I admit I am a clock time kind of guy. And the lunch example reminded me of something that happened at work a few years ago. I had a team leader who called a quick meeting just before noon to come up with a strategy to debug some issue. At the end she was like “Ok, let’s all go work on our parts, and we’ll meet up again at 1:00 to see where we’re at.” And I was like “Uhhh, but I was planning on having lunch during that time.” She was apparently an event time person (and perhaps a bit of a workaholic who considered constantly being productive more important than things like taking a break for lunch).
I don’t think that’s really what is meant by an “event time person” - she just seems to not believe in breaks. I think the article is talking more about the person who will eat lunch whenever they are hungry or when the 11am meeting is over ( at 12 or 12:30 or 1) as opposed to the person who has lunch at 12:00 every day, no matter what , even thought here is no external reason * that keeps them from having lunch at 12:30 or 1 pm on a particular day.
* By “external reason”, I mean that the only break in your scheduled classes starts at noon, or the whole warehouse/factory/courthouse stops for lunch at noon, or breaks have to be staggered or any other situation where you don’t really get a choice about when to take a lunch break.
That’s interesting. I’m definitely an event-time gal. I take a lunch break when I finish something, and it’s late enough that I’m hungry. Usually after noon, and before 2:30. I definitely structure my day around events and not around the clock, and have trouble sticking to clock time.
Seconded. That pretty much exactly describes me.
I only adhere to a strict schedule for appointments or events with a specific starting time or when, imagine this, when I have made a fucking commitment to someone that I will be there at a certain time. I generally eat lunch or go to sleep when I feel like doing so and there is probably a two hour window when it could take place.
Me too, on days when I don’t have any particular need or reason to do things at a particular time. I suspect most people would say the same. On the other hand, I have no trouble sticking to clock time or following a clock-dictated schedule when that is appropriate. Both styles seem to come pretty naturally to me.
I do most things whenever I feel like doing them - I eat when I’m hungry, I go to sleep when I’m tired. But I don’t know about most people being that way. I’ve known way too many people who eat lunch at a certain time whether they are hungry or not - and even more people who believe dinner should be on the table at a specific time to try to guess whether more people lean toward clock-time or more lean toward event-time. ( I think most people are somewhere in the middle) I’m not talking about people who aim at a specific time frame for dinner so the whole family can sit down and eat together but there’s some flexibility based on whatever else is going on that day. I’m talking about people who have dinner on the table at 6:30 every day - not 6:25, not 6:35.
But whether you eat at noon or when your hungry doesn’t affect other people. That’s different than 10 people waiting at 10am in the meeting room for the manager that shows up at 10:12.
Bingo. If I say I’m going to do something at a certain time. I will. End of subject. I will not keep anyone waiting. I’m sure I’ve been late a few times in my life, but it’s really, really rare.
Events do not get missed. Meetings, movies or planes. Visiting a friend can be flexible provided I know I’m not going to interrupt their day if I’m early or late and they know I will be there mid-afternoon.
And I’m not a high strung guy. The reason is, I never have to rush.
So I hate being late for things, and I am one of those people who arrives early for appointments. But for daily things I am woefully out of sync.
I have a trait commonly associated with ADHD where I get so focused on something, I don’t perceive the passage of time. This can be benign, like writing for eight hours straight and forgetting to eat, or inconvenient and stressful, like getting out the door later than planned because I’m posting… here. On really bad days it could be spending an hour on a social email to a coworker. This happened today. And in the past I have found myself spending hours on a single post here.
And for you “set an alarm” types, I barely perceive alarms in this state. I am too focused to notice them. I can even turn them off without awareness that I’m turning then off.
Fortunately my anxiety about being late overrides my stupid brain when it really counts. I’m not usually late for interviews or doctor appointments. But it still fails me on points of, say, eating lunch in a timely manner or leaving the house to pick up my kid from daycare. (I am heavily leaning on today as an example because it was an awful ADHD day. I usually leave the house at 5:25pm but I got distracted and blinked and it was 5:45pm. I just barely made it.) Generally the more routine something is, the more I suck at keeping it on schedule.
When I was working, I lived on clock time because I had to. I got up at a certain time because I had to be at work at a certain time. Meals were taken at certain times because my line of work usually came with scheduled breaks. I went to bed at a certain time because I had to get up to go to work.
Three years after retirement, I get up when I feel like it and I go to bed when I want. Breakfast and lunch are as happens but dinner is at 6 because that’s when hubs wants it.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is that if I have a commitment, I won’t just be there on time, I will be there at least 10 minutes early. When I was working, people depended on me showing up on time and while I didn’t like some of them, I was there on time no matter how I felt about it. Nothing has changed. If I promise someone I will be there, I will be there at the appointed time or have a very good external reason as to why I was late.
Traffic caused by an accident isn’t a good reason. Traffic caused by me being hit by a red light runner is an OK reason. Traffic delays because I beat the red light runner half to death with my cane and got a really bad cramp in my ribs…that’s pretty much unavoidable so it would be a good reason to be late. Not a good excuse for not calling, though.
