
No, you're not 'running late', you're rude and selfish - jrs235
http://vitamintalent.com/vitabites/no-you-are-not-running-late-you-are-rude-and-selfish
======
nl
The irony of interrupting the reading with an interstitial ad asking for you
to sign up to a mailing list with the title _We don 't mean to be rude_ amuses
me greatly

~~~
anc84
You might like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624731](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624731)
which was quickly flag/sunk when it was submitted despite of the number of
points. Quite the controverse topic.

------
whyimlate
However... I think before we judge people, we need to find out if the
routinely late people are using excuses to create a cover for a health issue.

You see, this "late" person is me. If I work for you. If I have to come to
your office for a meeting. Anything. I'm late.

But it's because I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).

I make up excuses for being 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes late. I blame
the kids, the traffic, the car, the plumbing. It's exhausting, but it's just
easier and less embarrassing than saying I had to go to the bathroom 7 times
just to be able to get in my car.

Plus, you don't want to hear that. Do you really want to sit across from the
guy who can't stop sh __*ing because the SMALLEST deals in his life give him
anxiety???

This can happen for ANYTHING I have to be on time for. Like a scheduled phone
call, meeting a friend somewhere, just knowing I'm going to be outside for a
few hours, etc.

As I go through life, and I spill my secret, I am constantly meeting people
with issues like Crohn's and IBS that deal with similar issues, and most of us
don't have a good solution.

So, leave earlier right? My body tells me I can't stop until the last possible
second. The earlier I try to get somewhere, the worse the problem is, and the
later I end up being.

So, anyway, maybe it's not rudeness, but a nightmare.

~~~
laichzeit0
Interesting. Is the "go to the bathroom 7 times just to be able to get in my
car" an exaggeration or an actual number? My asshole wouldn't survive all the
wiping if I shat that much in one day, never mind just getting to the car.

~~~
err4nt
I have two family members with IBS so what I've seen is:

\- long painful morning poops no matter what

\- certain foods (red meat, pasta, garlic, etc) cause pain or cramps

\- eating a meal requires a trip to the bathroom after

\- later in the dsy, depending on how many coffees or what food they ate,
there may be a poop demon that needs to be exorcised before bed

\- the feeling may strike at ant time and not give them much warning to get to
a toilet so they have to stick close to a bathroom sometimes

I'm not talking about acute symptoms or if you eat something that triggers it,
just their daily routine. Imagine if eating the wrong thing wrecked your
insides, but eating the right thing only gave you tremendous pain, cramping,
and poops. That's what you hope your day will be like :/

~~~
laichzeit0
Anecdotal but whatever: I used to have what doctors diagnosed as IBS for about
10 years. Mostly it was constipation, lots of pain, cramping so bad I want
morphine. I even went to the ER mutiple times cause I thought I was dying.

One day at the ER a doctor said "lets just do a CT scan" and he said "your
appendix is fucked. we're taking it out". What's weird is I never had any pain
in the right side of my abdominal when they pressed on it, even that day when
they said it needed to be removed.

It's been 2 years and I feel like a new human being. Never had a single
problem since.

------
tluyben2
When shops open here at 9, they often open at 9:30 or 10. When you go to pay
at the cash register, often there is no-one there and you have to wait 10-20
minutes. People stop in the middle of the road blocking everyone to chat for
15 minutes, no-one honks, usually people get out and join the convo.

Welcome to Spain. And no, I will not be in time and that's not rude; you are
just obsessed with something extremely unimportant and overrated. And you'll
get heart attacks and strokes from that kind of obsession in the end although
I hoped you won't.

I'm from the Netherlands and actually my father (a very successful CEO) never
has been on time once; it gave him an edge and the former CEO liked it, even
when he was just a coder.

~~~
mason240
How do the people there manage the cognitive dissonance of being extremely
inefficient with time and productivity with being a poor country dependent on
the EU to keep economy from collapsing?

