Of course it’s a legitimate view that one shouldn’t have to sacrifice ones freedoms. But one has to remember that everyone else has freedoms too. Including the freedom to decide to terminate a relationship with one who believes their own freedom trumps being considerate to one’s friends.
P.S. - worst post/avatar combo ever.
The considerate thing is either you agree to be on time or you don’t. If you agree to be on time, it’s no longer a sacrifice/personal freedom thing to decide to not uphold the agreement.
Here is my real life example. I am a live music freak. In normal times I go to one or two shows a week on average. My friend group includes many other freaks. I am one of the few non-drinkers in the group so I am nearly alwasys the designated driver. This can be across town or a two hour drive to L.A. I get no remuneration of any kind nor do I expect any. I enjoy helping my friends.
I also pathologically hate being late. Missing even one minute of the music is disastrous to me and I really prefer to get there early to socialize. If you want a ride from me, you’ll be ready on time. I am certainly not going to stress over five minutes or whatever nor if there is an occasional legitimate problem causing the lateness. The habitually late simply don’t get rides from me. They can find another way to get there.
Am I the asshole?
Yes, I agree with all of this. I was just curious if there were any here that would co-opt the logic of anti-vaxxers here. I happen to be a Time Nazi fwiw.
A less virulent and silly sort of jack-booted chrono-maniac, I’d like to think.
I just remembered that we also tried that tactic with a friend who was always late (and we were in a band - her being there mattered). It turned out that she’d always, always been late for everything and many people had tried this with her. So if you said 2pm, she would assume you meant 4pm.
It was easier to be honest, and it helped to giver her flyers which had printed times on. She’d still be late; we had to build that in for everyone else.
Whatever was going on, it was definitely not a control over other people issue. She was one of the nicest, ditziest people I’ve ever known. She was once so late for Christmas Eve that she stayed for Christmas Day i instead.
And it took her an unusual amount of time to get up in the morning - she’d just do everything reaaaaaalllllly sllooooowwwwllllly. I’d hear her in the bathroom, and it was like there was a time dilation effect in there, because she’d just have brushed her teeth and gone to the loo - no shower, even (we’d have heard it) - and she’d have been in there for half an hour.
She was a tremendously gifted violinist and singer, and like I said, totally lovable. A very kind person, funny, thoughtful, and apparently operating within her own special time zone. Except when she was on stage, when she was fine.
I have a friend who is constantly late. I used to be obsessively punctual and you can imagine the fun with that combination.
Eventually I figured that he simply lacked skills for estimating time and he was kind of a people pleaser for certain circumstances.
He would send me a text saying he would be 10 minutes late when it would be more than 30 and sometimes 40.
Fortunately he was good natured and we worked a bit on how to estimate time as well as a lot of reassuring him that most people would rather be told the truth than something overly optimistic.
He’s a musician and as long as he shows up on time for his gigs (which he can do) then he really didn’t have a lot of things he needed to be on time for every day.
This is telling.
My Wife and I are very punctual. Meeting at a restaurant from two different jobs we often bump into each other while parking. It’s kind of funny really.
The airport is 2 hours away. So we give ourselves at least a two hour buffer and leave early. Hey, grab some food and drink at the airport, no rush no stress. What else would you do when going on vacation, sit at home and wait until it’s ‘time’ to leave to get there at the exact moment? It NEVER works that way, you have to plan for contingencies.
After going on vacation with Mrs. Cad with activities in the early morning I came to a conclusion.
Being habitually late is a choice.
It is not a misunderstanding like, “You said 10am sharp but I thought you meant anytime between 10:25am and 10:45am”
It is not a disability. You can look at a clock and pace yourself accordingly for your shower, sitting on the toilet, etc. You can choose not to rinse out all of glasses in the sink when you are already 10 minutes late. You can look at google maps to see a realistic time for the drive.
People will say, “I don’t choose to be late.” Actually you are choosing not to put in the effort it takes to be on time. It’s like that guy at work - you know the one. He makes no effort to do his job right. The rest of you have to work around his lack of effort all the while saying, “What a dick.” He makes your life harder because you don’t want to count on him doing his job but you have to because that’s how jobs function. That’s you. You’re a dick because I now have to sit around for 20 minutes because you couldn’t make the effort to show up on time. You make me stress out because now I’m running late or dinner is getting cold because you promised to be here at 6 and it is now 6:55. And why are you late (as usual)? Because you put no effort into being on-time.
