You and the OP both clearly take punctuality very seriously. For that matter, so do I.
From what you have said, the two of you seem to feel that everyone acknowledges the importance of punctuality so you are bewildered by why some people aren’t punctual.
I do not feel this is true. While I take punctuality seriously, I understand other people do not.
And that’s the answer to the question “why are people late?” Because they are casual about punctuality.
Not really. The entire point of this thread is talking about people who do not understand the importance of punctuality.
I’m not bewildered by them, I am inconvenienced by them.
I understand this too. And I consider them to be pretty selfish and self absorbed. If you had an appointment based business, would you appreciate your clients showing up late? Sometimes punctuality really does matter, and they still are pretty “casual” about it.
Can’t sign on to this one either. Being casual about punctuality means not making commitments to be on time. Being late means breaking a commitment to be on time. In the first, you just miss out on what you miss out on. In the latter, you are making other miss out as well.
I’m on time for appointments, but for projects, I’m always cutting it way too close. I do have a tendency to procrastinate, but I consider my inability to correctly estimate the time it takes to do something to be the bigger problem.
The only time I am late for an appointment is due to extraordinary traffic (it took 2 hours to get to work instead of 30 minutes) or public transportation issues (train was late, so the bus left without me, so I had to walk). In those cases, I informed the interested parties that I was going to be late and gave them an estimated time of arrival.
And then there was the one time my scheduling absolutely failed me and I realized that I would be one hour late, due to our home office situation.
We used to leave the house at 6:50. This works fine for the 7:30 doctor’s appointment, so there’s not much difference between a normal day and an early doctor’s appointment.
But we have changed, and now we start working, from home, at 8:00. Leaving home at approximately the same time as a normal working day would get us to the doctor’s office at 8:30. Oops. I now have a note with the doctor’s appointment telling me what time to set my alarm, so I get out the door at the right time.
It does seem to be the case that the people who have the shortest distance to travel, whether it’s for a meeting, or for a holiday meal, are often the ones who tend to be late. Because “it’s only 5 minutes”. Those of us who have to be somewhere in 2 hours, will pad the travel time to make sure that we’re on time. For some activities, I will give a range, which also gives me some flexibility with public transportation. Fortunately Swiss trains and buses tend to be on time, but even 99% reliability is sometime not enough.
A couple of things here. First, the couple has agreed that they will do an activity together. This is now a joint commitment and it would be rude for either of them to unilaterally decide to break that commitment without telling the other person. (It’s also rude for one person to unilaterally commit the other to a schedule.)
I don’t like your example here because Person B is imposing a set time without obtaining an agreement.
A more ideal conversation would be more like this:
A: We need to go pick up rice today in the afternoon.
B: OK, is 2:30 OK?
A: Sure
Then it would be rude of A if they were not to be ready until 3:15 if A didn’t renegotiate the time. B has projects do, and is fitting the errand into their schedule.
If B proposed a time and A can’t meet that time, it’s simply common courtesy to not agree to that time or to let B know as soon as possible.
In the example with your nieces, keeping someone waiting for an hour isn’t cool. It may not be the end of the world, but people should be aware of time. If they knew they wouldn’t a ready at 10:00, don’t agree to the schedule.
Obviously, different commitments have different levels of requirements for punctuality. Today, my wife asked me to take her someplace at 11:00 because it was 30 minutes away and she needed to pick up something between 11:00 and 12:00. I agreed to 11:00, was about 8 minutes late and she was another five minutes later than that.
I used to get a train to work and I rarely missed it, but I never arrived at the station in good time. Every morning I would be late, desperately running for the train. I set my watch a few minutes fast and that helped a little. Getting up earlier didn’t help, I would just take longer to get ready without intending to. I can only assume there is something broken in the timekeeping part of my brain.
When it comes to personal / casual stuff like parties, dinner out etc, it can often be worse being on time than being fashionably late.
The hosts aren’t ready, or just by chance the only people there are strangers who want to treat you like a stranger i.e. despite your shared connection, they talk to you as if you’re a random guy who stopped them in the street.
I actually very much enjoy meeting new people but it goes a lot more smoothly when there are also people around that you know.
