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No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

gregsavage.com.au

121–130 of 132 posts

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#121
I'm chronically late. It's a problem. I'm working on it.

However I notice the poster talks about 9AM meetings. In every company I've worked for, there are people who have a habit of scheduling meetings at the very beginning of the working day, at 8 or 9AM. There are also programmers who have a habit of coming in later, at 10 or 11AM, which is fine except the days when there are meetings.

You can write and complain and admonish and discipline, but sooner or later you have to realize scheduling meetings first thing in the morning doesn't work for non-morning people. They will always be late, or slow, tired, and out of it. If you notice that about 1/3 of your staff never makes the 8AM meeting on time, it's the meeting time and not the staff that's the problem.

Also, making meetings very long and irrelevant encourages tardiness. You've decided to waste my time by making me go to a big group meeting where two people are going to argue about something that does not impact my work. Fine, but don't expect me to make an extra effort to rush to it. I can get some of my time back by being late.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#122
post #100
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, maybe I'm really busy, and doing the best I can. No. No matter how busy you are, if you're good at planning you can routinely be on time. If you're bad at planning, then you'll have problems no matter how little you have to do. And if you make a point of surrounding yourself with people who are able to manage to be on time, then you'll all get more done. I value your time, but I value mine more. As my broth…

Can you plan to be on time to the minute, though? With traffic? Or does being on time mean you have to be early, to account for the possibility of travel delays. Then suddenly it becomes expensive to always be on time.

I have seen people be chronically late to meetings when they just have to walk from one room to another within a building. That I have no patience for.

With uncertain travel, you have a point. Still if you're a sales person who is supposed to pitch me, be on time or don't bother showing up. Sure, being on time is more expensive for you. But it is less expensive than a wasted trip, so don't make it a wasted trip. If the relationship is more even, then I understand travel delays but expect to see a reasonable attempt. If you're late half the time and early half the time, I'll be OK with it. If I have to consistently wait for you being late, that's going to be a problem.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#123
post #10

No, 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.

My father worked long hours, and my mother managed four boys at once, and we were really too close in age for even the oldest to be much help with the youngest. She is the one who taught me that being late is impolite, if you need to get there a little early to be sure you're not late, then that's what you do. Kids appear to have become a great excuse for whiners and the perpetually incompetent, for almost anything t…

My wife and I can otherwise plan for ourselves and get to places on time.

With kids, even when we try to start getting ready an hour earlier, we tend to forget things because of the number of things required and all of the distractions caused by the kids, including them not doing what you tell them to do.

Do I rush around in the car at times telling the kids that we're running late again? Yes.

Would some of you that are complaining about those that are late also be late if you had kids that had difficulty getting things done on time and you were more scatterbrained with kids than without? Yes.

People that procrastinate a bit, aren't type A, and tend to enjoy life rather than planning all the time, sometimes/often are late. It sucks, and it is rude and shows lack of planning and caring enough about being on-time.

You are on-time. That is great.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#124
post #34
post #8

Actually, 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.

Actually, maybe I'm really busy, and doing the best I can. No. No matter how busy you are, if you're good at planning you can routinely be on time. If you're bad at planning, then you'll have problems no matter how little you have to do. And if you make a point of surrounding yourself with people who are able to manage to be on time, then you'll all get more done. I value your time, but I value mine more. As my broth…

I suggest you relax and stop worrying so much about time. Consider the 5-year rule: in 5 years, is it really going to be important that I was 10 minutes late because of traffic?

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the sarcasm I think this is a great response on a serious level. Most people are not late by intention just as this site wasn't intended to crash.

If someone is late, that is no problem, stuff happens. When someone is always late, that is rude and inconsiderate.

Or they've got very little discipline. It doesn't necessarily reveal anything about their attitude towards others.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#126
Once upon a time, my very favorite manager wanted to review the high level schedule for his software product. So he called a meeting among all the managers who worked for him. At ten, maybe fifteen minutes past the hour, everyone had finally made it into the room, random issues with projectors and computers and missing files had been resolved, and everyone was ready to present.

The manager scowled. "People, if you can't run a meeting on time, I don't know how you're ever going to run a program on time."

Attendance was prompt thereafter.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#127
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and I'll feel like an asshole Why? I would try to make it as uncomfortable for them as possible so they don't do that anymore.

Sounds like a great basis for friendship and personal relationships (although maybe these are "productivity obstacles" too?)

We all have our personality quirks and I'm old enough to not be ashamed of mine. I hate it when people get to things really early. My friends learn this about me, just as I learn their quirks.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#128
post #107
post #26

While I agree with the comment in general, my norm is to immediately cancel and reschedule or go on without the person. The victimization aspect (3 wasted hours) could also be avoided by not passively sitting and waiting to start.

Yeah - surely there were other things happening during that day, to do? Also, mobile phones .. the person being late will generally call (and maybe during 3 hours (!!) the person waiting might ring and find out whats going on). Waiting, doing nothing for 3 hours and then complaining about it seems a bit passive aggressive, I think I would wait an hour tops.

The three hours wasted was actually just 20 minutes of 10 people's time. Forcing people to sit and wait for 10 minutes is totally passive aggressive.

Also, not every employee can accomplish that much in 10 minutes. A support or business person could fire off an e-mail or two, but an engineer suffers when time is broken into small chunks. Engineers are also paid pretty well, so when you're talking about 3 hours of "engineer-time" wasted, the cost to the company adds up.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#129
post #84

Scheduling a meeting at 9am is also rather inconsiderate towards me. Besides, why don't you just start without me? By scheduling it at 9am, you have made it clear that my attention is not really important to you.

This may be true, and you probably choose your place of employment to reflect the fact that you are not a morning person. However, this article isn't about you personally, and it isn't about a specific time either.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#130
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the same way dyslectics (sp?) are inconsiderate by always being unable to spell correctly. From time to time, it would be acceptable. Consider that for the person that is always late, it is probably a bigger problem than for you. She has to endure it in all parts of her life. Assuming that the problem is that she simply doesn't care is as ignorant as assuming that a dyslectic simply doesn't care to learn how…

Analogy failure. You can't just compare two things that on the surface may vaguely seem the same, and just assert they are the exact same thing. Dyslexia is a recognized medical (psychological?) condition. Being chronically late is just rudeness, plain and simple. If you constantly lose track of the time, buy a watch. Set an alarm. Use a smartphone with a calendar that will remind you of things. Take responsibility f…

>If you constantly lose track of the time, buy a watch. Set an alarm. Use a smartphone with a calendar that will remind you of things.

I'm a chronic late-comer. As a result I get extremely anxious about arriving late for things. Sometimes this results in turning up very early (also considered rude) or having so much time that I have to do something else first, which again often results in lateness.

Personally I put it down to a poor ability to keep track of time dyschronia I guess one could call it.

If I wear a watch I don't look at it, if I set an alaram I'll override it. I've tried putting clocks forward. I get google alerts texted to me, 3 seconds later I've forgotten; I have an extremely poor memory.

I'm very one tracked, struggle with multitasking (NMIs causing a context switch at least).

Not an excuse? Then I must be lazy and unreliable - I'm running 1½ businesses (13-14 hour days the last couple), bringing up 2 kids, meet most of my deadlines, etc..

Inexcusable? Perhaps I'm just built differently.

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