~~~
tluyben2
That is a good question. For me it works and for a lot of people it works. But
for a country as a whole I don't know. Travelling a lot between Spain, UK,
Netherlands, Portugal I must say that for instance a very bad economic country
like Portugal has people working like maniacs. And they are going worse than
Spain; in the UK the people I meet are punctual but very inefficient with time
overall and they do great. Netherlands are super efficient in a lot of ways,
so those meetings are the best; usually 5 minutes and done.

~~~
rrss1122
Punctual and inefficient with time sounds like the US too. Must be the shared
English heritage.

------
ctdonath
While people understand & accept (to varying degree) others being late, the
standard fallback is: _start on time_. If you tell me X starts at Y:30, and
I'm not there at Y:30, I'll get the message if you start at Y:30 anyway - and
stick to doing so. "Acceptably late" becomes acceptable because people accept
it. Don't get mad, just start on time.

------
kohanz
Being late every once in a while is not something I'll hold a grudge for - we
all are late at one point or another for various valid reasons. It's those
that are _chronically_ late, to the point that the only thing you can count on
is them being late, that to me are implicitly disrespectful. They are
basically saying "Your time is worth less than mine", just not to your face.

It doesn't matter whether it is "intentional", because it is a relatively easy
flaw to correct, especially given how many opportunities there are to practice
getting better at it. So the lack of effort to correct it makes it basically
equivalent to intent.

I wouldn't expect punctuality from a teenager, but by the time you are an
adult, you've had plenty of time to figure out a strategy that works for you,
whether it is setting your watch ahead, catching the earlier bus, waking up
earlier, etc.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
_" It doesn't matter whether it is "intentional", because it is a relatively
easy flaw to correct, especially given how many opportunities there are to
practice getting better at it. So the lack of effort to correct it makes it
basically equivalent to intent."_

Could not be more wrong.

~~~
mildbow
Larry. Dude. Get off your lawnchair, you're going to be late. again.

Anyway, why do you think he is incorrect? Time-management is a skill: why
would this specific case of it be un-learnable?

Also, every time you decide that something _happens_ to you/is out of your
control, you are giving it power over you. Would you rather beat this minor
time-management issue or decide that the universe is constantly and
inexplicably throwing your day out of the loop? Which stance one gives you
power vs taking it away?

------
littletimmy
In the case of a dentist making you wait it actually makes sense and is to be
expected. Some patients take a lot longer, or someone might have an unexpected
issue come up during a root canal or whatever. What's the dentist supposed to
do? Just leave the other patient to make time with you?

You just aren't paying enough to justify the cost of making you not wait. Same
is the case if a bank makes you wait a long time on automated machine before
they take a call. You just aren't important enough. If you're a billionaire,
pay your dentist for a whole day. Get a private banker. If not, get in line,
you aren't important enough.

~~~
roel_v
Some dentists are always on time +/\- 10 minutes, and some are always late.
No, this is not the nature of the dentistry business - it's poor planning, and
not caring enough to change it.

~~~
bryanlarsen
If a dentist office always runs on time, that means that quite regularly
they're sitting around doing nothing. The no-show rate for a typical office is
around 10%.

Like any scheduling problem, the amount of slack in the schedule is crucial.
Most schedules work a lot better with a little bit of slack, but a lot of
people see slack as a horrible inefficiency that must be excised at all costs.

~~~
jrs235
Slack is crucial for all businesses.

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom
DeMarco is a great read.

[http://amzn.to/1KGF8DG](http://amzn.to/1KGF8DG) (affiliate link)

------
Nursie
>> In recent years it seems that a meeting set to start at 9 am

There's your problem right there. 9am is a terribly antisocial time to
organise a meeting. Have it later on.

Not all of us are morning people.

~~~
minikites
That leaves 10-11 and 2-4 as the only acceptable meeting times, accounting for
differing lunch times and the people who can leave at 4 because they showed up
to work at 7:30 or 8.

~~~
Nursie
10-12 and 2-4 has been the rule at several places I've worked. These have been
considered core hours, and the best time to set up a meeting. Meetings at
other times would still take place, but you would check everyone was OK with
it first.

------
forgottenpass
_This post may offend some readers. But only because it’s going to cut close
to the bone for many._

Well, I don't think I'm going to disagree with the thesis, but it's good to
know I shouldn't even bother reading.

At least they're making their pre-emptive "I've got you all figured out if you
think X" nonsense explicit. It's better than trying to engage with someone who
has decided to lie to the audience (and/or themselves) that theirs don't
exist.

------
jordigh
There definitely is a big culture component to this... to the point where
arriving on time can be considered rude!

I have been away from my native Mexico for a while, but I recently flew back
for a wedding. As I was with my family getting ready to go, timing everything
so we would be at the ceremony at the time indicated in the invitations, I was
truly exasperated to see how slowly everyone else was moving. It soon became
apparent that we would not make it on time at all.

We finally arrived there 40 minutes late. There was almost nobody there! And
the few people that had arrived all seemed in good spirits. The groom and the
bride were relaxed and eager. The actual ceremony was in fact scheduled for
one hour later than what the invitation said. Everyone expects this, including
the hosts. My mother said to me, "Jordi, you really have forgotten how things
work around here."

Even for dinner invitations, you will be invited one hour before dinner is
actually served. It is considered _rude_ to arrive earlier, because then you
may burden your hosts with having to entertain you prematurely while they
prepare dinner.

Of course, generally the expected lateness only applies to social occasions,
but sometimes it spills over to business settings. It is less accepted in such
a circumstance, but still common and tolerated.