How late to show up to avoid awkwardness depends on the kind of event.
In the work environment, I’m never late, unless it’s a situation where punctuality was not a requirement (e.g. in my last job there was an official start time but people routinely drifted in 30-45 minutes after that time and the boss didn’t care as long as you worked enough hours. So I became one of those drifters).
Yes, I have repeatedly said I agree with this. But I have also said that there are times when punctuality doesn’t matter. I even gave the example of driving my nieces to the mall.
But there are people who insist punctuality is always critical even when there is no external reason making it so. They are arguing as if punctuality was important as a general principle.
People who are late, even in situation where being on time is critical, are wrong. But people who insist on everyone else following a schedule, even in situations where being on time is unimportant, are also wrong.
That’s the basis of a genuine compromise between two individuals who have different views on this subject. One person needs to compromise by making the effort to be on time in situations where being on time is critical. And the other person needs to compromise by recognizing there are situations where being on time isn’t important and not try to impose an unneeded schedule.
Compromise isn’t complaining about how other people won’t do things your way.
My father was never late for anything in his life. I remember as a child, us 4 kids and dad sitting in the car waiting for mom and dad fuming. After mom passed away we took turns visiting about every three months, with one annual visit when we all went at the same time. During those visits we would go out for dinner or a community event. Dad would announce the time we were leaving. he would be ready well in advance, sit in his chair watching TV with his jacket over his arm. He announced the number of minutes to go periodically before it was time to leave.
Fast forward: Died eventually passed at the age of 92. We all convened to the state where he lived for the funeral.
Mass was scheduled for 11 am. Two of the 4 of us arrived at the church at 10:30 Hearse arrived at the church, with the funeral director about 25 mins later. Church was locked, parking lot empty. Pallbearers were not there. 11 am came. There was no further activity going on.
I was anxiously complaining to my brother. He said tell him (funeral director)
I went to the director and said…My father was never late for ANYTHING in his life. DO NOT make him late for his funeral.
We then heard some banging noise, which would start and stop, also something that sounded like scratching. we all turned around and my brother (who was in his 60s at that time) was banging on a pole with a piece of something and scraping on the ground. he said, I think Dad is trying to get out. That lightened my mood.
We eventually got underway about 30 minutes late, but we can still say Dad was never late for anything in his life. His first late event was after he died.
I gotta ask why. If we are going to a party (arrival time unimportant) and we agree to leave at 7pm, why is wrong to expect you to follow our agreement to be leaving at 7pm? And I’m not talking about running out the door at 7:03pm but you don’t even step into the shower until 7:10pm?
And you didn’t answer my question from earlier so let my rephrase it. YOU are the one that says we are leaving at 7. In other words YOU set the schedule. When questioned at 6:40 when you are not even close to being ready and you tell me not to give you crap - that you’ll be ready at 7. Then why am I the jerk for expecting you to be ready at 7? Why aren’t you the jerk for waiting until 7:10 to jump in the shower as I’m sitting around ready at 7?
I specifically said that there was still plenty left with which to pay the rent. Nobody is claiming that it’s perfectly fine to show up two hours late to take somebody to the airport for their one chance at a flight.
There are plenty of things for which “on time” is a blurry figure instead of a precise one, and other things for which “on time” doesn’t actually matter. There are indeed also things for which “on time” is a precise figure that does matter; but trying to class everything that way is not helpful, and is guaranteed to cause a lot of frustration for both you and those you’re dealing with.
There are people in this thread complaining about others being ten minutes late. So apparently five minutes is their level of tolerance.
He was hanging out at the brother’s while his neices were getting ready. He apparently was just as happy to wait there as at the mall.
Yup. Communication matters.
‘Sure, I’ll take you to the mall’ is one thing. 'Sure, I’ll take you to the mall, but I can only do it if we leave between 9:30 and 10:00 because I have somewhere else to be at 11:15" is another thing.
