining aboot? As you said, you save $35 every time this guy drives as par of his carpool share. That means that you save $2520 per year. This guy “wastes” 5.5 of your minutes on average per day, or a total of 1100 minutes per year. In effect you are gaining $2.29 per minute that you spend seething, muttering under your breath, not saying anything. You are making about $137/hour while grinding your teeth. Are you serious?

And another thing that I don’t get. If you leave work later after rush hour has subsided, what of it? You do realize that there are people out there that put in a 10, 12, 14 or 16 hour day on average on salary, and you’re here counting down the seconds? I kindly suggest you get some perspective. And for the love of God, just be upfront and honest with this dude about your feelings, sheesh.

162

I bet he likes saving money and wear and tear, too. are you really sure that he will abandon the carpool altogether if you start applying negative consequences for his tardiness?

I bet he never misses a flight when he’s paid for his boarding pass.

He can be on time if he wants to.

163

I hate lateness. I was raised by a type A father, and for a while I was very “who cares” about timeliness, but once I got out in the working world I realized that people who are late often make other people late. I changed my ways around age 17 and have seen no reason to change them in the past 26 years.

For the past 13 year I have been a nurse, and it is considered “professional courtesy” to be early. Actually, my nursing school teachers drummed into us that on time was late, because of the various duties needed at the end of/beginning of shift… count narcotics, give report, maybe do an assignment sheet, etc. I personally feel calmer if I am early to post, because I can start my work (and not the administrative hassles) at 0700h.

My co workers know that if I am not at work by 15 minutes to the hour they will be hearing from me. One day the bus made me late, (5 minutes to!) after that I changed routes and began being 25 minutes early, because I don’t like starting a shift worrying and hurrying.

Of course I have co workers who are consistently late and after mentioning it a few times I gave up. My boss does alternate mornings that she starts at 7 (and arrives at 645) with mornings she starts at 8 so she is aware. I wish she also came in and saw what happens at 11 pm, with me there at 1035 and the other nurse breezing through report and leaving at 1050. (Yes this is the same one who habitually arrives at the building at 702, goes upstairs to sign in, arrives to my floor at 706, chats then if I am lucky hand off and count is done by 716. I detest the staying late for him, but I arrive early mainly for myself, so I am not about to give that up.

All that says nothing to car pooling. Your situation would make me crazy. You have to let him know you finally mean it. I don’t know if he will get it, unless you actually leave without him.

Does he know your marital situation? Can you tell him “Look, I like arriving at work early so I can get home to my kids early. Things aren’t easy at home and I really need to be there for them. Please respect that.”

Then stick to your plan, leave without him, if he isn’t on time.

164

The thing is, I think he doesn’t realize you’re being passive aggressive. He thinks you’re just gently teasing him, which means that he thinks it’s just a minor thing and basically OK. So he’s not going to stop.

You need to very very clearly say "Look, it really bugs me/us that you’re late every single day. A couple minutes once is no big deal, but you’re late every single day. It’s unfair that I/we are always waiting for you in the morning, and it’s making us even later to get home because we get more traffic when we’re even five minutes later leaving. I’m/we’re serious about this: it’s really not amusing or funny. We’re all adults, and I’m sure we can figure out some way so that you’re not always the last one to get here. "
and then go from there. I predict things probably won’t change until he gets left behind, but who knows he might shape up once you make it clear it is important, but more importantly, you can’t just leave him behind out of the blue. Much better if he can agree on what will happen. I suggest something like he gets one day of being late per week (so he can’t claim you’re setting an impossible goal), but after that, you leave at 6:35 matter what. Again, if he agrees, he can’t really complain when you follow through, right?

165

Wow, what a great thread. I’m amazed at the people with the suggestions such as “Make sure your watches are in sync,” and “tell him to be there at 6:15.” We’re not talking about someone who just recently started showing up late, or it only happens occasionally. It’s every single day. I had to laugh out loud at he statement: “What if you leave him and he gets fired? Now you have all that extra gas to pay every day.” If you have that mentality; you are going to be a doormat for anyone that’s more assertive than you are. Not only that, how could that cause him to get fired? He’s showing up late to the meeting place in his car! He’ll just have to keep on driving. OK, I suppose he could be getting dropped off.

Being late isn’t (necessarily) rude… being late every single day is rude. Being chronically late, whether it be because you’re scatter brained, or have kids or any of a million other reasons generally only means one thing: It’s not important enough for them to care about. If I told a chronically late person they won a $1 million lottery; but they could only collect if they arrived at at 6:30 AM or before. How many of them would be late? I’d venture to say not many. Being chronically late is a selfish act; regardless of your excuses.

As you might have guessed, I’m in the camp that says you should leave him. However, like many others have said, there’s no reason to be a jerk about it. You can’t just suddenly follow the rules and leave the guy after you’ve enabled him for so long. However being subtle doesn’t work in a situation like this. You would need to be direct and say; “We leave here late every single day; but not anymore. We’re leaving this parking lot at 6:30 AM on the nose. Not 6:31 or 6:35; exactly at 6:30.” If good ole John Doe was never late and one morning he called me at 6:25 and said “I’m running late,” I’d try to wait for him if it was within reason. So it’s not being late that’s the problem. Conversely if it was Mr. Late Guy’s turn to drive and two of you were standing there waiting on him to arrive; I’d kick in with my backup plan and drive. Leaving Mr. Late Guy to drive on his own again. If his lateness bothers you as much as it seems to you can’t let control the situation.

166

This. Get everyone else in the pool to agree to it.

Or else hit the road at 6:31. If he’s in the car, great. If not, sucks to be him.

Or move. Or change jobs. 100 miles is too damn far. I did 50 miles one-way for a while and it just wasn’t worth it. YMMV, no pun intended.

167

Or the next time he texts to say he’s running late, text back. Say something like “Waiting for you, but this is getting way too frequent. From now on we LEAVE at 6:30.”

I don’t think doing this by text is the best answer, but acknowleging the OP’s obvious reluctance to confront, at least this approach allows for open honesty and the guy gets to find out that he’s out of line before he gets left behind.

168

This is true. I have friends that are usually a little late for dinner or movies or other things like that. I might tease them a little bit about it, since it’s not a big deal for me to meet at precisely a certain time for dinner, or to walk into a movie slightly late. Starting dinner late wouldn’t bother me, but getting to work late would bother me. He might hear the same teases from his friends if he’s a chronically late person, and he might not realize that your repeated mentions of it are not friendly teases, but are seriously meant.

Like everyone else, I would recommend that you tell him honestly and seriously that you’d rather not leave late any more and tell him you’ll leave without him if he is late. Chances are he’ll learn his lesson after a few times being left.