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Comment by sdevonoes | Hacker News Reader

Regarding punctuality I miss the option: “A moral obligation from my side, but I don’t care if others arrive late to an appointment with me”

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There's a quote in the Count of Monte Cristo where Edmond explains punctuality something to the effect:

> Being early to an appointment is as rude as being late because you may be disturbing your host before they've taken all the efforts they require before your arrival

( VERY rough quote, the english translation is 100x more eloquent than my half-remembered version )

Edmond Dantès arrives exactly as the clock strikes the minute of his appointment no later and no earlier. I remember reading that when I was ~16 and it always seemed to make sense to me

I guess the Brazilian take on this would be:

"Being on time is rude because you may be disturbing your host before they’ve made all the preparations they need before your arrival. Being early would be an outrageous offense."

It always amazes me how Brazilians and Germans can be so different when it comes to punctuality and yet so similar when it comes to their love of bureaucracy (and devotion to soccer, for that matter).

In the Brazilian case, it is not so much "love of bureaucracy" but rather "bureaucracy as a protection against private capture of public goods and services".

Ha, ha, true, I struggled with which verb to use for "love" but thinking about it what you wrote would not be completely wrong for Germany as well.

I specifically give people a time somewhere in the middle of a window in which they could arrive that neither disturbs my preparations nor disturbs the schedule I've devised. Everything may not be exactly ready at the beginning of that window but any preparations left to do can be performed while socializing (finish making appetizers, for example).

It also depends on who my guests are. If I know they are consistently late, I give them an earlier time. If they are always early, I give them a later time.

My grandfather was overly punctual. He'd show up 30-60mins early for dinner and my mom hated it. My mom loves hosting people but she can't do that while she's blowdrying her hair or helping her children get ready. So she would tell him a different time than everyone else coming over so he'd show up when everyone and everything was ready.

This is the Swiss stance.

The test doesn't have masochist as result

it's called putting yourself to higher standards then you think are reasonable to force random 3rd parties too even through you would appreciate it if they also had similar high standards

has nothing to do with masochism but all with realizing that you live in a society and can't just force your preferred social norms unilaterally on other, even if you can nudge people in a direction, in hope society will change in the future

Yeah that's also how I work: be strict to yourself, indulgent to other, I feel this is the best strategy to get along. Obviously, the downside is the tragedy of the commons: the few bad people abusing the leniency of the rest and getting away with it, like people showing up late because "they hate waiting".

It depends. If I invite you to my house, I don't really care unless you're too early or _very_ late.

If we are to meet in public - like restaurant - I don't want to awkwardly wait 15 minutes or more. At the very least, early notice is an obligation.

  If I invite you to my house, I don't really care unless you're too early or _very_ late.

... as long as you leave your shoes by the door.

I fully agree with this sentiment. I set a high standard for my punctuality but I don't care if you're late. I just silently judge you.

"I don't care I just silently judge you" ... kinda sounds like you care. ;)

"I don't care if you're late" versus "I just silently judge you".

Which one is it?

I don't show you that I care would probably be more accurate.

Always a helpful and productive approach to solving interpersonal problems.

Me caring doesn’t need to be a problem for others. Should we all shout about our minor preferences and gripes all the time?

There are people like that, and they are exhausting. It’s essentially a selfish use of a communal good, which is the shared environment.

There’s a limit to silent annoyance, of course. But my officemate noisily ate a smelly egg breakfast every day and I just bided my time until I could move.

Perhaps he's a German expat who has absorbed the Parisian attitude

Watch me not care

Not OP but my general approach is similar: "I see it as wrong but do not feel entitled to impose my standards on others".

Unless I care about the meeting it gives me an easy way out. More than 5 minutes late in that case is "let's try it again another time"

To me it lacks the option “moral obligation but only hold accountable people who live alone”

Why? Bathroom queues or things like that? I live alone but am almost always late. A few weeks ago I was late to the airport for a flight by a couple of hours. Yesterday I was late to work, I was commuting by car when an officer thought of stopping me and do some checks for around 10-15 minutes. It does feel like I'm cursed or something. It happens way too often, but almost always feels as if it's completely outside my control.

For instance (and maybe this is embarrassing ...), I was late to the airport because the day before I went a bit later to bed than planned, so I overslept my alarm a bit, but still had plenty of breathing room. So I proceed, with the car. As it happens, I live in a country, let's say NL, and the airport was in BE. It also happens that fuel is significantly cheaper in BE than in NL (over 25% cheaper at the time). I'm also quite precise about fuel consumption.