The question here is, what commitment exactly has been made? ‘I’ll be there no later than 10 to take you to the airport’ is not the same committment as ‘I’ll be ready around 10 to go to the mall’ or ‘we’ve each got a batch of things to do this afternoon, and one of them is that we need to go to the store; I think around 2:30 will work.’ It isn’t even the same committment as ‘let’s go to the movie, I’ll drive, it starts at 4:00’ because in the latter case you’d better sort out whether both people want to get there in lots of time and watch the trailers, or hate trailers and want to get there after they’re over even if that risks missing the first five minutes of the movie, or whether you’ve got one (or more) of each in the party in which case yes, you need to negotiate. Or, possibly, go to the movie separately; especially if one or both parties are insistent that the other is Just Wrong.
Not always. Many people who are routinely late do, consciously, want to be punctual. But they are prevented by any number of factors, most having to do with the inability to manage their time, activities, ideas, focus. And then there are those who have difficulty putting themselves in the position of someone whom they are inconveniencing. Sure, being self-absorbed may seem like a choice, but frankly it isn’t always. Sometimes it is more like a mental disability.
There are two different ways to be difficult to live with here. One is chronically being late, and the other is being enraged when people are late.
I used to fall into the latter category but realized eventually that it really did nothing but ruin everyone’s mood. Nothing else.
It baffles me that anyone thinks there is a reasonable defence for not bothering to keep to your commitments.
Doesn’t matter what your internal justifaction is, to me, if you agree on a time then any failure to keep to that time is incredibly rude and extremely disrespectful of other people.
It is clear evidence that you are either deliberately untrustworthy, incompetent or thoughtless.
Barring exceptional circumstances what reasonable reason is there for being late?
Saying you’ll pick me up at 10 to take me to the airport IS the same commitment as saying you’ll pick me up at 10 to take me to the mall. In both cases you are putting ME on a timeline you have no intention of following. And that where the selfishness comes in that Little Nemo promotes. Maybe it is not as critical to being on-time to the mall as the airport but that is not the issue. You made a commitment to the other person and fail to honor that. I got up early to be ready at 10. I stopped playing Fortnite at 9:58 so I’d be ready when you got here. I ate cereal for breakfast since I didn’t have time to make a bacon and cheese omlette and still be ready at 10. So when you roll up at 10:40 you are telling me that my time is unimportant. It has nothing to do with whether or not getting there on-time is important. It’s about a jerk not thinking it is important to follow through on commitments and completely devaluing the other person saying you, what you want and your time are completely unimportant to me.
Let me ask you this: you are picking up your buddy to head out to the bar with some friends on a Friday night. You both agree that he will be leaving work at 5. You get there right at 5 - no buddy. You wait in the parking lot by yourself until 5:40 when he finally wanders out. You joke, “Guess you had that big project to finish.” and he says, “No I was hanging out with Bill talking about the football game this weekend. Then I had to pee and that took 15 minutes since I was playing on this new app I found. then I reorganized my desk. Nothing like an organized desk to start fresh Monday morning.”
How would you feel?
Or how about this? Your friend asks you to pick them up at 11 for a doctor’s appointment. You get there at 11 and the friend finished their shower at 11:05. At 11:15 they are dressed but they want to but some things in the dishwasher. 11:25 they get on their phone to check email and no they can’t do that in the car (yes they could) when you ask if they are ready to go. At 11:30 you finally leave. While in the car they continually tell you to go faster (if a cop is out you’ll get a ticket sort of faster) because they will be late. When following a car going the speed limit + 5 they tell you to go around them because they will be late. They get upset when you stop on a stale yellow that would have turned red just as you hit the intersection because they will be late. They start bitching to the world that there are no close parking spaces because they are running late because the “15 minute drive” took 25 minutes as usual and you need to find a close space now when none are available because they are late. See it’s all on you to fix them being late when you were on time. How would you feel?
There is also a cultural component to this, in high context vs low context cultures. There are a number of differences, which are summarized here,. One aspect is high context cultures tend to use a “polychronic perception of time while low context cultures us a monochronic perception. Monochronic people see time as tangible and sequential – it can be saved, spent, and so on. They make and adhere to strict deadlines and focus on one task at a time. Polychronic people see time as fluid. Punctuality and structure are not as important and deadlines are something to aim for not to meet at all costs. Similarly, polychronic people work with multiple tastes at once.”
