The optimism, yeah, I forgot about that part. I’m usually optimistic as well and, you’re right, that contributes to the misjudging of how long things will take.
Ms. P, whom I love more than life itself, is chronically late. It does help when she convinces herself that we need to leave earlier than we really do, but sometimes that isn’t enough. She dillydallies like nobody’s business, and doesn’t really have a sense of time passing. I, on the other hand, really hate being late. If it’s really important I’ll rush her out the door.
My husband is almost always late. I figured out a long time ago that part of the reason is because if it took him 20 minutes to get somewhere once, five years ago, it lives in his head as 20 minutes forever - even though the 200 times he made that trip in the last five years it took more like 40 minutes. Another part is because “leaving at 6:00” means “start looking for your shoes at 6:00” to him.
But then we met his bio-siblings and I found out the rest of the reason when he started losing his mind because his sister is always later than he is. He hates to wait for people - I was almost happy to see him going crazy because now he understood how the rest of us felt when he made us late. To his credit, he did improve once this was pointed out but obviously part of the reason he was late was because he didn’t want to wait on anyone else. His sister is late for a completely different reason - typically because she didn’t get her way during the planning. One incident I remember was when we planned to go to out to dinner. She wanted to meet at 8pm on a Sunday night. That was too late for the rest of us so we agreed to meet at 6 at the restaurant. My husband improved, but he he still isn’t perfect so we got there around 6:15. He called his sister - the brother who was visiting from out of town answered and said they just got back from the beach and they all still had to take showers. Meaning they wouldn’t get to the restaurant until close to the time she preferred to begin with. I guess that’s when they got there - I don’t know, because we left. It would have been fine with everyone else if she had said " If you want to meet, at 6, I’m out". But she didn’t - on some level, she thought that by agreeing to six and actually showing at 8 she could get everything she wanted- stay at the beach until 6, go home, take a shower and still have dinner with us. I say that because she was shocked and upset that we didn’t wait. If she had just lost track of time, she could have skipped the shower or called us to let us know she would be so late. But if she called, she ran the risk of us cancelling - she apparently never considered that we might decide not to wait for her.
Doreen, you’re speaking truth to power there. Gah, as pointed out. fine if you wanna warn me that “I really suck at time, and so if we agree to 6:00 I’ll make a best effort to be there but don’t bet, hold your breadth or wait around.”
I think part of it is that this can be a vicious cycle. Because the meeting doesn’t start on time, then I will come 10 minutes late, and the meeting doesn’t start on time because it’s minutes after the hour and people aren’t here already". Rinse lather repeat.
I took over General Manager of a college radio station. The first meeting I ran, after doing a phone tree reminding everyone of the start time and day, was finished before a quarter of the volunteers showed up. The second meeting was more like 90% attendance on time…and never really improved beyond that because, ya know, some people simply can’t be on time for whatever reason.
Thankfully, at the Global 50 company I work at, it’s a pretty high % that actually show up on time across multiple timezones, countries, cultures and languages. In fact, partners usually show up 5 minutes early even from cultures that are not known from being on time!
I called a meeting for 9, and a Chinese friend told his fellow Chinese: “That’s 9, WHITE PEOPLE TIME, everyone!”
I’ve never been so proud of my heritage…
Your whole post reminded me of something.
Last school year (2019-2020), when things first shutdown and the school was navigating distance learning, they would recycle meeting IDs for different classes. For example, 4th grade music is 9-10, then 2nd grade is 10-11, but in the same meeting. The teachers absolutely flipped out on kids who showed up even a minute early.
We quickly learned it was better to be 2-5 minutes late than 1-2 minutes early. I always appreciated the irony of the turnabout on us punctual people. There were kids who were never on time, and probably never knew they’d saved themselves lots of trouble.
I’ve been charged with making sure we get out the door quickly enough for Ms. P not to be late for an appointment that’s pretty far away tomorrow morning. No skin off my nose if she’s late, though. I’m going to a ball game later, but not for a few hours.
I have a buddy and erstwhile roommate who was habitually late. What I found is that he didn’t value being on time to things nearly as much as he valued not wasting his own time. So where I’d leave early, and plan to get somewhere a little bit early in the worst case, even if it meant that I had to leave 30 minutes early and then sit around for 15 minutes when traffic turned out to be lighter than expected, he’d plan to be exactly on time, and then never actually achieve that because he’d do his own stuff right up to the last possible second, and then leave, secure in the expectation that people would wait on him.
It was essentially selfishness- his desire to maximize his own time doing what he wanted was a selfish choice versus getting there early in order not to inconvenience others. He just didn’t GAF about being on time, as much as he wanted to do his own thing. Some people are about not watching the clock- equally selfish, but not as intentional- they just don’t care enough about being on time to pay attention.
I’ve also met others to whom being on time was some kind of twisted control thing- if they were late and others were waiting on them, then they were in control as everyone had to wait on them, while if they were early, they were not in that situation. That’s much less common though.
Finally, the smallest set are @echoreply’s people who just can’t manage time/estimate how long it takes to be somewhere. They’re still selfish, but less so. If they were actually concerned about being somewhere on time, they’d make sure they were on time, but they don’t really care enough to make accurate estimates.
