Comment by apercu
1 day ago
> neither side understands the other.
Being late is viewed as rude or lacking respect for others by a lot of people.
Do people who are habitually late view prompt people as rude for being on time?
1 day ago
> neither side understands the other.
Being late is viewed as rude or lacking respect for others by a lot of people.
Do people who are habitually late view prompt people as rude for being on time?
> Do people who are habitually late view prompt people as rude for being on time?
As someone who tries to be prompt to a fault, I can see that yes there are people who get annoyed at promptness. It's not that you're a bad person for being prompt. Rather you're a bad person if you start without them or otherwise push back on their lateness.
I think to some extent some of the pushback is the prompt folks not understanding that sometimes lateness isn’t something they can control (e.g., meeting with important set of stakeholders that you can’t duck out on early ran late)
There are unavoidable life obstacles, but some people are always late to everything.
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I think people on both sides need to have more empathy, then. I'm generally one of the prompt people, and I'll try to start on time. If people are late, they'll arrive after we start, but that's fine.
And the late people need to understand that sometimes they will miss the beginnings of things, but that's ok too; their inability to be on time (for whatever reason) should not waste the time of those who get there on time.
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Yes. And even as someone who tries to live by the ethos "if you're on time, you're late", I wind up late sometimes. It stresses me out, but hey sometimes shit happens.
But there are people where shit seems to happen more than for others. Late once in a blue moon? No worries. Repeat offender? That's a you problem.
Not everywhere is like wherever you are.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-dec-11-tr-insid...
Non-punctual cultures can view on-time people as clueless, over-eager, and annoying.
The exact opposite can also be true, so not much is being said here. Try being late to a meeting in Germany or Japan. It is disrespectful.
Are there any highly developed countries where the business culture is still "non-punctual"? I struggle to think of any. In short, if you have two businesses side-by-side, and one operates more punctually, then it will probably out-compete the other. To be clear, I'm not talking about social culture. Yes, Italians might be late by an hour to go to dinner with friends, but I doubt people in Milan will be so late to a sales meeting with client.
In my experience the people who are late are usually senior or exec types who arrive late with a lot of bluster and comments about how busy they are and then "Ok where are we?" like they are taking over the meeting.
I love how true this article resonated to me, since it's very similar to Spain (but now I live in the polar opposite, Japan, where I am supposed to be at least 15 mins early):
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180729-why-brazilians-a...
I view people who show up too early as rude, as do many others.
The beautiful thing about being an early bird is you don't need to "show up too early". You just hang out until you're exactly on time and then show up. There is no analogue for the late person.
I don't get why you are getting downvoted
If an interviewee is half an hour early to a meeting that is rude if they actually expect to start now instead of the scheduled time
> if they actually expect to start now
That's the meat of it. If I'm going to a meeting where consequences of lateness would suck, like a job interview or something else where it would be highly rude to be late, I'll get there early. Then I'll hang out and play with my phone or something until the person's ready to meet with me at our scheduled time.
I also make it clear that I know I'm early and don't expect the other person to be ready for me. I might use a friendly, stock phrase like "I'd rather wait for them than have them waiting for me" to emphasize that I'm perfectly fine entertaining myself while they're getting ready to see me.
But ultimately, I treat it like getting to my gate at an airport. If I'm there early with time to kill, then so be it. That's infinitely preferable to arriving late and suffering the consequences.
What does being early have to do with the other? Just because I don't know trafficor other unknowns, and leave my house early, and go into the building to get some water or something; that does not mean I expect anything except the appointment to be on time.
That's a tough one. I lived in Toronto for many years and traffic and public transportation are unpredictably - it could take me an hour or it could take me three hours. Sure, if I was early a there was coffee shop near by that's an option. So I like to have a little compassion for people, especially working people.
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It's considered at least weird to show up to some parties exactly on time, yes.
> Do people who are habitually late view prompt people as rude for being on time?
No. Not for meetings. What is perceived as rude is making a big deal about it. You think it's a major social faux-pas, they think it's a "meh", and if you make a big deal about it and get offended now you're just being rude for no reason at all.
For personal and informal meetings, yes, being "on time" may mean annoying the host a bit. Why? Because when they say the party starts at 6pm, everyone should understand it as they should start showing up no earlier than 6:30pm etc.
I am not saying I agree or take side with any of these, just presenting it as both sides see it.
I was accused of not having enough to do by a boss. He was habitually late to everything. I am at every meeting 3 to 5 minutes early, because I leave every meeting at the :20 or :50 depending. Then I have 5 minutes to pee or whatever before going to the next one.
Either way, he saw me get to meetings a few minutes early and legitimately accused me of not having enough to do.
That was one of two jobs that I've ever walked out of.
In my experience, being on time isn't viewed as rude, but it is viewed as a nuisance, reflecting poorly on other people.
I had a Chinese tutor who got pretty upset that I would show up to lessons before she got there. Her first approach was to assure me that it was ok if I showed up later. Eventually she responded by showing up very, very early.
In a different case, I had an appointment to meet a friend, and she texted me beforehand to ask whether I'd left home yet. Since the appointment was quite some distance from my home, and I couldn't predict the travel time, I had already arrived, but upon learning that my friend dropped everything to show up early... and asked me why I was so early. I don't see a problem with waiting for a scheduled appointment if I show up early! But apparently other people do?
Presumably the tutor was being paid. If you arrive late, you are cheating yourself of your full time slot. Unless the tutor operated on a model of, “45 minutes starting whenever we are both here”.
> Unless the tutor operated on a model of, “45 minutes starting whenever we are both here”.
I would be unsurprised if that's how she thought about it, but it didn't really come up.
My sense was that, since she was the service provider and I was the customer, she felt that it was inappropriate for me to be waiting for her.
Probably not, but they'll roll their eyes at ya when they show up.