Chronic Tardiness - It’s not the tardys fault...

[Joe Mac]

To an individual, they’ve all told me what you say about LE shifts; after a career of rigid time constraints and schedules (AF investigators, nurses, aircraft mechanics, snipers, tankers...the whole lot of them), they refuse to play the game any more. I mean, it’s [i]all of them.

Interesting, thanks. Upon more reflection I don't think it's just the stress of commuting/being on time, but also of being rushed through my work shift, with the next crisis waiting impatiently for me to wrap up the current one. As a result, ongoing tasks that hang over me (e.g. supervisory paperwork) take much longer to complete than they should, due to CONSTANT interruptions and very little control over my own work time.

I think this is reflected in my reluctance, when on my own time, to rush myself through projects. Last year I bought a more affordable house to retire in, and I've been arranging/setting it up for months now. It's been a relaxed and methodical pace, and I'll be done whenever I'm frickin done.

[Dan_S]

For a good bit of my life, I’ve both waited for others, and felt I needed to be the fastest/best at what I did, while others feel they can take their time, be lazy, sloppy, or unmotivated, unappreciative, etc.

My stress levels in those situations are through the roof, and, in order to maintain my sanity while working for a large corporate entity, where things move at their own pace, one develops the attitude of ‘I’ll get there when I get there, and not a minute sooner’.

My background, as I’ve talked about before here, is in agriculture and construction, prior to my current pursuits. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, there’s nothing one can do about that. When the weather breaks, we’ll get it done. No amount of stressing can change reality. My current feeling about things is simply how I deal with...learning as I muddle through life. When you take too much upon yourself, only to find yourself perpetually waiting for others, and usually have your needs taken care of last, it gets old.

Also, there’s a weird thing that we (northeastern woodchucks) tend towards, where we’ll put something off for...various reasons, but when we set our minds to getting it done, we’ll break tail to get it done.

[Wendell]

Reading one of those click-bait 'what-to-bring-to-a-party' so-called 'etiquette' guides the other day, the thing that stood out (to me) was their advice to NOT show up on time; instead, they advised the reader to plan on arriving 1-2 hours late, because "by then the party will have gotten rolling"; that was being marketed as an 'etiquette' guide.

I thought of 'Michael Corleone', and 'Moe Green'.

[JRB]

I do everything reasonably possible to be on-time in a professional capacity.
But if my superiors are late/tardy/etc themselves, the very first thing I quit doing is worrying about being on time for them.
I am absolutely done with being chided for tardiness from superiors who are routinely late, leaving early without leave, or taking 2hr lunches themselves. Lots of good methods to deal with that situation laid out in this thread.

I won't go that way toward subordinates or peers, or allow it to negatively affect work product.
If a subordinate or peer is late on me for something, I'll cut them slack that first time. Life happens, shit happens. Second time and I put it on paper.
Round #3 however and then they're on my time, and I'll schedule them at some generic time and I'll get to them when I get to them.

Wanna have a good time? Imagine a marriage where one party has the military understanding of on time (10-20 minutes early or you're late) and somebody with the Arabic understanding of on time (one to two hours late is right on time). That's a good time.

That is definitely the hardest thing to plan around out here.

To me, it seems to me to be an age-related or maybe a generational issue. We go to the 11:00AM service at church. I'm in a military town, and our church is probably 90% military, which is a young group(under 35). I like to be on time, which is 10:50AM(I'm 52 but even when I was 22 I was on time). At 11:00AM the room is mostly empty. By 11:10AM everyone has arrived. I'm learning to "let it go..."

But really, is that how the military operates these days? Show up 10 minutes late? Maybe it's the weekend and they are relaxed? I don't know. Trying hard to "let it go..."

As others have already alluded to in this thread - after work weeks filled with hours of wasted time full of 15 prior to 15 prior to 15 prior, I don't begrudge those guys sliding a little bit on a day off.
Consider also how many of them would probably rather just stay in bed and do nothing on Sunday. Giving them shit about being a little bit late to a supposed place a peace and grace is a damn good reason for them to say 'fuck it' and stay home. So next time their arrival time bugs you, ask yourself if you'd rather see those pews empty instead.

If your answer is yes, congratulations, you're the same kind of asshole that convinced me that I had a million better things to do on Sunday morning than go to a building full of sanctimonious two-faced hypocrites and sing a bunch of songs I hate.

[jtcarm]

I haven't look at all the replies, but it looks like everyone here is Tommy-On-Time, or too embarrassed to say otherwise.

But not me.

The cause is simple: I'm focused on whatever I'm doing and do not shift focus well.

I had to stop looking at the news during my morning coffee so as not to be late for work.

Whether I'm working, shooting, reloading, reading, whatever, I'm preoccupied with it and it's hard to put down.

My commute home is about 35-40 minutes. My wife calls to see what time ill be home. I figure I'm working till 6:00 and say 6:30ish. That doesn't mean I' cranking the truck to drive home at 6:00. It means around 6:00-6:10, I shut down my laptop, pack it up, maybe go to the bathroom, then go to the cooler and fill my Yeti with water to drink on the way home. So I'm usually 15-20 minutes late. I am getting better at the estimates, though.

I've been a SW developer over 30 years, which is not an occupation for clock-watchers. You work till the task is done. Pretty much the same way I do everything. I hate getting up for meetings, lunch, or even going home.

