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

http://gregsavage.com.au/2010/06/07/no-you-are-not-%E2%80%98running-late%E2%80%99-you-are-rude-and-selfish/

by bootload • 16 years ago

96 127 16 years ago

gregsavage.com.au

ams6110• 16 years ago

The 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.

houseabsolute• 16 years ago

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.

Brashman• 16 years ago

I 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.

teye• 16 years ago

Agree 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.

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

As 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.

billswift4• 16 years ago

Maybe you should learn to read a map, and actually, you know, plan your route ahead of time. I wonder if trying to read a GPS while driving might be almost as bad as talking on a cell phone?

elbenshira3• 16 years ago

Interestingly, 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.

megablast4• 16 years ago

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.

_delirium• 16 years ago

I dunno, in much of southern Europe it's certainly not expected that people will be there to the minute even for one-on-one meetings. Probably not an hour late in that case, but I don't think anybody would bat an eye if you had planned to meet at a coffee shop at 2:00 and someone showed up at 2:15. You'd just get a coffee and read a book or the paper or something. (Being exactly on time, and being angry if someone's 5 minutes late, is seen as a stereotypically "German" sort of thing.)

kranner6• 16 years ago

Being Indian, I have to take a little offense at the generalization.

It isn't all of us. I'm never casually late for an appointment, and am always annoyed if the other party is, beyond the reasonable 10 minutes. And this is not because of any incipient effect of Western culture.

Please stop with the generalizing about pan-cultural differences in the perceived value of productivity, community, etc. Neither does an anecdote about a birthday party generalize to business situations.

vishaldpatel• 16 years ago

Hmm.. being Indian, I actually thought that he was praising us, rather than trying to offend.

kareemm• 16 years ago

No comment on Indians in business situations. But my non-Indian mother learned very quickly when she and my Indian father threw a dinner party for some of his relatives. The start time was 6p, and nobody rolled in until 8p.

She'll now tell my dad's relatives to show up at 4p because they operate on "Indian Standard Time".

And funnily enough, my father is always 5 minutes early for everything...

elbenshira3• 16 years ago

I didn't mean to offend. I've worked with Indians who were punctual. In fact, I don't recall ever working with one who was not. I think parties are bit different, though.

My point was to compare cultures, not to put down one or the other.

zalew2• 16 years ago

That's true. When I've lived in Brasil, we were invited to a party for 7pm and if you came at 0730 you'd see the hosts wandering around in robes, comming about 2hrs late was the appropriate thing to do.

It all depends on the local culture. In Poland, besides business meetings, there's a 15 minutes space, only after that it's considered being late; and yes, in big cities we're also all into that western 'being always in a hurry' thing (which I personally don't like).

nradov2• 16 years ago

If you plan ahead and start on time then you never have to be in a hurry.

elblanco3• 16 years ago

Due to the abysmal and unpredictable traffic situation in D.C., I've noticed people are allowing more and more of a buffer around expected meeting times. It's honestly not anybody's fault if a drive from one part of the region to another, that should take 15 minutes, and usually takes 35 ends up taking 2 and a half (and this is no exaggeration, it drives my business partners from elsewhere absolutely bonkers when they spend any length of time in D.C.).

patio112• 16 years ago

Don't compare "East Asians" disfavorably to American punctuality within earshot of a Japanese salaryman.

The line beginning with "other cultures" is untestable horsepuckey reminiscent of the absolute worst tripe in American multicultural studies. And I have a degree in that. It survives only because it flatters the preconceptions of an Ameican subculture in academia who prefers to have a ready critique of Western culture, as if such a thing existed.

elbenshira3• 16 years ago

You are right that it's easy to misuse "other cultures," but my comment comes from my experiences of living in different countries.

I am not saying that one way of thought is better than the other. I just wanted people to understand that their perception concerning punctuality is perhaps mostly based on their cultural upbringing, not on some universal human truth.

guelo2• 16 years ago

Geez, everything is a liberal conspiracy to some people.

If you don't believe there are differences in punctuality between cultures then you just haven't experienced those cultures.

elblanco3• 16 years ago

I've found that in general, South Koreans both fret uncontrollably over other people's timeliness (viewing it as a form of politeness) and provide all kinds of reasons and self justifications for their own tardiness. One of my friends has gone so far as to say "we care about being on time like a fish cares about water, but being late is just in our genes".