~~~
iamcurious
Yes, instead of seeing time as a point, there is a culture of seeing it as a
range. The range is derived from context (how pissed people will be if you are
late/how informal is the event). The range might even be different for
different people according to their roles. This gives you a buffer to handle
many unexpected things. It also allows you to disassociate urgent from
important. There are plenty of important things that get done at the expense
of arriving late. True, sometimes you have to wait for other people to arrive,
but that is expected, so you can arrange your day around it. And when the time
comes you know it is okay for them to wait you. It is efficient once you get
the hang of it. It is even more efficient now that smartphones are ubiquitous,
you can coordinate the range in real time!

------
UK-AL
Ok then. Fire them. Hopefully they'll find a place that has flexi-time. Some
people can try all they want. They aren't going to come in 50 minutes early
everyday(Required to guarantee for some commutes), just to make sure they're
not going be late.

If you don't want to fire them, then you have decided that actually bring in
more value, than the value lost by being late.

I'm terrible at this, I specifically plan my life around it(Make sure I have
flexi-time, etc).

~~~
kohanz
The article talks more about meetings than showing up for work. Flex-time
doesn't mean you can show up at 9:30 for a 9am meeting.

~~~
UK-AL
Its not really flexi-time, if you set a meeting at 9am everyday.

~~~
kohanz
Who said it was every day? Change 9am to 3pm, if that helps you.

------
normloman
Chronically late people just have a poor sense of how long things take. They
don't intentionally hold up your time to be a jerk. Chill out.

~~~
laichzeit0
Non performance plus a good excuse is still non performance. Chronically late
people need to make an effort to be EARLY if they're so bad at estimating how
long things take.

~~~
normloman
You miss my point. We can all agree that being late is bad. But why villianize
late people as selfish, when in reality, most are just absent minded.

~~~
snowpanda
I agree, this also struck me as a very judgmental article. I understand that
some people are late because they lack respect. But that doesn't mean EVERY
person that's late, does so for the same reason. One of my old professors was
usually a bit late, but he had a heart of gold and really had no intention of
being rude, he was just extremely disorganized in every possible way. But at
the end of the day, he would often stays hours after class helping people
without getting paid (on a Friday). I learned so much from him because he
genuinely cared. Society is so quick to point at people and make judgements.
Like normloman said, ... this article needs to chill out a bit.

~~~
vdaniuk
Usually, judgmental behavior stems from the incredible all-encompassing
feeling of self-importance of those making a judgment.

Chilling out is a preferred course of action. Also, hundreds of millions of
people are parts of the cultures where it's absolutely normal to be late.

~~~
falcolas
The US isn't generally one of those cultures - expecting someone brought up in
the US culture of timeliness to act like a Spaniard when someone else is late
will is not a reasonable expectation.

Not to mention, those inconvenienced by the late party also have expectations
they have to meet, and so on. A professor who is 20 minutes late but still
wants to lecture for a full hour can make you late for your next class, for
which you are punished, not the previous lecturer.

Should we chill? To a certain point. But after that point, it's our lives
which are negatively affected, and being annoyed at someone who is making our
lives harder is hardly unreasonable.

------
belltyler
I am enjoying the comments of people making counter-arguments to this post as
they're probably the ones this article is directed towards.

Generic Example: "I'm not late to the morning meeting, I just not a morning
person." No, sorry, you're still late.

------
venomsnake
Dinner arrival - culture.

Meetings - in 90% of the cases the most productive way to attend a meeting is
not to attend it at all. I still think that they should be optional and people
that really have to be there will show up.

Dentist - deal with it - how much a procedure will take is not exact science.
She cannot cut procedure short just to make the next patient feel cozy and
respected.