Sometimes crazy shit happens that can’t be foretold. Usually, one has a good idea of traffic. Sometimes, it causes a backlog of 1 or more hours in bad cases, so I’m willing to forgive those, as I don’t expect someone to leave to get somewhere an hour or so early. (Two years ago, we were 1 1/2 hours late on a typically 25 minute ride to school because the entire expressway was shut down and there was nowhere to go. In my younger days, I would have been stressed out by this. Now, I don’t give a shit. Nothing I can do about it – stressing isn’t going to help, so why feel bad?)
I’m sorry, I should have said that to ME etc. As IMHO, and just the way I feel about my obligations.
However, and again, this is just IMO, heavy traffic is no excuse for just showing up late without calling. It wasn’t back in the days of pay phones and it certainly isn’t an excuse now.
Many chronically late people don’t call either because they are so distracted by what is making them late that they don’t realize they are going to be late until they are.
I think that being on time is showing respect to the person/people who are waiting for you. If you must be late, it shows respect to at least contact them and let them know that you will be late and why.
Again, this is just my opinion. I am old, the manners Mom drilled into me before I was in grade school are probably very outdated and will doomed to die with my generation. Things change and life changes, that’s just the way of the world.
Oh, absolutely not now. In the days of pay phones, sure, if you can get off the highway to somewhere you can make a call (and the person is somewhere they can get a call.) My wife was 20 minutes late on our second date, and I thought I was getting stood up! Turns out she just has a very fluid sense of time. (Like I literally was about to pay the bar tab and leave. Wait, who am I kidding? I would’ve stayed there to drown my sorrows.)
/checks forum. sees that side tracks are kinda OK/
Hubs and I met through a magazine ad (way before the interwebz and magikal pocket computers) and arranged a meeting in a public place. We had a good time and he asked me out for breakfast the next morning. I agreed that would be nice, so he proceeded to convince me that he needed to stay the night lest he be late due to unfamiliar traffic in an unfamiliar town. Punctuality and planning has it’s own rewards, LOL.
narrator: he wasn’t an ax-murder
Ha ha. That sneaky dog. 
Very cute!
It’s interesting reading about adhd perceptions of time. Until I realised I was autistic, I would read about such experiences and think “I understand how that can work, but I don’t quite relate”.
I understand focusing deeply and losing time. Which is why I used to, as soon as I felt myself reaching a focused state, break myself out of it and obsessively look at the clock to see how much time has passed. I did most of my productive work at night, when there’s no need to track hours, no sudden noises to stress me out, and no commitments looming, other than getting up the next morning. Sleep? That’s what coffee is for.
I’ve never had ‘problems’ being on time. People have praised me for my excellent sense of time because they saw me arrive 5 minutes before the scheduled hour. They didn’t know that I’d been pacing outside for the last 30 minutes at least, waiting for that last 5-minute period when it’s ok to go in. I wasted a huge portion of my life mentally preparing for events and stressing over whether it was time to move now.
I thought that was normal. I thought that was the level of discipline one is supposed to keep. I was quietly frustrated with people who were late even 1 minute, because I didn’t understand they couldn’t put in the same amount of effort.
From reading blogs, I’ve learned that considerate adhd and autistic people share this tendency to only schedule one commitment per day. If that event is not in the morning, nothing important that requires focus gets done that day. All attention gets directed towards not losing track of time and there is only enough focus in the mental bank for mindless activities that make you look lazy.
To people like me, time feels slower or faster depending on stress level. Stress makes our thinking (and actions) slow down, and that feels like everything around is moving faster. No wonder people thought I was stalling on purpose while they were rushing me!
My wife was also a perpetual latester. She was even late to our divorce court hearings. The judge was not amused.
I, on the other hand, am a perpetual on-timer. I stress out about being even a minute late for appointments.
I do believe it has to do with respecting or not respecting other people’s time. Many always-tardy people I’ve known have been prima donas—they are the star; everyone else is their plebeian audience. They are the same people who block grocery store aisles with their damned carts, while they window-shop the canned goods and produce at their leisure, then take an eternity chatting with the cashier while I’m stuck fuming behind them.
I believe it should be lawful to water-pistol squirt such folks.
I’m curious if your objection is to where they place their cart or to the fact that they spend time looking at the products before picking one.
Personally, I’ve never had an issue with anyone blocking grocery store aisles. Maybe my grocery store has wider aisles than yours. Maybe I’m not shy about asking other shoppers to move their cart (something that I’ve never once had a negative reaction to, by the way. People always seem perfectly happy to move their cart and continue looking at the canned goods.)
Both.
Ever been to Florida, homeland of wild Karens and Kens?
I object to those who park their carts perpendicular or catty-corner to the aisles, thus blocking the way. I encounter these oafs on a regular basis. I do ask them to move, or just bump them out of the way.