This all frustrates the shit out of me, because I’m more or less cut in the “If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late." mold the vast majority of the time. I’d much rather be early and kill a little time, than be late because it doesn’t inconvenience others, it doesn’t stress me out as much, and it’s good for my reputation.
I had a (now former) friend who was this. I was five minutes late once because a work project needed to be finished so he became chronically late. He was selfish in other areas as well so I eventually just stopped responding to his invitations.
When I was a teenager, I was pretty relaxed / careless about time-keeping. 
Then one day a friend and I had an important meeting. I was running late as usual, but thought ‘it’ll be OK, because my colleague will cover for me.’
Oh no - he was late too. 
That nearly cost us an critical opportunity. (I can still remember the look of scorn from the guy we kept waiting.)
So I changed.
Ever since then, I turn up early and relaxed. 
My wife is like this: always late.
If she has to be somewhere at 3:00, she will show up at 3:30.
If she has to be somewhere at 3:30, she will show up at 4:00.
If she has to be somewhere at 4:00, she will show up at 4:30.
If she has to be somewhere at 4:30, she will show up at 5:00.
You get the idea.
And she always has an excuse.
After studying the issue for many years, and trying to help resolve it, I concluded it came down to two problems:
- Poor time management skills.
- Not caring she was late.
I could help with #1. But I could not convince her to care. I would tell her it was rude and inconsiderate to be late to meetings and engagements, and she would just shrugged her shoulders.
After all these years she is still chronically late to everything. And she still doesn’t care.
At the risk of this becoming a wife bashing thread.
My wife hates waiting. She would rather have five people waiting for her than be one of the five people waiting for the sixth to arrive. So she always tries to be the last person for any activity that required a “quorum”
She will be 5-10 minutes late for doctors’ appointments because “you always have to wait for them anyway. That’s true 90% of the time, I suppose.
She will be 10-15 minutes late to pick up the kid from practice “because it takes them a few minutes to do the final recap with the coach and pack up the equipment”. Often the kid is the only one in the sports facility in tears desperately texting me (who might be 1000 miles away). Fortunately for the start of practice and start of school, the kid will harass her constantly to leave home on time.
When she played on a tennis team, she would target to show up 15 minutes after the scheduled match time because you would default the match if you were 20 minutes late. This is because if you are playing below #1 singles or doubles you will usually be waiting for a court to be available if you show up at the appointed time because matches don’t end in the one hour scheduled. Most people would show up at the start time of the whole tie (i.e. everyone in the lineup would be there when the first pair of matches took the court) because tennis was as much a social activity as a sporting one.
Her Uber passenger rating is abysmal because she always shows up 5 minutes late. She will call an Uber when she’s wrapping up a meeting, still on the plane or train, even though it will be 15 minutes before she’s curbside. Drivers decline her requests. She’s the only person still taking cabs!
The former Mrs. That inherited the trait from her father, who was a classic narcissist: “I wait for no one” was his family motto, and he instructed his daughter well. I remember well one time that she deliberately told HIM that our rendezvous time would be 15 minutes earlier than we actually intended to meet, and she kept HIM waiting around for 5 minutes, he being his usual 10 minutes late, and he, instead of being angry, as he would have with anyone else, he congratulated her on her gamesmanship.
I also think that one of the key issues is the presence of the word “always” in the OP.
Lots of explanations and excuses are perfectly valid in the world of ‘occasionally late,’ but once it’s epithetical to who you are, and it’s something about you that everybody knows, there are probably some (un)diagnosed neuro-cognitive issues or … you’re making some sort of choice.
Which isn’t to offer active enmity toward the perpetually dilatory. It’s more to remind that we are talking about the habitually tardy.
As far back as I can remember my Mom was one of the perpetually late people. Thanksgiving dinner at 3? We’d arrive at 3:45 or 4. Even as a child it always bothered me. She’d always take the doctor’s last appointment of the day because “they always run late you know”.
I on the other hand are on time or slightly early. I’ve been known to drive to someone’s home and wait around the corner so I can be on time. I feel other people’s time is at least as important as mine and it’s rude to be late.
When I started my career I worked with a lot of former military folks and they were always on time. So I imagine that reinforced the behavior in my mind.
Same reason I sometimes don’t get to bed until three or four AM – I’m paying more attention to my book than to the clock.
I had chiefs like that when I was in the Navy. You said be nere at 1300; it’s 1300 and I’m here. If you wanted me to be here at 1250, why did you tell me 1300?
I’m an early is better person. The answer for me is, if something is to start at 1 pm, then to have everyone settled and ready to go, you need to be a few minutes early. If everyone showed up at exactly 1 pm, you really wouldn’t start until 1:10.
Also it’s courtesy- I don’t want the organizer to worry I’ll be late. So if I stroll in at exactly 1 pm, they’re worrying at 12:50 if I’m showing up. I don’t like to do that to other people.
My wife is often late. It’s not that she doesn’t value other people’s time, it’s that she doesn’t think through all the steps. Being somewhere that is 30 minutes away doesn’t just mean driving for 30 minutes, it means loading the car, getting ready and looking for parking.
When I plan on being somewhere, I kind of run the steps in my head and she just doesn’t do that.
I’ve always followed the principle of “To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to miss the bus.”
I worked with a former military member who had this saying: If you’re on time, you’re late.