As it happens, speed limit in NL is 100km/h during the day, but 130 during the night. I was still well within the high speed section during those very early moments of dawn. But I normally only ride my car during the day. So I know intimately how much fuel I'm using. So I calculate things ,with a lot of safety margins, to optimize fueling costs, by reaching BE with not a lot of fuel. However, as I was a bit underslept. Normally I know exactly how many km I can do after the low fuel indicator comes on. I of course anticipated this would be lower at 130/h rather than 100/h, but somehow, my calculations were a bit off. I ran out of fuel on the highway, well inside BE, but some 2km short of the gas station.

Not the best of times, as you can imagine. I was starting to panic a bit, thinking of eventual costs, I don't know the exact law in BE, if I have to pay someone to tow me, it would cost probably hundreds of time more than the potential savings. But somehow, the place where the car stopped was in a location under a bridge, where I could actually get off the emergency lane, so in a very protected spot. Must have been 5AM at the time, I proceed to walk towards the first exit, grabbing a plastic bottle from the ground. After about 800m i manage to get off the highway, to that first settlement, and not long after, a very nice gentlemen takes me to the gas station. I discovered, stupefied, that the station only sells truck diesel. I walk a few minutes to the next one. Same story. I keep walking until I finally find one selling petrol, and a very nice lady, after explaining her my situation, agrees to take me to my car on the highway, which was 1-2km away. I do pay her for her trouble.

Now, this whole incident only took about an hour, so I'm still sort of on track. But now it's starting to be early morning, and some of the worst traffic jams I've encountered. Basically the trip takes over 90 minutes more than originally estimated. I buy another plane ticket for another plane later that day and still end up not that badly, but ... yeah.

Could you leave earlier to account for the things that feel outside of your control?

I agree but the thing is, how does one decide for the time that it might take for things which are outside of control, by definition, I am not sure of how long it might take.

And also, if we have a very long margin of time, then does the 0.01% you might be late somewhere really justify something like this.

Obviously it depends on the context, but personally, things just happen in life and its hard to take into factor how many things are and are not in my control.

I could in theory. But inside, it often feels that I'm doing everything as early as possible. Just that I'm overwhelmed. I also don't value being on time too much. I was recently late to a date of sorts, 10-15 minutes, which I think is a big reason why she didn't want to continue anything. It's never on purpose. It just happens. If I'm tired, I leave bed as soon as I can, but it's always a cost benefit analysis, always a decision being made. I may decide that those few minutes of extra rest are more valuable than being on time. If it's a person who I think deserves that punctuality from me, then I will go the extra mile of course.

Occasionally things will happen that you can't account for. I agree.

But from my perspective, the added example story was somewhat in your control. You just optimized for the wrong things. Of course this is easier in hindsight too.

Had you not run out of fuel, would you have missed the traffic too?

My fuel tank is always full. I fill it when it gets about 1/2 empty so that I am not caught stranded because I never know what will happen. Sometimes I get fuel even though I can make it, because what if something goes wrong? Habits die hard. I have seen highways close for hours to days after an accident or snow storm. If you're stuck there is no where to go.

It's likely I would have missed the traffic jams had I not had the fuel incident, since this was 5AM, roads were empty at the time.

And yes, everything is under our control and nothing is. It's a matter of perspective. Everyone prioritizes, since we have limited time. We choose what we do with that time. Just that, some people, sometimes me included, have such a time debt that sucks their time that it spills into their "obligations".

As for optimizing for the wrong things, this is also to some degree outside control. I obviously realize on a rational level why it's "suboptimal", penny-wise and pound foolish. But change requires effort and time. Which are sometimes used up in other more urgent endeavours.

Considering the site we are, treat your effort/time debt as tech debt.

You appear to be past the point where it's beneficial, and should focus on reducing it to improve your life. Granted this is easily stated when I have no real context.

Hence the whole "If you're on time, you're late". Everywhere I go, has a 10-15 minute buffer, just in case of stuff like that. I end up early to 90% of the things I go to, on time to 5% (really "slightly late") and maybe late once every three years. Can't remember the last time I was ever late really, and it does bother me a lot if I am.

TLDR but guessing from the length of your comment, it really is about respecting other people‘s time

> It happens way too often, but almost always feels as if it's completely outside my control.

Same thing happens to my partner. They're just fundamentally bad at estimating time and constantly do things that maximize their probability of being late.

Your story for example, almost nothing was outside your control.

My dearest childhood friend is half Italian, allegedly.

However, his woeful time-keeping is so poor that we began to suspect that he was indeed simply from another planet... with a longer day.

Perhaps he's Native American.

If you spend any time on the big rez, you hear it said

  There's "in time…"
  "on time…"
  and "Navajo time."

"A moral obligation from my side, but I prefer if others don't come to an appointment with me"

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