If you use any kind of transport - being late is also expected.

We live in a system in which time waste is unavoidable.

------
IanCal
> My dentist kept me waiting 50 minutes not long ago

> Sure she was “busy”, another patient took longer than she expected, blah
> blah.

Imagine if you had to do 10 short coding challenges, one after another,
without knowing the full scope beforehand and had to say exactly when each one
would finish. Now on project 9, your client shouts at you for delivering late
because they are your CUSTOMER and you must not take them for granted!

Did she have to stop in the middle of someone else's appointment to deal with
you?

Any story that goes "it happened for years without me saying anything then I
got angry" would probably have been handled better for everyone if they'd
talked about it to start with. Can't wait? Tell them!

Many people might have a spare half an hour and overall everything goes faster
if occasionally the last person needs to wait 30 minutes so that typically
more people get seen during the day. But no, because _you_ have a requirement
you've not specified, everyone else needs to deal with the consequences.

 _Or_ tell them when you make the appointment that you will have to be out by
a certain time, there's likely to be a better place to be in the schedule.

~~~
edvinbesic
If you have been doing 10 short code challenges a day for 15+ years, I would
assume you would have enough experience to estimate properly and take into
account some margin.

He's not saying your not ever allowed to late, ever ever, but that if you are
systematically late all the time, then you are doing something wrong.

~~~
bryanlarsen
So you know that most take about 10 minutes, but 5-10% take an hour; you just
don't know which ones.

Now you have two choices: put enough slack in the schedule so that you
regularly sit around waiting for the next challenge, or take enough slack out
that you regularly start challenges late. No matter what you do, somebody has
to regularly wait.

Would you pay ~50% more for an assurance that you usually don't have to wait?
You might, but most people wouldn't. And if you want an absolute guarantee
then it would be a lot more than 50% extra.

------
forthefuture
I mean if you boss lets people come in late, they will. This has absolutely
nothing to do with being "rude and selfish" and 100% to do with what you are
able to do without being fired / reprimanded. Seriously, just reading this I
have no idea where the Employer is. Are they allowing people to come in late,
and you're just mad because you feel like they shouldn't? Are you too afraid
to bring it up to your boss? Is your boss late too? If you're the boss, why
the fuck would you let people come late. Lock the door. Treat people like
children.

~~~
sageabilly
The lateness as it pertains to business is just bad management all over.
Lateness in personal life is something that an individual has to decide if
they will tolerate or not* but lateness in business is something that can and
should be controlled.

* Example: I'm having dinner tonight with a friend of mine. I expect there's a 90% chance he's going to be late. This is typical behavior for him, and I understand it, and that's why I very rarely do anything with him that is time sensitive- but he's otherwise a good guy, and so I work around it.

~~~
forthefuture
Totally agree. Which is why I don't really understand the article trying to
make this out as some epidemic. People are late because whatever they were
doing took longer, and it would cost them more (not in money, in mindshare) to
have stopped what they were doing earlier to be on time. It's a completely
rational action. However, this happening in a work environment is like going
to work with no shirt on because it's hot outside.

~~~
ponyous
> People are late because whatever they were doing took longer... I am
> wondering why can I always be on time and others don't? Don't let other
> people wait for you.

------
revelation
We have a rule that if you are >5 minutes late to a meeting, you have to bring
cake next time. Its pretty effective.

------
basseq
In my experience, I run late because I let other people take advantage of me.
The doctor sees you late; your client starts the meeting 15 minutes late and
wants to stretch the meeting past it's allotted end time; your mother calls as
you're packing up to leave; your boss blows through meetings.

It's hard to put your foot down and stand up for yourself, like the author did
with his dentist. But that's what you have to do to solve the problem.

~~~
zamalek
There is usually a _polite_ solution, though:

* The doctor: if your time is important that day it probably means you aren't taking sick leave. Politely cancel the appointment on the spot and book it with another doctor.

* The client: bill them for the 15 minutes that they were late, bill them for the extra time. If they want to extend the meeting make them sign for the extra cost before proceeding.

* Your mother: I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking the phone call later in the day, unless it's absolutely urgent - in which case the rest of your day is likely a write-off in any case.

* Your boss: after every meeting show them the result of this equation: <your hourly salary> x <number of people in the room> x <length of the meeting>.

