There’s no such thing as “inadvertent rudeness.”
It’s part of being an adult, and part of the social contract.
You aren’t exempt because you’ve been doing it your whole life.
Probably so. Who the f**k are you to think that it’s perfectly fine to make someone wait just because you can’t get your shit together and be there at or before the agreed upon time?
These days my company relies heavy on web meetings. And with an SAP conversion there are often various meetings back to back to back. If a meeting is scheduled at 9:00, people usually start rolling in about 5 minutes early. By 9:00, the organizer will say something like, “let’s give the stragglers 2 more minutes”. If you’re on a call that’s running late, you’re expected to ping the meeting and explain your absence. Then the meeting starts at 9:02. No one has time to postpone a meeting because someone can’t get their act together. with 15-30 people waiting on a call, with another call at 9:30, they have to get it done on time.
I’m one of those people who feels devalued when someone else rolls in 10 minutes or more late. On the weekends I transport rescue dogs. There’s a long chain of people with time frames to be in meeting locations to move these dogs around. It’s not okay to delay someone 300 miles away because you can’t manage to leave on time.
I know this is harder for some people than for others. But like most difficult things, it gets easier the more you practice. My guess is if you made a concerted effort to be where you’re supposed to be for a couple months, you’d learn the skills that most other people have.
StG
People are different. When one person says “we’ll leave at seven” they’re thinking “we’ll leave around seven.” When another person says “we’ll leave at seven” they’re thinking “we will leave at exactly seven.”
This is your wife. You must have known her for a while. So why are you still surprised that when she says seven, she means around seven? (And if she were here, I would ask her why she’s still surprised that when you say seven, you mean at exactly seven.)
Boss, why is it MY fault that your paychecks aren’t ready on Friday like we’d agreed on when I was hired. I didn’t emphasize that I really honestly truly meant Friday? Why is it not YOUR fault for assuming that agreeing to Friday didn’t really mean Friday?
If someone can’t keep their word, they shouldn’t give it. “I’d like to leave at 10am but be aware I might not be ready until 10:30 or even 11.”
“Fine; I’ll be by at eleven.”
The couple of people who I’d be most likely to ask for such a ride are people who routinely get talking to somebody and show up later than expected. If I’m asking for a ride when I need to get somewhere by X, I need to let them know; in which case, I’d then expect them to show up on time or to tell me they can’t. If they agree to get me at 10 for a ride to something for which time isn’t crucial, I’d expect them to show up somewhere between ten of and twenty past, or possibly later but probably to call me if so; and I’d probably be basically ready by ten of, but expect to be allowed time to fold up whatever I started doing while I was waiting, go to the john, and get my coat. Nobody would be annoyed by this.
If I knew I was dealing with somebody who’d expect me to be walking out the door with my coat on at exactly 10, I’d either not ask them for a ride, or I would manage to do that. I doubt I’d want to go to the mall that badly.
Not sure how many times or to how many people I need to say this: communication of this sort is exactly what I’m suggesting people do.
Nonsense.
There are people who think it’s terribly rude not to offer food to anyone who comes into their house. There are other people who never heard of such a thing. There are people who think it’s terribly rude to refuse to shake hands, and others who think it’s rude to do so. There are people who think it’s rude to address an adult you don’t know well by their first name, and others who think it’s an entirely friendly and proper gesture. People are inadvertently rude to others all the time. Some of them just never recognize that they have been.
If you’re colorblind, just practice! Certainly concerted effort will eventually make it easier to see colors! And then it won’t take you extra time and effort to read these particular charts.
Of course, but that’s true of any job. The thing is, these are not once in a lifetime events. You’ve done them before and will do them again, so you must have some idea of the length of time the tasks take. If your tractor breaks down enough that you need to plan time for tractor repairs, you need to find some way to get a new tractor. I’m not sure what you are referring to that you have to move out of the rain.
The kind of stuff you are talking about is not everyday stuff. Tractors breaking down, potato beetles, unexpected customers, not enough/too much rain are occasional occurrences, not daily ones. You don’t just stop working if something out of the ordinary happens, you work around it or do something else and come back to it later.
Pretty much yes, it’s called having a job. Or having kids that you need to drop at school. What does showing up early have to do with anything?
Are you now comparing your habitual lateness to having a handicap? Even though you just said you can show up on time somewhere if it means enough to you? No, people that are unable to physically climb stairs are not breaking the social contract, what a bizarre question.
Thing is, when 90% of the population says “let’s meet up at 10”, everyone, except you apparently, knows that means you show up at 10. Most people won’t care if you sometimes show up at 9:55 or 10:05, it’s people like you who show up at 10:45 and then blame all the other people because you have your own definition of 10:00.
But most people already do this, without going thru your extra steps. I say “can you pick me up at 10?” You say “Yes”, and then pick me up at 10. In your world I say “can you pick me up at 10?” You say " is that 10 in real world time or 10 in @thorny_locust time?" Then I have to say “10 real world time.”
But you are the one not communicating. You are taking a perfectly straightforward request to be picked up at 10, and using your own personal view that it means anything other than 10.
So you do think you have a handicap! What is the exact nature of this handicap that makes you unable to read a clock and follow this particular social norm?
