No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
gregsavage.com.au
No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
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Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#2The meeting problem is not so hard to solve. Start at the appointed time. Close the door. If the person who organized the meeting is not there, adjourn. People will catch on soon enough. Organizations which have a chronic problem with people straggling into meetings 10 or 20 minutes late are likely enabling the behavior.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#3The meeting problem is not so hard to solve. Start at the appointed time. Close the door. If the person who organized the meeting is not there, adjourn. People will catch on soon enough. Organizations which have a chronic problem with people straggling into meetings 10 or 20 minutes late are likely enabling the behavior.
Indeed. Although what happens when the organizer is on time and the person they want to meet with is late? Leaving early only frees up the other person's time and does not solve the problem.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#4I can't agree more with this post. Oftentimes people want to make dinner plans with me and I ask for a time so that I can plan for things after. When these times become 30 - 40 minutes late it messes up my schedule for the rest of the night.
Similarly showing up on time and waiting some indefinite time for people to show up is a pain. I'm ashamed to admit it but I've started being a bit late to things because I find that almost always other people aren't on time either.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#5Agree wholeheartedly.
I've said for a while now that being late is making the statement that you don't value the other party's time.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#6As someone who's chronically early... If it involves travel of any kind in a US city (9am meetings imply that), sorry, lateness is a given. 10 am, 11am, etc, no problem being draconian, unless it actually involves inter-city travel (i.e. not employees - in the sense that they're people who know where they're going).
If you're asking people to go to a place that you're familiar with and they're not, just assume they're going to be twenty minutes to half an hour late.
I've lost track of the number of times my GPS has guided me around a circle for 15 minutes, or up to a detour sign, or to turn left on a no left turn sign.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#7Interestingly, this is mostly an American (and a also a Western) problem. In most of the world (South America, Middle East, Africa, East Asia, etc), "on time" ranges anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours later.
We grade our personal productivity level much more than other cultures. Other cultures value other things such as community and relationships at a higher level than we do.
A story:
I was invited to an Indian friend's birthday party. It was going to be a huge party with hundreds of invited people (all Indian, except two people), musicians, a hire clown, and a full-fledged buffet. The invitation stated 6pm. I arrived at 6:30pm because, well, I expected them to start late.
Guess what, only two people were there: the birthday friend, because he had to set up the place, and a white guy, who was even more confused than me.
So the white guy and I helped our friend set up. Then we kicked the soccer ball around for a bit. Just waiting.
People started to slowly trickled in at about 8pm. I don't think we started eating at about 9pm. And it was all normal to them.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#8Actually, maybe I'm really busy, and doing the best I can. I value your time, but I value mine more. And obviously you're not as in demand as other people are. Sorry you can't appreciate that.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#9Interestingly, this is mostly an American (and a also a Western) problem. In most of the world (South America, Middle East, Africa, East Asia, etc), "on time" ranges anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours later. We grade our personal productivity level much more than other cultures. Other cultures value other things such as community and relationships at a higher level than we do. A story: I was invited to an Indian…
A party might be a different thing, but when you are meeting one or two people, the expectation is that they will not leave you standing around on your own for any length of time.
This is a sign of bad time management on top of rudeness.
I have known people who were continually late, so I would always tell them 30 minutes before I get there. Effective technique.
Things were worse before mobiles of course, I would wait for 10 minutes, and then head off. This was an accepted rule among my friends.
Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish
#10No, really. I'm running late. My friends understand that we know are being a pain in the ass, but we just can't get it together. It is rude and selfish, but more than that, it's just because we can't get our act together in time. It's called "kids", man. Get over it.