About 70% of the world is high context. I work a lot within the South Asian community and the community I deal with, at least, jokingly refers to their sense of time as “Indian standard time.” I also find, from personal experience, sense of time is more fluid in many Latin American and Hispanic cultures.
For me, it depends on the event whether punctuality is important or not. I grew up with the clock (e.g. school schedules, work schedules, and the such) where punctuality is of utmost importance. I have never been late to school a day of my life; the most I’ve been late to work or a client meeting is ten minutes, and if I’m running late I immediately text or call the person if I can. Something like a party is more fluid. When I throw a party I expect almost noone to be on time. “Party starts at three means most people will arrive 3:30 - 4” with my friends and family. Other events, like getting to a doctor’s appointment at a given time or having someone pick you up at a specific time is more hardly defined. If I’m doing you a favor and ask you to return the favor by being ready at agreed-upon time, my wish is that you stick to your word. I won’t fault you as a bad human being if you don’t, and I probably won’t get too frustrated with you, but I may be less likely to do favors if this is a continued practice with you. This goes with the “don’t make a promise you can’t/don’t intend to keep” part of the habitual lateness.
It’s all about context and expectations for me. In general, I prefer people to be punctual, but I’m not “line in the sand” about it.
In reviewing this thread, I am reminded of the thread we had last year on “whiteness” and in particular how one of the most contentious issues (the middle third of the thread or so) seemed to be on how bonkers (some people thought) it was that other people and maybe even cultures don’t, as a matter of course, consider punctuality to be a preeminent virtue.
You need to warn people that you see it that way. Because quite a lot of people don’t; and no, they are not Just Wrong.
I would class him in my head as “this guy runs late” and figure that he wouldn’t be ticked off if I ran late some time in the future.
I also probably wouldn’t have sat there in the parking lot for 40 minutes; I’d have called him or gone inside to see what was up.
– I’ve got more than one good friend who’s often late because they got talking to somebody. They’re people who will go way out of their way for me, and can be counted on for anything else other than showing up on time. I’m not going to waste my time expecting them not to get distracted talking to other people; I’m just going to be aware that they’re among the people who do this.
I would think they were being an obnoxious fool for telling me to drive badly and for bitching at me; which I would think whether the reason was their being late or not. I would class them as somebody not to give rides to, and very likely as somebody who I wasn’t about to ride with if they were driving; but that wouldn’t be because they took their time getting out of the house. And I’d drop them off at the door and then go park the car afterwards.
You’re right. What I should have said is that people don’t value being punctual and I think society is ok with that. The question now is are there other values at play here like valuing someone else’s time and adhering to commitments.
Some posters are creating a dichotomy of important-to-be-on-time vs unimportant and the conversation seems to be focusing on that right now. But the OP is about always being late. It’s about the person always 15 minutes late to work and always 20 minutes late to the doctors or leaving 30 minutes late to the airport. It is not about situational lateness and people who say it is ok to be running 10 minutes late to the movies because of previews are being disingenuous because they are always late, not this one time.
And this conversation in the thread doesn’t get to the heart of the OP - why when you said we were leaving at 6:30 for the movie can’t you be ready at 6:30? You know it takes you 20 minutes to shower so why couldn’t take a quicker shower or start your shower long before 6:35? Those making excuses for people being late when it is unimportant to be on-time still have yet to answer the question of why people cannot commit to the timeline they set or agree too because we are not talking about people on-time to important event and have a nebulous definition of “6:30” when unimportant. They simply use the excuse “it’s not important to be on-time”*** in those latter cases.
*** Not important to whom? I hate missing the beginning of films so yeah it’s not important to you that the movie has been playing for 10 minutes when we walk in or that I need to forego my popcorn and coke because were late but it is important to me. Selfish.
So you’re saying you would not be upset at all that he kept you waiting in the parking lot for 40 minutes?
So you wouldn’t think at all that if they were so worried about being on time that they are bitching at you about being late that maybe, just maybe, they should have been ready on time?
You conveniently ignore the rest of my first paragraph. Care to respond to the issue I raised there?