No, you are not 'running late'; you are rude and selfish
blog.firebrandtalent.com
blog.firebrandtalent.com
Some people here are saying that dinners are different than parties: that you really do need to be on time. I also tended to believe that. Especially, one would imagine, for "particularly special dinner occasions" such as organized holiday events. Hence, when I was invited to Thankgiving dinner this year, and was tasked with bringing the stuffing, I considered it horrible of me that I was arriving ten minutes late--due to my oven's starter stopping working halfway through my preparations I had to find a candle-lighter, delaying some of my cooking preparations--and sending notices to the other people by SMS.
However, when I got there, no one was there but the host, and he was nowhere near done cooking anything. No one else arrived for a half hour, and that was just one person. Most people didn't arrive until a couple hours later, and some people didn't arrive until a few hours later. If anything, the host was concerned that he had confused me into taking the time of the event too literally.
It isn't like there was a bunch of time wasted: we were having a get-together... the goal is to spend time with a bunch of people and have fun, and everyone's schedules are going to be somewhat different from each others. It isn't actually critical that everyone eats at the exact same moment, and it certainly isn't important that everyone hears every moment of every single conversation.
I thereby want to say that this is more of a culture thing than anything else. Here's one way to tell: when that person who was late tries to make a plan with you, come late next time and see if they get angry. Frankly, I bet they don't, and that they don't even seem at all phased: they ended up doing something else to keep the time passing, and weren't even closely paying attention to when you would arrive. Yet, I bet you will still be angry; in fact, I further bet you will even be angry that the other person isn't angry ;P.
Yes: to you this is really important. Maybe for the kind of event you want to have it actually is important (carefully prepared food will be ruined if people didn't eat it at the right moment, you are putting on a play and you actually need the actors to be there, etc.). However, that doesn't mean it is important in all circumstances or that even in the same circumstance it is considered important to all people.
It doesn't even mean that that kind of event is optimal, or that everyone else wants to have that kind of event. If it is actually important to you, be prepared to defend why it is important, be prepared to only be able to make that case occasionally, and keep an open mind to compromising with others who do not share your opinion that every event is better if everyone arrives at exactly the same moment.
A term that is sometimes used for this phenomenon is "cultural cross-talk", and a classic example is how long you wait before someone else is done talking before it is no longer considered you "butting in" when you start to speak. Different people from different backgrounds and different cultures have different expectations of how this should work, and if you aren't aware of this you end up getting really angry.
As a concrete example, the way this would apparently work in American Indian societies would involve very long silences: just because no one is now talking it is not to be assumed that the person who was speaking before isn't just collecting their thoughts to continue to speak again. To presume otherwise would be very rude, and it isn't like you need to be in a rush: you thereby should continue to wait until it is clear that the other person has ceded the floor.
On the other hand, in some places (I believe New York is the typical example; I'm from Chicago, however, and also have this tendency) you see a negative amount of time before the other person is supposed to start talking: yes, people seriously are predicting in their minds what the other person is saying so when it seems like they are coming to the end of a thought they can start speaking while that other person is still talking.
Both of these are normal and neither are "rude": they are just cultural expectation. However, one can easily imagine people from a culture expecting patience and clear turn order to write a massive rant claiming that "no, you are not 'anticipating my sentence final intonation'; you are rude and selfish", making the argument that the other person "isn't listening to me and just wants to hear themselves speak... they even talk over what I'm saying, and I can't get a word in edgewise".
But no, it really is just a difference in expectation. You see these same differences in situations like whether it is rude to ask for things, whether it is rude to deny people asking for things, whether it is rude to presume you can share something, whether it is rude to look at someone, whether it is rude to talk to someone, and whether it is rude to make any form of physical contact at all with someone (or even to stand close enough to someone that physical contact could be possible). People are simply different: that doesn't make them "rude".
From what I've been able to observe so far, procrastination precedes my lateness, in a way that one becomes a symptom for the other. Ie. It's morning and I have to do some really important task at work ASAP. Later, at 8pm, I have to meet you for dinner downtown. But I don't start getting work done until way after lunch, having procrastinated all morning surfing HN. So, around 3pm, when my mind finally comes to terms with responsibility, an overwhelming sense of duty takes over me, striking upon the task at hand with great vengeance and furious anger. Concentration is tops and speed is maximum. Code is thorough. Design is sharp. Text is brilliant. Suddenly it's 8 o'clock and, yup, I'm late. Time is not standing still anymore. I feel awful.
My theory is that the strength I have to build up on a daily basis so that I can overcome procrastination, sleepiness, attention deficit and mild depression is also responsible for my recurring tardiness. To be able to reach such concentration nirvana, my mind has to shut down everything else on the planet earth. On the other hand, whenever I wake up focused and in a good mood, chances are I'm going to be the one ordering that bottle of Pinot.
It helps if you can get into a routine. I'm married, and so we always have dinner at the same time, which means I always leave work at the same time, which means I can have a daily alarm. If I don't get everything done (due to procrastination &ct) I work after dinner.