The monochronic folks in this thread are starting to sound a bit deranged. And I say that as a generally punctual person, though I had to work at it. I hope one day you can all come to understand that other people’s shortcomings are not about you. They are not a sign that those people don’t respect or care about you. You can cut these folks out of your life, or work around them, but you’ll be a lot happier once you stop trying to find ways to be insulted by them.
Thorny Locust, in the unlikely event you’re ever in my neck of the woods, hit me up and I’ll invite you over for a beer. Show up anytime after 3; as long as you’re here by 8 there should be some beer left.
Yes, but the colorblind can’t see colors when they really have a reason to, either. Which you apparently can. You just have to want it badly enough. You’ve decided that there are few things that are that important to you to disrupt the way you’re used to doing things.
StG
I have been thinking about a saying that I wish I had learned in K-12: “Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy ?”
But it’s messy.
Some of my friends who are chronically late are not chronically five minutes late.
Or ten minutes late.
Or an hour late.
That would be relatively easy to adjust to.
When it’s “pick a number” late, you can’t just keep doing what you’re doing, say, and minimize any impact on you.
And I understand the notion that my time is precious and that’s it’s being squandered by somebody else’s irregularly irregular tardiness.
Because that is what’s happening in so many cases.
And I can see it that way without truly personalizing it. The person who rear ends me in traffic wasn’t making it personal, but they just cost me a nice batch of time, money, and stress that I really didn’t need.
And then there are people who show up way early.
The first time we had my family over for an xmas party, my brother drove in from Michigan with plans to spend two or three days with us. We were frantically preparing for the party when my brother showed up seven hours early. My gf was freaked, but recovered. It’s become a meme with us.
Sure it is. Not all of it happens every day, no. But one thing or another happens with considerable frequency.
Possibly 90% of the people you know. Almost none of the people that I know.
And not only socially. Box order customers don’t show up at a precise time, even if we set one. Certification inspectors don’t show up at a precise time. State FMNP inspectors don’t show up at a precise time. Restaurant operators show up when they feel like it, even if the appointment’s at their place. The vet. who made the appointment for 2:00 will take the cat in sometime between 2 and 2:30. Ditto my doctor and dentist. The car mechanic will start on my car when they’ve finished the one currently on the lift, which may be taking longer than they expected.
Read the thread. I can read a clock just fine. I can’t get a hell of a lot else done while I’m paying attention to the clock.
The colorblind can get the information on that chart by other means. I’m comparing you to someone insisting that if they just practice they can learn to read the color-coded chart and therefore information should only be provided in that form.
Thanks! If you’re ever in the Finger Lakes let me know – we’ll sort out a day and an approximate time between us, and if you’re running drastically later than that just give me a call.
Of course there is. Different sets of circumstances and peoples have differing customs/mores that determine what is considered rude or not. It’s not like there’s a universal standard. Sometimes, we unintentionally transgress one of these bounds and may be labeled as “rude” inadvertently. Also, some people have a brusque, direct manner of speaking that comes across to some people as “rude” or just have a natural tone that seems “rude.” (Not me, but I am thinking of a certain person.) They never intend to be rude, but are often perceived as such (but not by all – some people prefer the direct, efficient manner of speaking.)
What we characterize as “rudeness” can and is often absolutely unintentional, and it’s not always in the actions of the transgressive party (the “rude” one) but also in the one making the judgment of “rude” piling on their impressions, interpretations, and idiosyncratic expectations onto the person judged as “rude.”
I think it is, they should certainly understand that a fair proportion of people will take it in that manner. Certainly they don’t seem care enough about you to do what they said they are going to do.
If you said to these people “be here on time and I’ll give you $1000” they would be, as can be seen by their general ability to get to work on time and avoid the sack.
So clearly your time and your commitment is seen, to them, as being worth less in terms of “care” and “respect”. How they make that calculation I don’t know.
I had another friend in Tokyo who would want people to meet at his office and then go out for dinner. The problem was that he wouldn’t finish up when people would show up and it would be anywhere between 15 minutes to 30 minutes while you had to wait for him to send another fax or this or that. He wouldn’t volunteer to meet at your office so you could putter around. He clearly was prioritizing his time.
You gonna call us “normies” next?
Yes. Do they get equally offended when autistic people don’t look them in the eyes (so disrespectful!) or people with ADHD get distracted during a conversation and stop paying attention?
Are those people with autism or ADHD capable of avoiding those behaviours under circumstances that suit them?
I stand by what I said in one of the earlier threads:
I’m on Team Punctual. In general, being on time comes fairly easy for me, for various reasons including that I have a pretty good sense of time and not much trouble focusing on what I need to focus on (i.e. no ADD). Even so, meeting a deadline takes a certain amount of effort and attention. I can easily imagine how it might take a lot more effort and attention and planning and tricks and techniques for someone else, and how sometimes that extra effort might well be justified but sometimes it might not be.
Well, depends on what you mean by “normie.” Western culture does tend toward monochronic time (with Germans, Swiss, Austrians being the most monochornic), but global culture tends towards polychronic views of time. (And within the culture context can dictate more monochronic or polychronic interpretatoins of time.) Found this nice chart which rather does conform with my own impressions of various cultures and their sense of time:
