Being On Time Rant
By V on Jun 9, 2008 in Dates, Ramblings
One thing that frustrates me the most is when someone isn’t on time.
I used to think it was cool to be fashionably late. Now I see it as being stupid.
If you tell someone you’ll be somewhere at 7 PM then you be there at 7 PM. Your word is your word. Without it you’re nothing.
It doesn’t matter if you arrive before 7 PM, cause you’ll still be there AT 7 PM. When someone arrives after 7 PM with no life-or-death excuse then I just want to swear at them like there is no tomorrow, but that’s not acceptable in North American society.
There are two types of people that I have to deal with when it comes to them being late:
1. The first is family. If they’re late I’ll note never to trust them again when it comes to being on time, but I’ll suck up my frustration because they are family.
2. Everyone else. I’ll wait for up to 15 minutes and then leave. If I happen to catch them just as I am leaving then I’ll tell them, “Bye.” and still leave.
If I’m meeting a girl for the first time there are two benefits with her being late:
1. I know she has no respect for other people’s time.
2. She just freed up an hour of my time, which I would have spent being with her if she was ON TIME.
End of rant.
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As you said, this is a change. You even used to experiment with being late yourself, i remember the story. You are right in this situation though, people being late annoy me too. If i’m late, i’m not so alpha to not say sorry though; i believe that people should admit mistakes.
I would like to add a third category, friends. With friends being late, you can grumble on the outside and still have the fun you intended to have.
I’d like to call it “maturing”.
You have to admit mistakes. If you are hardest on yourself when you’re wrong then it’s a breeze to admit it to others.
I like to think everyone is a friend or potential friend.
I also work at not complaining. Sometimes I’ll slip every once and a while.
V
Thats great stuff man, late people blow my nuts. No damn respect!
I take your point V, no respect but its not about respect for the person they’re meeting. It is about not having respect for themselves.
People who are late are low self esteem people. They are people who have no respect for themselves. They are late because they don’t think that they matter. They think that whatever they do will not make a difference. They feel they are so ineffectual and insignificant that being late wont matter and they wont be missed. They think that the person they are meeting will do whatever they are going to do whether they are there or not.
I am that guy. I was that guy. I was always late. I am guilty of it still sometimes. But this is a blog about self improvement. So you have to work out why you are late, diagnose the problem then start to fix it.
I tried to work out why I was late for things. Usually it dates back to the day before when I wasted time on Facebook, reading ebooks, surfing PUA bloggs or whatever. (It used to be watching TV but I have given up TV). I swapped one screen for another.
Whatever it is, me being late for something dates back to me sitting on my arse doing something fun when I should be doing stuff that needs to be done. I have not deferred enjoyment in order to get stuff done.
Watching TV and surfing the net are the 2 biggest time stealers. Procrastination at its worst. So I stopped watching one and limited my time on the net. I treated it like shopping. Go in, get what I want and get out.
I was late because the time I needed to be going out the door I would start to get ready. And during that time I would remember how many things I had to do before leaving the house. So I would do them, but only the things I absolutely MUST do. But of course I have 101 things to do and the non urgent stuff does not get done. This is why I have still dirty dishes in my sink. So I am late. Always by about 10 to 30 minutes.
And while I’m going to where I have to be, my subconscious is throwing me bullshit excuses about why I am late to give to people if they ask. And they are beautiful excuses, totally believable but a load of bollocks really.
A couple of examples: I need a freshly ironed shirt for work but I don’t do it at night before I go to bed. Instead I’m searching Youtube for PUA videos or reading the forums or looking at photos of the last weekend on facebook. So I iron my shirt in the morning during the time I should be walking to work. So I’m 15 mins late for work.
Or its Saturday night and I’m meeting a friend in town. I finished work at 3pm and instead of tidying my flat, I have a sleep and then cook some food. But I can’t go out until I have tidied up incase I am successful and pick-up a girl tonight. So I clean up and am late meeting my friend. But it doesn’t matter he’ll be talking to some hot chick when I get there. Load of shit, he’s pissed off and I have no good reason.
There is another end of the spectrum. There are others who are so full of themselves that they think they are so important that whatever it is people will wait for them or the party doesn’t start until they get there. That is not me, never was and hopefully never will be so I have no authority to write anything from that perspective.
The coach Clive Woodward put his World Cup England rugby squad in a room and told them to put down the rules for the team. One of them was ” PUNCTUALITY IS TEN MINUTES EARLY” No one was late for a single session or post match debriefing. They went on to win and were world champions for 2003 until 2007. Not just because of that of course but it all helps
So how do I stop being late? Defer pleasure, prioritise, make the hard decision, do the right thing and get my shit done when I am supposed to. I decide to be on time for a week. Defer all pleasure and just do my chores, all that stuff I’ve been putting off. Just 15 minutes of email a day and no TV or movies. Then when the week is up and all my stuff is done I find that I have more time. Time to read all those books I’ve bought but haven’t read, I go to bed on time and get my full 8 hours sleep. But best of all I am on time.
Try it. Try it for yourself for a week. Then you will be on time.
And only after 6 months of not being late can you be pissed at people for being late and leave before they get there. Like V.