That’s what I learned on vacation. I learned that if it is something important to you. Something for which being late is not an option. Then somehow God miracles your ass out of bed, makes your shower quick and no wasted time screwing around and lo and behold, you’re on-time.
I do take after my parents. I used to go up to Columbus with my dad to watch the high school basketball tournaments. About an hour and a half drive for both of us.
Several years, we would be pulling into the parking lot of the stadium next to each other.
When my FIL died, all his kids where to write something about him. A short speech from a stage. My Wife wanted to say that one of the things that her father taught her was to always be on time. Otherwise, you are saying that your time is more important than others. True.
Anyway, one of her brothers is always late because of SIL, his Wife. I ended up convincing my Wife not to put that in the speech because they would likely be late to the funeral, and it would sound hurtful.
And of course they where late to the funeral.
I’m not sure I was right convincing my Wife to not put that in her speech/eulogy. But I do know it would have really embarrassed my BIL and SIL Not the time or place.
Naw, as i said above, i have no sense of time. I can be early, or i can be late, but i can’t do “on time”. If it’s really important that i not be late, I’ll be early. Sometimes awkwardly early.
My husband can do “on time”. When he cares enough, he herds me and we can collectively be on time. But on my own, it’s early or late.
And yes, I’ve sometimes sat in my car outside a friend’s house because i didn’t want to be late, so i was early enough that it would have been rude to let them know i was there.
I prefer things that don’t have fixed start times, because i find it stressful and unpleasant.
Do you work? What do you do? Always come early and wait for the time to start?
Lots of jobs do not have rigid start times.
As a delightfully ADD person… well, it’s delightful for me… I would naturally be late for anything because there are SO many things that are more interesting to do than getting ready, and SO many cool places to “just pop into for a second” on the way to somewhere…
But then I married a very organized woman, who insisted we get to places early. At first, i rolled my eyes at, f’rinstance, leaving home three hours before a flight. But I’ve got to admit, relaxing in the airport for an hour before we board, while utterly foreign to me, is very relaxing. It’s almost like the vacation starts early…
Yup. Giving yourself just enough time to make a flight is generally not a good idea. Traffic, security lines and any other things can really, really ruin your day. Or, you can get their early, have a beer or whatever suits you and not have to concern yourself with rushing.
Sure. I suppose I have one especially since working from home. My question was just an example though of the many things that you need to be on time for.
But hey, if it’s not causing problems for yourself or anyone else, that’s cool. The problem is that it often does cause problems.
Yeah, my wife is a data scientist, for example, and (as long as there isn’t a morning meeting), she can pretty much show up at any time at work before, say, 9:30 a.m. Her start time is fluid within about an hour or so window, as is her end time. It’s not like hourly jobs where you clock in at a certain time and clock out. I think many white collar jobs fit into that paradigm if you’re salaried. For me, this was a bit weird, as the only non self-employed full time jobs I’ve had required me to be at work at a strictly exact time and I had to get used to not having to hurry my wife out the door thinking she had to be at work at X o’clock, no later. She tends to run late (though not excessively so), and sometimes it would bug me and I’d be all like “why can’t you be on time? Don’t you have to get to work on time?” and the answer was basically, with some caveats, “on time” is a fairly broad concept.
Meanwhile, while I’m self-employed, I deal with events, so when I’m working in the field, it is extremely important I show up on time, and “on time” means fifteen minutes early, at least. I’m personally very forgiving of lateness these days, but my own sense of time is, in most cases, fairly rigid. I’m very good at estimating realistic arrival times to within 5 minutes, and, if not sure, over-estimate the time it will take me to get somewhere. And if, for some reason, it looks like I will be even five minutes late, I will text. (Though I can’t remember in over two decades of doing business being late for any event.)
As the old saying goes about habitually late people, if you tell them there’s $10,000 in it for them if they’re on time, they will magically learn to be punctual on that occasion.
Well, I’m out for now. I need to leave the house at 4:30, and it’s 4:26