Sometimes it doesn't work. My sister _still_ calls me during office hours to
chit-chat - having exhausted the polite option I am forced to rudely terminate
the conversation after 5 minutes: "I can't chit-chat at work." That being said
the polite option not working is a very rare exception.

~~~
basseq
Oh agreed, but it's tough. And yes I have control over it: I chalk it up to
weakness (inability to say "no") vs. being rude and selfish. Arguably, I'm not
being rude and selfish _enough_!

------
mildbow
Ah Greg. I would love to work with you :)

Another aspect of this is that people who are chronically late _train you_ to
be late. I definitely only leave for meetings 10 mins _after_ the meeting
start time for some people _and I still beat them there_.

There are a few clients who I will have a specific meeting time for, promise
to be there on time, and then something comes up. Invariably, it's the
chronically late people who always manage to have stuff come up.

So what have I done?

Cheaper chronically late clients =>

Fired them. It's not worth stressing out about this stuff. And I do stress
out.

Lucrative clients =>

Increase my rate to a point where I am happy to sit and wait for them as long
as required. Now i don't think "they are wasting my time", I think "thanks for
paying me for just sitting here :)".

Social meetings =>

Since there isn't a way to incentivize chronically late friends, I just try to
aim to be 30 mins late (still not the last one in). Yeah, I'm being part of
the problem in this case :(

------
raverbashing
\- Sometimes it's not their fault (accidents on the way, etc), still, yeah,
for let's say, 80%, it's because they simply don't care

\- Meetings are also a major waste of time and resources, so sorry, depending
on the subject of the meeting it goes from mild annoyance to less productive
than sending everybody home early

------
jkyle
This is largely a cultural thing. I've been on both sides having lived in the
South East U.S. where being late is considered the rudest thing you could
possibly do and on the West Coast where everyone lists their dinner party 1
hour early and if you show up "on time" you're the only one there...and the
host is surprised.

What I've learned is the rigor of adherence to punctuality is directly related
to the difficulty in being punctual in that area.

For example, in most places in the S.E., Midwest, etc. it takes about 1 hour
to go 60 miles. The only thing that slows you down getting across town are red
lights and stop signs. That's it. Even in large cities "known" for horrible
traffic conditions, I've been able to get across the entire city in a
reasonable amount of time fairly consistently.

In other words, it's trivial to be punctual. And so punctuality is taken as a
sign of respect.

On the West Coast, this isn't the case. It can _literally_ take 45 minutes to
an 1 1/2 hours to get 5 miles in L.A. by car. And that's during _normal_
traffic conditions. If absolutely anything happens on that route, you could
walk faster. In fact, my wife and I have done just that on a 5 mile commute in
L.A. when traffic would lock up. Park the car, get out, and walk. Take the
early bus and pick it back up in the morning.

Let that sink in for a bit. You've got a meeting. It's only 5 (or god forbid
10) miles away. Anything even slightly irregular happens, and it could take
you hours to get there.

Starts making "minor" delays of 5 to 10 minutes or even 30 seem pretty
trivial. Cancelations happen much more frequently. Sorry, buddy, someone had a
flat. Can't make it today or it'll take me 3 hours to get there.

That's why out east, companies would dock workers if they clocked in 5m late.
Out West work hours are more like "ohhh, sometime between 8:30 and 9:30 is
when so-and-so shows up." It's not because they're lazy or inconsiderate or
rude. They're probably getting up at 5am just to make the commute.

------
gil
Culture.

~~~
elros
Exactly!

> Why do people, invited for a dinner party at 7.30, think > its cool to
> arrive at 8.30? It’s rude. It’s inconsiderate.

If I invite you to a dinner party in Brazil at 7.30, I'm expecting you around
9. If you show up at the actual time, which has happened to me when I moved to
Germany – and didn't realized the expectations were different – the food won't
be ready. As a matter of fact, I won't even have started cooking! :-)

I now tell my German friends X and my Brazilian friends (X - 2) hours.

------
trimble-alum
The way to be more productive when the reality of actual unforeseen
circumstances hits is for the 10 people to _bring their work with them_ and/or
not get sucked into _unnecessary_ meetings or any meeting lacking an _attendee
relevant agenda_. (No agenda, no meeting). Wasting time is a choice on any
side of the table. Blame games are bikeshedding, signalling a likely lack of
valuable industriousness. ("If you want something done, ask the busiest person
you know.")