In the end it all sort of averages out and everybody seems to be just a hair perpetually late.

joelmichael• 16 years ago

We have the concept of "fashionably late" in the US, too. A late night party might be scheduled to start at 7 or 8, but people might not show up until 9 or 10.

kelnos2• 16 years ago

I feel like that's a bit less severe and not really the same thing. For an open-ended party, people will trickle in as they feel like it, and no harm is done. For 8pm dinner reservations, one is expected to arrive and be ready to be seated by 8pm, for example.

catshirt2• 16 years ago

Am I the only person who did not consider this a disfavorable comparison? If anything, I would suggest that Western culture is the one suffering. It is a consequence of consistent immediacy and impatience.

For reasons I probably couldn't convey to the author of this article- learning to accept time's transience can greatly improve quality of life. Or less romantically: dude... chill out... everything will be ok.

scelerat2• 16 years ago

Then call me hopelessly, curmudgeonly Western. I like people who say what they mean, including when they say they'll be somewhere at a certain time(+).

Context is everything. Parties, many types of social situations are different. But if someone plans e.g. a meeting and it's important for everyone to be there (otherwise, why are they invited?) then you'd better (1) be on time or (2) suggest an alternate time when you know you can make it. If there's some question, there's no shame in saying so. Do that so that the other people can make their plans. If you can't make plans and stick to them, WTF are you doing?

(+) Mobile phones have made everybody commitment-shy losers.

coffeemug• 16 years ago

I don't know, most eastern european cultures value being punctual and consider being late rude and obnoxious. This was definitely the case during the Soviet era, and that culture didn't value personal productivity nearly as much as the americans do.

sabat2• 16 years ago

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.

Devilboy2• 16 years ago

Now THAT is rude!

drivebyacct2• 16 years ago

Prioritization is necessary when demands > resources (time).

usaar333• 16 years ago

I used to believe this too. And then I realized that for 99% of cases, the 5 minutes gained is not worth the long-term reputation damage.

btilly4• 16 years ago

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 brother drilled into me a long time ago, "Yes, but..." is just a dishonest way to say "No". Your actions clearly say that you DON'T value other people's time. There is no need to bother pretending otherwise.

And obviously you're not as in demand as other people are.

No. It is called "planning". And not being rude and selfish. You might learn this "planning" thing. It could let you get more done without putting as much effort out.

Sorry you can't appreciate that.

Apparently you are aware that it is inconvenient when other people prove to have desires that are at odds with your selfishness. But you clearly don't let that bother you too much.

My attitude is that people like you are productivity obstacles to route around and avoid.

(For the record I am someone whose natural tendency is to be chronically late. But not when someone else is depending on me.)

Tichy3• 16 years ago

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.

sabat2• 16 years ago

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?

devmonk2• 16 years ago

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.

tomjen32• 16 years ago

I get how kids can mess up most schedules, but honestly that is your problem, not mine.

You decided to have kids, not me.

billswift4• 16 years ago

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 they do, or don't do.

devmonk2• 16 years ago

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.

lionhearted• 16 years ago

Two potential solutions:

1. Plan around it - be somewhere where the person being late doesn't affect you. Have people meet you at your home or at a cafe where you're doing other work or reading a book and it doesn't adversely affect you. Oftentimes, if I'm traveling with a group of people, I give a time range - "Be there between 7:30PM and 8PM" - that lets the early birds get there at 7:30, and the "oh shoot! gotta run!" people ideally get there by 8PM, but the early birds don't get offended and feel disrespected (I'm more or less an early bird, I hate being late - but I've got some friends and acquaintances who just aren't that way).

2. If you really want to get people to cut it out, make real world consequences. Say "the meeting starts at 9:05 sharp, the doors will be shut and no one will be admitted after that." Think really hard if the situation calls for it, but it does work if you do stuff like that. If you're a professor, you could say to anyone coming in late - "get out. see you next week." You won't have people showing up late if you announce you're going to do that and follow through. Up to you to judge if you want that sort of environment, and you've got to really be on top of things and deliver straight out the gate if you're being hardcore that people have to be there. But it does work.

btilly4• 16 years ago

When I was teaching my solution was that homework which was not at the front of the table, at the start of class, was not accepted. I also graded people on only a certain number of homeworks, so missing a homework or two was not a big deal.

