
No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish - bootload
http://gregsavage.com.au/2010/06/07/no-you-are-not-%E2%80%98running-late%E2%80%99-you-are-rude-and-selfish/
======
btilly
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
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
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.

------
csmeder
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._

~~~
nopassrecover
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.

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

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

~~~
martinkallstrom
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 to read or write correctly.

~~~
kelnos
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 for your actions and don't try to
excuse the inexcusable as some sort of "condition."

~~~
martinkallstrom
This is a fact: My sister is chronically early. She often winds up arriving to
meetings and places about 10-20 minutes ahead of the agreed time. The
consequence is hers the bear: she always has to wait for other people, even
those arriving on time. The problem is compounded by some of her friends
having the opposite problem, always arriving late.

I'm fully aware that being chronically to early or to late is not a recognized
medical condition. Research at this point merely concludes that the downsides
of chronically lateness is too great for laziness or procrastination being the
major driving force.

Dyslexia is categorized neither as a medical or psychological condition, but
as a "learning disorder". It is my belief that research will come to a point
where

You are correct that it is rude to be late. Rudeness is defines by culture and
in my culture (and I suppose yours) it is rude to be late. It is not a
universal thruth however, as other posters have stated, since cultural
differences exist.

All of the above tells me that chronical lateness is not "just rude". There is
more to it, which makes it a far more interesting phenomenon than most other
kinds of rudeness.

------
elbenshira
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.

~~~
patio11
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.

~~~
guelo
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.

~~~
patio11
The line I called out was about "valuing relationships", which is both
viscerally offensive to me _and_ has no defensibly true meaning. It is like
saying whites love their kids more than blacks do. It is too poorly
constructed to even be wrong.

~~~
guelo
Fair enough, upon further reflection I agree that line is a meaningless
offensive generality.

I still don't get the non sequitur attack on academia.

------
JangoSteve
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.

~~~
megablast
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.

------
lionhearted
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.

~~~
btilly
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.)

------
TamDenholm
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

------
devmonk
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.

~~~
billswift
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.

~~~
devmonk
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.

------
Groxx
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.

------
tjmc
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
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?

~~~
etherael
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.

------
onan_barbarian
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.

------
ams6110
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
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.

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

------
joshfraser
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.

------
JimboOmega
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.

------
jakevoytko
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.

------
stuaxo
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... !?

------
CaptainZapp
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?

~~~
demallien
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?

~~~
CaptainZapp
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.

------
Tichy
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
What's wrong with 9am?

~~~
Groxx
The part that says "am".

------
jbm
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.

~~~
stuaxo
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.

~~~
modality
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.

------
Brashman
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.

------
blogimus
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

------
mike-cardwell
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-cardwell
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.

~~~
loewenskind
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).

------
ojbyrne
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.

~~~
billswift
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?

------
stuaxo
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.

------
Dove
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.

------
drusenko
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.

~~~
loewenskind
>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.

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

~~~
loewenskind
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.

------
teye
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.

------
TamDenholm
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.

~~~
papa
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).

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

------
robryan
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.

------
eogas
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.

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

------
sabat
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.

~~~
btilly
_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.)

~~~
Tichy
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.

~~~
btilly
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.