------
dimino
Professionally? Completely unacceptable. Talk to your employees about the
importance of timeliness, and act if they don't respond to suggestion.

Personally? Chill the fuck out. There are a great many things in life more
important than having a few drinks with you, or coming to your party. If there
is no specific time pressure (e.g. a movie start time), then recognizing the
distinctly lower priority of precision in socializing is pretty fundamental to
a successful interaction with others.

------
EugeneOZ
Best way to teach people how to not be rude is write rude article and add
popup window to make it even more ridiculous.

~~~
mildbow
"Write article" is actually a great idea: it fosters debate. Just checkout the
apologists in this thread to spot all the chronically late people who are in
denial.

The popup window is funny and here's why: it's an article about pepole being
rude, but the popup is rude _nudge nudge_. Yeah you get it. It's funny right?
right?

------
mdip
This drives me absolutely bonkers. Perhaps it was my upbringing -- my dad
owned his company and was the face of it (sales, marketing and "doing"). Being
late to a customer meeting is a sure-fire way to blow a first-impression. As a
result, our family was on-time or early with rare exception.

I look at it this way - I have a busy schedule -- 4 kids, sole provider with a
software development job that directly contributes to the revenue the company
I work for receives and private developer of software that my customers enjoy.
I even waited for a moment where I'm blocked to write this reply. If I
schedule personal time with a friend or family member, it's being done at the
expense of something else. I've decided that my time with that friend is more
valuable than my core obligations. I value that time immensely and wouldn't
want it reduced as a result of my tardiness. When the person/couple I'm
meeting with chooses to be excessively late, I assume that they didn't really
want to come at all and that they were simply being "nice" or fulfilling some
sort of family obligation[1].

And it's not limited to friendships. I owned a gym membership and I'm an early
riser (5:00 AM most days). The gym -- Bally's at the time -- opened up at 6:00
AM according to the sign and paperwork I agreed to when I signed up for a
three-year commitment. In the first month, I showed up right at opening time
only to find out that three out of the four days the opener arrived 30 minutes
late. That's half of my workout on those days. As a result, I was receiving
2/3 of what I was paying for -- I'm directly paying for time to access a
building and its equipment. The first month I prevented the automatic payment
from processing and wrote a cheque for 2/3s of the bill along with a note
explaining the situation[2]. This went over like a lead balloon. If I received
2/3 of what I ordered at a restaurant, I would have either had it resolved or
left them with the bill after explaining to the manager.

[1] From the opinion of someone who values punctuality and my own time:
Showing up late to an event because you feel obligated to appear there is far
worse than saying "I can't make it" or even "I have more important things to
do". I can respect that. There are certainly times when obligations related to
a relationship can't be missed -- obligations you may or may not want to go
to, but think about that for a few minutes. And what's wrong with saying
"Well, that time is a little early and I have another obligation -- I'm OK
with it, but could we push it a half-hour later?" If you don't want to go, why
is that? Should you, perhaps, shed yourself of that relationship if devoting
time to it is resulting in you wrecking it anyway due to your tardiness? Are
you too passive to simply assert yourself with that person? Is there some way
you could suggest to change that event to invoke the necessary willpower to
show up somewhere near the time you're expected? Are you too selfish in
thinking that your attendance is so important that you can just show up
whenever you want -- despite everyone elses' schedules?

[2] I ended up successfully breaking the contract after filing a small claims
action (that would have never been won).

------
Dewie3
> And I don’t care if I sound old-fashioned, because actually it’s nothing to
> do with ‘fashion’ or ‘generation’. It’s got everything to do with basic good
> manners and respect for other people.

Everyone thinks there is some fundamental and universal _truth_ to some of
their own cultural practices.

~~~
rday
I think the universal truth is that people have their own lives going on, and
you need a way to sync up in order to accomplish goals with other people.
That's why we set times for meetings.

If you are late for a bus, it leaves. The plane will take off. The walking
tour will have walked away.

But I'm supposed to make my wife handle dinner with the kids because 4:00pm
really meant 4:25pm and now we'll all be stuck in traffic heading home?

Normally I just listen to audible or finish some work when the other party is
late. But when it starts to impact family life I get mad.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
When is a 4:00pm meeting ever a good idea for an office that closes at 5:00?

~~~
rday
I agree :) We don't really open and close though. Some people get there near 8
and leave near 5. Others 9-6. Very flexible, but one of the downsides of
flexibility is concrete scheduling I suppose.