It worked. Class started on time, with the question and answer period that I thought was the most important part of class, but which the students probably didn't realize was that important. (Well they did partway into the course. But that is another story.)

TamDenholm2• 16 years ago

Personally i find being early more irritating than being late. When someone asks me to meet them at 2pm (eg: Job interview) I'll generally arrive in the vicinity 20-ish minutes early and hang out in a cafe or something and then walk into their office for 2-3 minutes before 2pm.

I've noted some people in my experience to consider this to be late, 15 minutes before stated time is what they consider to be on time. This pisses me off to no end. If you wanted me there at 1:45pm i'd have gladly appeared at that time, just dont say one thing and mean another. GRRRR

TamDenholm2• 16 years ago

I also find doctors to be late in perpetuity, ive never in my life waited less than 10 minutes PAST the actual appointment time. This is both an easily identifiable problem and easy to fix, the receptionists could easily structure appointments more appropriately.

schn• 16 years ago

This is a byproduct of their time generally being worth so much more than yours. You would not complain if you had to visibly pay for any time a doctor is waiting with no patients.

As for structuring appointments more appropriately, it's quite easy to think of reasons an appointment could take more time than anticipated, and if you had to buffer for that time, you would have to pay for the buffer.

demallien2• 16 years ago

No, you don't have to pay for the buffer time, or at least, yes, ok, you do have to pay for the buffer time, but the hourly rate of 'buffer time' will only be a percentage of what you pay for actual 'visit time'. The percentage that you pay for buffer time should be a reflection of the probability that the doctor will be busy for that buffer time. I would expect that buffer time would be billable at about 30% of visit time, because on avergae a doctor will be busy for the buffer time about two thirds of the time. Obviously that number is just a guess, but it should certainly be under 50%, if I believe my experiences in doctors' waiting rooms..

papa• 16 years ago

Well the problem may vary from provider to provider (and country to country), but after observing my wife's situation as a physician in the U.S., I can tell you that many doctors aren't late volitionally.

First, the problem isn't easily fixed. Here's the deal: At her HMO each doctor has a panel of several thousand patients. Each patient visit during a normal clinical day gets a 15 minute allocation with the MD. It used to be 20 minutes at her HMO but was recently reduced in order to increase the patient volume. Typically my wife's schedule is stacked appointment to appointment from 8-Noon and then again from 1-5pm. A couple of time slots are left unscheduled for high priority, emergent visits (if you've got a routine visit, forget it, you'll get something a month or two out into the future).

No as you can imagine, 15 minutes per patient isn't much time. Some patients require more time. With each successive visit, the wait will get longer and longer. This isn't because the doctor (at least some of them) is being a jerk or dismissive, it's because they're trying to do a thorough job with the time allocated. If they can't finish what they need to in 15 minutes, well, she goes over that time. It isn't too hard to realize how screwed up the schedule can get after a couple of tough back-to-back cases.

My wife then tries to catch up during lunch hour because she doesn't take lunch. After working through lunch, she kicks into the afternoon half of clinic hopefully caught up, but sometimes not. And the cycle repeats itself.

The receptionists can't "easily structure" the appointments more appropriately -- at least at the large providers -- b/c they're not the ones running the game.

I'm not going to defend the overall system. That's a much bigger problem and mess that a lot of smart people have looked at and have yet to solve. But I do think it's worth realizing that, yes, many doctors do think your time is valuable and don't purposefully try to waste your time. Many doctors are overworked and are doing the best they can within the parameters of what they've been given to practice medicine and that at some point you might be that person that has an appointment that goes over the time allocated (and when you do, hopefully you'll be happy the doctor ended up being attentive to those needs).

Just hoping to lend some extra perspective (especially as someone who used to feel the same way you do).

billswift4• 16 years ago

It was her choice to work in that situation, so I have very limited sympathy.

Someone• 16 years ago

It is only easy to fix at the expense of decreasing productivity of the doctor. Because of that, most doctors do not really see this as a problem, let alone one that needs fixing.

The problem is that meeting a doctor cannot be planned perfectly. A meeting might take 5 minutes, or it might take 20.

If, on average, a doctor can serve 4 patients an hour, and she wants to reach that on a 9-5 working day, she must schedule her first patient at 08:45 or thereabouts. Reason: the first patient might be late. That would give her idle minutes that she would need to serve later patients, some of which might take 20 minutes.

Similarly, she must schedule her second patient at 09:00-ish, to have a patient waiting in case the first one happens to take only 5 minutes to serve.