At age 60, I just accept who I am and make no apologies. Except to my wife:-)

[Casual Friday]

There's something hardwired into my DNA to be 10-15 minutes early, for everything. My Dad was the same way. In 20+ years being in the workforce I've never been late a single time that couldn't be contributed to a road closure or something outside of my control.

I'm self employed and I gave up the office space I rented a while back to work from home. It saves me over $1200 a month and my clients haven't cared. When I had the office space, it didn't really bother me if clients were late to meet with me since I was always there from 7am to 5 or 6pm. Now that I meet with clients at coffee shops, restaurants, or a local bar if they so choose, if they're late it really pisses me off. I have to leave home, drive to whatever place we're meeting, and that travel time takes away from other things I could be doing. Luckily, I only have to meet with people a few times a month and most of them are good about being there on time.

[rob_s]

I haven't look at all the replies, but it looks like everyone here is Tommy-On-Time, or too embarrassed to say otherwise.

But not me.

The cause is simple: I'm focused on whatever I'm doing and do not shift focus well.

I had to stop looking at the news during my morning coffee so as not to be late for work.

Whether I'm working, shooting, reloading, reading, whatever, I'm preoccupied with it and it's hard to put down.

My commute home is about 35-40 minutes. My wife calls to see what time ill be home. I figure I'm working till 6:00 and say 6:30ish. That doesn't mean I' cranking the truck to drive home at 6:00. It means around 6:00-6:10, I shut down my laptop, pack it up, maybe go to the bathroom, then go to the cooler and fill my Yeti with water to drink on the way home. So I'm usually 15-20 minutes late. I am getting better at the estimates, though.

I've been a SW developer over 30 years, which is not an occupation for clock-watchers. You work till the task is done. Pretty much the same way I do everything. I hate getting up for meetings, lunch, or even going home.

At age 60, I just accept who I am and make no apologies. Except to my wife:-)

You do you, of course, but even at 60 there’s no reason to be late for things that involve other people being forced to wait on you. You can set reminders on phones, watches, computers, etc. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there’s late that doesn’t affect anyone else and there’s late that does. In the first case, nobody cares. In the second case it’s simply a matter of the tardy person putting something else (perhaps themselves) above others. It’s a choice.

I’m like you in that I’ll never naturally just look up at 5:45 and start my “get in car and go home” process. But if I know that my wife is specifically waiting on me on one particular day, I’ll set a reminder. Every meeting invite that I create or accept in outlook or in my phone automatically gets a 2 hour reminder attached to it. Generally when that reminder goes off, I re-assess what I’m doing, or going to be doing, at the required departure time and adjust the reminder accordingly.

[Wendell]

For me, being on-time doesn't come naturally. Like jtcarm, my natural bias is toward whatever I'm doing, and - because of that - I'm not early, I'm likely to be late, so... I have no choice but to plan to be early.

It all started in elementary school, the focus on time; I remember hating it then, and I'm not convinced that the core lesson - such a focus on time - is a good thing.

If not for public schools, we'd all be a lot more creative, and - ultimately - more productive, I think.

[vcdgrips]

I am the product from a first gen Latina woman whose father came from Mexico during the Revolution. Perhaps because he found work in the railroad industry or because he was part French or because he did not want to be low hanging fruit to his white, sometimes mildly racist co-workers, he was NEVER late. As such, my Mom was never late.

Against that backdrop, I strive to be a 10 min early is on time, on time is late and late is unacceptable kind of guy and have given that gift of time to my 20 year old twins as well.

I get that stuff happens, communication is a good thing- ergo text/call if there is an issue. Anything can happen once, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern that will need to be dealt with. Traffic is not the 3x-4x variable here that it can be on the coasts etc.

Because my schedule has been Court driven, late is not an option and that has tended to filter down across the board to the LEO/GOVT folks I work with.

The one place it really chaps my ass is when I pay for a class or am otherwise at work training and people stroll in after a break with zero regard for the time set re the break.


Bottom Line-Consistent with my station in life, I am inclined to crush chronic tardiness as it shows a selfish, disrespectful, inconsiderate disposition that almost always also manifests itself in substandard performance in other areas of life.

[RevolverRob]

If not for public schools, we'd all be a lot more creative, and - ultimately - more productive, I think.

Creative? Yes.

Productive? No.

I've had a lot of experience in dealing with time management - poor and good time management. To a t - those who are the most successful in any and all career paths that are viable for the average person, manage their time well. By that I mean, being an artist is not a viable option for the average person to be successful or stable in their life. Everyone needs to sit and think and have days without time and limits to them, but every day cannot be that way.

Poor time management is the harbinger of a stressed out, anxiety ridden, individual, who cannot make it in a world that must be efficient. There are ~8 billion people on the planet to feed, clothe, educate, and shelter - If we want to achieve equity and a better world - we cannot stand around on ceremony waiting for people to show up to get shit done*.

I'm a brutally efficient motherfucker when I need/want to be, but that means managing time well and getting it done. I'm also a dreamer and a thinker and I spend as much time thinking about problems as solving them. I just budget my thinking time into my day so I have that time. Time management is the lesson in life and chronic tardiness is an effect of poor time management.

*I'm sufficiently about this, that I actually have passed up on opportunities to do field work in India and Brazil, because both countries have a culture of tardiness. I find it not unsurprising that poorly developed countries have poor time management. It's impossible to get anything done in India in a timely fashion. I will not waste weeks of effort and thousands of dollars to not get done what needs to get done. I simply cannot do it.