If you're like me you will hate the structure (to the point of possibly even feeling a bit physically ill) but if you keep up with it, the feeling goes away and it will help enormously (particularly with your relationships with those close to you)
In Tokyo, given as your employer usually pays for your train fare and the train service is notorious for being punctual and reliable, you're expected on time and if you're not, the rail company usually issues on paper an apology like this http://traininfo.jreast.co.jp/delay_certificate/pop.aspx?D=2... .
> they smile warmly at the waiting group, as they unwrap their bacon sandwich
"Wow, John, you should recommend this sandwich place to the rest of us... we were missing out on it while waiting on you"
> At 8.20, I was into my second glass of Pinot and at half-past I got a text saying ‘on the way’. We finally were all seated at 8.45.
"Guys, you'd better have a few shots. I've been working on this bottle since 8, when we were supposed to meet, and you have a lot of catching up to do."
Habitual lateness could be engaged with positive reinforcement too couldn't it? This could be achieved by calling the latecomers before meetings or escorting them there early a few times until the habit changes.
We may have very different values, but if the alternative to venting steam is your prolonged unhappiness, it's for the best.
- There's always a certain number of no-shows, so just like airlines, they overbook by scheduling slightly less time per patient than required.
- It's a battle between management who want to get through patients faster, and the good doctors who want to spend more time with the patients. Management sets the schedule, the doctors actually decide how much time to spend with each patient. So everything goes late.
- Patients tell the receptionist one thing but the doctor another. If you say you need a prescription renewal, you'll be put in a ten minute slot. But if you come in needing suicide counselling, you've just made everybody else wait an hour extra for their appointments.
- Patients assume the doctor is going to be late, so show up late themselves.
- There's very little slack in the system, so if just one thing goes wrong suddenly the doctor is late for everybody.
I've called ahead and said "I have an appointment at 3:30 today. I just wanted to see if everything is still on schedule or if I should come in later."
It doesn't always work (sometimes they flat-out lie) but when it does you feel like a super genius.
I've had this happen to me multiple times, and I'm the most reliable person I know when it comes to this stuff.
Reasoning aside, sometimes people are just rude and selfish and it doesn't have to have anything to do with being late at all it's just one of many symptoms of the underlying problems.
I do understand sometimes there are circumstances beyond your control - for example at my last dentist visit they were 15 minutes late due to a medical situation, but they told me as I arrived - but people who habitually do this really get on my nerves.
Once this culture starts it's really tough to turn around.
When a meeting is supposed to start, and not everyone is present, I'll maybe wait a minute or two, but then the meeting is rescheduled. This of course depends mitigating factors-- it isn't always possible or reasonable. Mr. VP of engineering is late? We wait. :(
Note that anyone missing is a reason to delay, since you don't send out "non-essential" invites. If you really have moxie, you make the person who was late co-ordinate the rescheduling.
The point is that the late person he's talking about agreed to meet at 9:00 but failed to be on time.
> have warmed up and all the interesting people will have arrived’.
> Nice. Imagine if everyone took that view.
> Cocktail parties would start at 3 am eventually.
Apparently this is exactly what happened to 'dinner' in British parlance, as described by Bill Bryson in his book 'At Home'. 'Dinner' was the midday meal and 'supper' was in the evening, but in the 18th century, people invited to dinner started turning up later and later in the afternoon (for various reasons, including entertaining strangers who had dropped in at their house for an obligatory tour). So dinner eventually became the evening meal, and a new word had to be coined for the midday meal, hence 'luncheon' which eventually became truncated to just 'lunch'. All this was happening in upper-class society, mainly in London, so other regions and usages have retained 'dinner' to mean the midday meal. For example, school meals are often called 'school dinners'; and in many northern counties, calling the midday meal 'lunch' is still considered an effete southern neologism.
When I directly asked him if he realized that he is an hour late, he said that his girlfriend didn't let him go.. I'm definitely not expecting to be more important to him than his gf but that's a pretty shitty excuse.
I guess some people never change, and that guy is definitely not even remotely a friend of mine any longer. This might be a little off topic but I personally don't understand why so many people I meet take everything for granted. If I'm extremely polite and nice to someone, most of the time they think that I'm an idiot and that they can treat me any way they want because "I won't mind anyway". I used to believe in the good nature of human beeings but I'm starting to heavily doubt that.
Perhaps I'm so forgiving because my actual problem is that people are so incredibly flaky and unreliable at this point that I often don't get to the part where they're "running late" - they'll cancel an hour before via text message or something like that, and I'll be lucky if I even get it. I think there was another post on here about how technology enables people to do this, back in the day when you made plans you couldn't necessarily get in touch with someone last minute.
It's not just in the social realm too, which I find baffling - I made a last minute appointment online with a massage therapist I'd been working with for a while due to back pain flaring up, and she called literally an hour before the appointment to say that since she didn't have anyone else scheduled for that day, she basically didn't want to come in. I've had doctors pull similar (yet not as extreme) stuff on me.
I don't say this for everything, but for many things.
I found it remarkably effective. It had the unexpected effect of making meetings end on time as well since folks would not be late for their next meeting. So while I found it somewhat 'quirky' from a culture perspective I had to admit it had a positive effect on time utilization.