And yes, that appears rude, but mostly, it is the economical thing to do. You can only get better service by paying your doctor more. You will notice that many people who can afford that are willing to do so. As an extreme example, I doubt that the president of the USA has spent much time waiting for his doctor.

For the maths behind this, google queueing theory.

SoftwareMaven• 16 years ago

The real problem is that the customer is not the person getting the care, it is the person paying the bill, so that is what gets optimized for.

The healthcare world is directly analogous to the auto repair world, we just don't fit in the same place:

You, car, mechanic :: Insurance co, you, doctor.

csmeder• 16 years ago

I get a php error when I visit this page. I guess the server isn't running low on resources, it is rude & selfish. Or maybe just misconfigured :)

Error 403: Forbidden Your PHP settings have been disabled by an H-Sphere administrator.

Your current PHP configuration: --> This configuration was changed: Please bring your PHP configuration in compliance with admin settings or request your administrator to re-enable support of your settings.

You don't have permissions to access this page. This usually means one of the following:

this file and directory permissions make them unavailable from the Internet. .htaccess contains instructions that prevent public access to this file or directory. Please check file and directory permissions and .htaccess configuration if you are able to do this. Otherwise, request your webmaster to grant you access.

astrec• 16 years ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8rc57-1...

nopassrecover2• 16 years ago

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.

megablast4• 16 years ago

If someone is late, that is no problem, stuff happens.

When someone is always late, that is rude and inconsiderate.

ronnier• 16 years ago

http://viewtext.org/?url=http%3a%2f%2fgregsavage.com.au%2f20...

btilly4• 16 years ago

I'm reminded of a talk at a medical conference about patient interaction.

The talk was scheduled. People showed up. No speaker was visible. The doors closed. People sat there. Finally someone got unhappy enough to leave. Discovered that the doors were locked. Soon the whole room was up in arms.

Then the speaker got up from the first row, went to the stage, and said, "I did this because no words are as effective as demonstrating the point. Yes, you are all busy people. But your patients are busy people as well. Many bill hourly so time is literally money to them. So don't waste their time and money by being late."

whakojacko• 16 years ago

I wish more doctors followed this...Ive spent far too many hours of my life waiting in receptions or exam rooms at hospitals. Unfortunately they are kind of squeezed in to seeing more patients per day than they would probably like, and one delay ripples through the rest of the patients.

I wish there was some sort of system to know exactly how far behind (if at all) your doctor was running that you could check online to minimize lost time.

enneff• 16 years ago

I've recently been seeing an Osteopath, and I've been really delighted that his administrative staff have twice contacted me a couple of hours before appointments to reschedule (by 30-40 minutes) as his schedule had slipped during the day. I haven't spent more than 1 or 2 minutes waiting for him. It's kind-of sad that this level of service is remarkable rather than customary.

blogimus• 16 years ago

This is what I got when I tried the page an hour after posting to Hacker News:

Error 403: Forbidden

Your PHP settings have been disabled by an H-Sphere administrator

Now that is rude

anthonyb• 16 years ago

A recruiter calling other people rude and selfish? Now I've seen everything...

jbm• 16 years ago

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.

stuaxo6• 16 years ago

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.

modality2• 16 years ago

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.

blackguardx• 16 years ago

In NYC, no one ever seems to be "on time."

Groxx2• 16 years ago

Similarly, taking great offense at someone who may very well just be "running late" is rude and selfish, as it assumes your little thing is more important than anything which may come up in their lives.

Context. Always context. If your event does not require strict adherence to starting times, don't require strict adherence to starting times. If it does, keep your view of your importance in scope with theirs, and for God's sake learn to adapt when things don't go flawlessly so glitches don't stop everything. Life is rarely flawless.

jakevoytko• 16 years ago

The strangest feature of chronic lateness is the view that meeting times can be gamed. Some avoid negative costs for early arrival, like waiting for tables. Others like the attention they get when they finally arrive. Yet others like that nothing happens until they appear.

Disentangling from the chronically late is worth the time. Some situations enforce punctuality. You can also pick a set-time activity for the meeting, like the start of a movie. You can also apply penalties: I once had a professor who allowed students to be as late as they want, but he would only collect homework until the start of class. Other situations, like travel, open the possibility of finding alternate arrangements. I have also resorted to giving earlier meeting times than the actual meeting time, but this has extra consequences.

