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Comment by seszett | Hacker News Reader

This attitude is exactly what I have in mind when I'm saying the jerk might not be the initial late person.

If they're late they probably have a reason for it (you might not think they have a good reason though, but who are you to judge that?) they're not doing it for the purpose of annoying you, even though you two might have a meeting you still aren't the centre of the world. So don't leave just to retaliate (because that is why you are talking about leaving and showing up even later) because that will accomplish nothing at all.

Once they arrive you can even tell them they're late, and they will apologize. Anger on the other hand will just leave you both miserable.

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I think we all can tell the difference between a good excuse and a lame one. But I think we also all know people who perpetually show up late with excuses, and we also all know people who have their jawns together and ordinarily show up on time. Are you saying that the perpetually late people are just cursed? Because I'm saying they're not cursed; they're at best undisciplined and at worst selfish and inconsiderate.

If you know they perpetually show up late, why don't you plan for that?

I don't know, it's slightly annoying when people are late, but I find even more annoying when people rant to no end about late people.

You could invert your argument to: If you know that people are going to rant when you are late, why don't you try to be on time.

You don't have power on the other people. So do what you can instead of wishing they did what they could.

We're not talking about imposing a 2pm meeting... we're talking about two people who agreed to a 2pm meeting. (Imposition is something else entirely.)

Also, one thing I'd observe is that there's a difference between social occasions and business. Even as an American, when my family says they're going to show up at 2pm, I don't sit there at 1:59 at the door tapping my foot. However, business is different; if you've mutually agreed on 2pm and you come in at 2:40 pm without having checked or communicated, there is a problem there in many cases. There may have been further scheduled events for 2:30 (odds are good you're meeting with someone who has lots of meetings, statistically), or whoknows what. The casual approach to time risks having three unrelated meetings that were scheduled to be separate trying to happen all at once.

Whether firm or casual time is abstractly "best" is a hard problem, but when it comes to business effectiveness I don't have a problem saying punctuality is a benefit to getting more stuff done. "What if I don't want more stuff done because even that is an American thing to say?" Well, surely we'd all rather then get our things done so we can hit the bar freely later? And it isn't an American truth that businesses really need to accomplish things to survive and thrive, it's the nature of the Universe we live in, where we must work for our sustenance, however distasteful you may find that.

> We're not talking about imposing a 2pm meeting... we're talking about two people who agreed to a 2pm meeting. (Imposition is something else entirely.)

On the face of it, I agree. However, I think this whole thread is neglecting an important dimension by only mentioning "the" time of the meeting. No one ever expects a person to arrive at the exact instant of the scheduled event. There's an interval implied by "the" time, and it's quite possible that the difference here is in cultural expectations regarding the size of the interval or its placement relative to the stated time (US Military culture, for example, seems to have an implied tolerance of -5 min / +0 min).

It may even be the case that your hypothetical second party thinks the first is a bit quirky for insistently describing the meeting as occurring at a particular time, when it is "obvious" to them that what is meant is "we'll meet this afternoon".

Edit: moving scare quotes ("the time" -> "the" time)

"Michigan Time — The tradition of starting every class, meeting or event 10 minutes late."

http://www.hr.umich.edu/um/um-isms.html

This is actually a weird quirk of mine but I try very hard to, if I have a meeting scheduled at e.g. 2pm, to show up at exactly 2pm according to my cell phone, which is more likely to display the same time as their cell phone. Same if I'm visiting somebody's house; if they tell me to show up at 8pm, I'm likely to walk slowly from my car so I can be knocking at their door right as the time switches over from 7:59. Unless they're a very good friend of mine and I'm confident they won't mind me being there early.

The way around this is for people to tell me to show up "around" 8pm or whenever.

I fully recognize that this is something peculiar to myself, and I would never begrudge anybody else for showing up at e.g. 2:04 for a 2pm meeting. But I would definitely apologize for being a few minutes late if I did the same.

And it isn't an American truth that businesses really need to accomplish things to survive and thrive, it's the nature of the Universe we live in, where we must work for our sustenance, however distasteful you may find that.

It's neither an American truth nor the nature of the Universe, it's a story. Older than America (not the continent nor the people in it, but the idea), to be sure, but not that old. The necessity of work, indeed the celebration of it, is obviously interesting to discuss in the age of automation.

However, business is different...

...in the West culture.

Isn't that exactly the point I made? You mentioned that people who rant about people being late annoy you. You don't have the power to change them, but you can adjust your own action and be on time. I am not saying you should btw, I am just saying your argument could be interpreted in this way as well.

Here's the thing, though. Maybe I don't have a business meeting; maybe I'm supposed to go watch my kid's soccer game and I allotted literally an hour for a fifteen minute meeting, because I know this guy shows up late, and here he is an hour late. Am I supposed to tell the kids to just play soccer an hour early so I can watch the game? Should I miss the game just because this guy can't be bothered to get somewhere on time? Should I allot two hours for a fifteen minute meeting?

At what point does that become less reasonable than expecting other people to show up at the time they agreed to show up?

It's not anger - they have other things to do so they're late, I have other things to do so I can't afford to sit around waiting for an hour. If I'm going over to meet someone, I expect them to be ready, if they tell me it's going to be thirty minutes I'll adjust accordingly. It's the cell phone era, there's no real excuse for not giving someone a heads up if you're going to be late.

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