JangoSteve• 16 years ago

I don't know why, but at some point I just stopped sweating this sort of thing. When others are late to a meeting, it doesn't really bother me. When someone cuts me off in traffic, whateva. These are all small things that just aren't worth the effort of getting upset.

I told her I have been coming to you for 15 years but don’t take me for granted.

...

Me? Am I ever late? Sure, sometimes. That’s inevitable even with the best intentions. But I never plan to be late. I never ‘let time slide’ because my stuff is more important than yours.

I am not talking about the odd occasion of lateness. I am talking about people who are routinely late. In fact, never on time.

You seem to give yourself much more slack than you allow others. You're not talking about people who are occasionally late, and yet you walked out on your dentist who was late once in 15 years, from the sound of it.

megablast4• 16 years ago

Dentists and doctors are always running late, if you go in the afternoons. They don't like sitting around idly, not earning money, so they set up the system this way.

Most patients are in and out, but a few take extra time, and they rarely know which ones, so they just assume they are all quick cases.

Always schedule meetings like this as early as you can.

stuaxo6• 16 years ago

> But I never plan to be late.

I like this idea... everybody else is planning to be late just to annoy the OP.

Although TBH they seem quite easy to wind up... I wouldn't be suprised if from now on everybody that needs to meet them wouldn't do just that :)

onan_barbarian• 16 years ago

Lulz at "My dentist kept me waiting 50 minutes not long ago."

This is a pretty accurate measure of the value of a recruiter's time vs. a dentist's. Medicos maintain a queue to ensure almost full utilization for their valuable services.

joshfraser• 16 years ago

This is a huge pet-peeve of mine -- not just showing up late, but any action that communicates that you think your time is more valuable than mine. I view my time as my most valuable asset so I'm really sensitive to people disrespecting it.

drusenko• 16 years ago

It's helpful to define what "being late" means. My rule of thumb is 0-5 minutes late is "on time", 5-10 minutes late is "OK but not great", 10-15 minutes late is "somewhat rude" and 15+ minutes late is "very rude".

One thing that annoys me to no end: people who are very early. If I plan my schedule carefully around you being there at 2pm (or later) and you show up 20 minutes early, you are going to sit around for 20 minutes, and I'll feel like an asshole, even though it's your fault.

kemayo• 16 years ago

I tend to think that part of the etiquette for being early is that you make yourself scarce until just before the scheduled time. Ideally, you also make your presence knowable by the person you're meeting with, in case it actually would be convenient for them to see you early.

loewenskind3• 16 years ago

>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.

stuaxo6• 16 years ago

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

CaptainZapp2• 16 years ago

I agree in general. Being late, in a Western cultural context is just damn rude.

He had me until the dentist story. I don't think that a dentist actually plans to let patients wait, but it does happen. A dentist (mine at least) usually plans in contingency for emergencies, but it may still happen that he overshoots.

Question: Would you rather have your dentist hand out his cell phone # after treating you on a Friday and their may be some complexities on the weekend for the price of waiting the occasional 20 minutes or a guaranteed punctual dentist who lets you wait for three weeks while you agonize in pain?

demallien2• 16 years ago

It's a false dichotomy - the solution to being able to handle emergencies quickly is the same as the solution to being able to see patients on time - have some slack in your schedule. Of course, that may mean that you need to charge more for your service, but I know plenty of people that would happily pay a surcharge of 20% or so on their doctor/dentist visits if it meant that they wouldn't have to be sitting around in a waiting room for an hour.

The curious thing about it is that it would only need to be about 20% to get everyone clear, but instead of that, nearly every patient ends up needing to wait for an hour, because there is always an emergency that needs addressing each day. I wonder why we don't see doctor's surgeries or dentists doing this. Anyone have an idea?

CaptainZapp2• 16 years ago

Ummm

"the solution to being able to handle emergencies quickly is the same as the solution to being able to see patients on time"

That's exactly what I said; just with slightly different words.

scelerat2• 16 years ago

I appreciate it when people whom I am waiting for let me know that there will be a delay and that I have not been completely forgotten. Dentists, restaurant servers, girlfriends contemplating marriage proposals, etc.

tjmc• 16 years ago

This post is “very Sydney” as they say there. I lived there for 5 years and deliberate lateness was very much a part of the culture – a social signal that your time was more important than someone else’s.

I fondly remember a quarterly kickoff meeting where my boss ripped one of the more pretentious reps a new one as she sidled in 30 minutes late. It didn’t happen again.

Having said that - finding parking, catching public transport (oh God those trains – shudder) and just getting around Sydney in general is a bitch.

wyclif• 16 years ago

Off-topic, but what do you think makes public transport in Sydney so bad? You're suggesting that it's so bad that it creates a kind of built-in lateness for most events?

etherael2• 16 years ago

Cityrail is heavily unionised, to the extent that it's not that rare of an occurrence that you will see staff standing at the ticket machines when you go to buy a ticket to stop you from doing so ( this seems to be their alternative to striking ).

This is in response to wage and staff concerns mostly, and I believe that the fares for the train services at least in Sydney are mandated to be fixed at a certain level unless they pass some kind of bureaucratic process. So, the union won't let the budget slide in the direction of infrastructure spending rather than wages and staff spending, simultaneously the fare fixing keeps the pool of money for the system fairly static.

Thus, infrastructure projects in public transport are glacial / non existent depending on your point of view, for about the past fifteen years I have been hearing about a line being added between Epping and Parramatta that is still yet to be completed, I'm not sure it's even been started.

The fact that the public transport is so bad results in people that really need to keep a tight schedule attempting to minimise their reliance on said system, they'll get a car or move some place very close to their place of work (thus perhaps contributing to the ridiculous rents and real estate prices in Sydney). The less people use it, the less people complain about it, the less reason the tragically inefficient system has to actually improve, and frankly it would probably take the threat of armed invasion to get them to pull their shit together at any rate.

etherael2• 16 years ago

Sydney is strange that way, populated largely by people doing very little and thus the idea of being particularly concerned about punctuality strikes them as novel, and yet there are still quite a few bastions of people who steadfastly refuse to just meander along with the herd.

These two segments of the local population always seem to grate on one another, this is a good case study of exactly how.

mike-cardwell2• 16 years ago

If I agree to meet someone at a certain time, I make sure I arrive early so as not to keep them waiting. I'd rather arrive early and wait, then arrive late and keep the other person waiting.

That is the only polite way to behave when meeting up with somebody.

mike-cardwell2• 16 years ago

Also, if an event finishes at a set time of say 8pm, and I'm being picked up. I don't tell the person to pick me up at 8pm. I add maybe 10 minutes on top to make sure I'm out and ready and waiting when they arrive.

loewenskind3• 16 years ago

You should like someone who puts absolutely everyone ahead of themselves (not making a judgment on if this is good or bad. It's definitely different then me).

Tichy3• 16 years ago

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.

fliph• 16 years ago

What's wrong with 9am?

Groxx2• 16 years ago

The part that says "am".

Tichy3• 16 years ago

If you like 9am, how would you like 7pm?

modality2• 16 years ago

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.

robryan• 16 years ago

With the party thing, a lot of the time I am happy to get there right on time, gives more time to spend with friends before people leaving/ passing out. Unless it's a party I don't actually want to go to then I may make a late appearance.

stuaxo6• 16 years ago

I spend my life rushing to things. Probably some internal overestimation of quite how much can be done for some length of time. Sure, it would be nice to be on time for everything, but I was late every day to school (not for want of trying to be on time). I try to be on time, and often can be (altho arriving sweaty from running for the tube or bus). Other times it just doesn't happen. We have mobile phones these days so it's no big deal.. having to arrive for a hard and fast deadline is a lot less common than it used to be.

stuaxo6• 16 years ago

Just scanned the article... the bit about the dinner party is funny. I'm imagining the author fuming and sneaking looks at his watch as friends come progressively in later.

His girlfriend catches the look on his face while he's helping with the coats and hisses "not now!".

As the dinner party progresses, conversation remains strained as the last of their friends arrive "Sorry mate, traffic was awful", Greg mutters something under his breath while everybody pretends not to hear.

Later, once everyone's left it's same argument again: her friends are "productivity obstacles" while she chokes back the tears she asking why he won't just let it go. The anger, coiled like a spring in his stomach is still there though: this is important, why don't they realise... !?

eogas• 16 years ago

This comment may offend some bloggers, but I think anyone writing something that starts with a warning about how it might offend people is simply writing it for the shock value.

JimboOmega• 16 years ago

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.

Dove• 16 years ago

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.

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

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