[quote]
I find it ironic that folks that are chronically late are often very quick to call out others on their tardiness./quote]</p>
<p>I’m a person who tends to be late. That being said, I am tolerant of the same behavior in other people–it’s something that I understand and I don’t get annoyed or call others out on it. </p>
<p>Very often, I get hyper-focused on what I’m doing and won’t leave until it’s done as well as I can do it. I recognize my “issue” and try to be punctual, but I’m not perfect. That being said, I have never been late for a wedding, a funeral, or a graduation. I have been late to social engagements. </p>
<p>I’m not a controlling person and I’m not selfish or rude. I disagree with the author of the piece in the link. I think we’d all be better off as individuals if we tried being a little more tolerant of other’s imperfections.There are worse behaviors in life than being late. One friend, who is self-centered, controlling, and sometimes mean-spirited, is also the most punctual person I know. She’s always 10 minutes early and as she’s gotten older, she keeps coming to events earlier and earlier. </p>
<p>I’ll keep working on punctuality, but I know it will always be an issue for me. If someone is going to give up on me and not be my friend because of it, then so be it. </p>
<p>Both my H and S’16 are ADHD. H has a major problem with time and being late, S is much better than H is, though has issues from time to time. H is constantly late to work, he is usually leaving home at the time he should be at work. It is only 10 minutes away, so he is not awfully late, but is consistently late.</p>
<p>I finally was able to have a calm talk with him about it. He thinks it is not a problem since his boss has not reprimanded him. I have told him in the past that while his boss may be accepting of his tardiness, it will be remembered when it comes to evaluations and raises. H just shrugged that off. Today I asked him if he knew how much being 5-10 minutes late every time was costing him on his pay check every two weeks? We calculated it and he realized that he was losing a couple of hours of pay every pay period. He left at a good time to get to work on time today.</p>
<p>We have declined to drive family to the airport because we had something scheduled and they couldn’t promise they’d be ready in the window we had available to drive them to their airport. They said they don’t like getting to the airport that early, so find another ride. They like to just barely make the plane rather than have time wasted waiting at the airpot with the rest of those flying. I find it nerve-wracking to cut things close and much rather have at least 90+ minutes between flights and like to get to the airport at least 90+ minutes before the flight. Have only missed a flight twice–misread the schedule once and couldn’t find the dang rental car return the other time. We would have made it but the airline chose to give our seats to other passengers (oversold flight) and refused to let us board; we were put on the next flight, hours later.</p>
<p>I think this is one of those things that is best figure out BEFORE making a long term commitment to marry, if one wishes to prevent or minimize long term strife over timeliness and waiting. I’m glad H & I are mostly on the same page on this.</p>
<p><<<
But then she had surgery-- removed her husband and the problem was much better!</p>
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<p>Ha…a husbandectomy! </p>
<p>Yes, sometimes when a couple/family is always late, it is really one family member that is the cause. After my dad passed, my mom was never late. </p>
<p>One thing that I’ve noticed is that often chronically late people have to go back into their home a few times before leaving…forgot jacket, forgot briefcase, forgot phone, forgot keys, forgot wallet…and so forth.</p>
<p>My husband is very neat and I am messy. But I am always punctual (usually early) and he runs late most of the time. So I organize time in our family and he organizes stuff! Works pretty well.</p>
<p>Yes, many of them don’t plan very well. Inevitably when I’m taking a chronically late person on an errand, they will want to stop and mail a letter, go to the bank, whatever else because they didn’t get around to doing it and it needs to be done when you’re driving. It irks me, but I admit I have generally put up with it. I’m glad that my nuclear family is pretty good about getting their act together and mostly fairly prompt. It would cause a lot of strife otherwise. Dad tends toward promptness and mom has no time sense so unless she’s reminded she’s way early or very late.</p>
<p>LOL on “husbandectomy” My friends husband just says that she will be home at 5pm plus or minus 3 hours. They are fabulously compatible in almost every way so he has learned to live with the schedule thing.</p>
<p>I have a cousin who was a math teacher for middle schoolers. One year she had a class that was “challenged” and needed to learn “life skills.” She decided to teach them how to use a train schedule. They didn’t understand that, if you had a 2:00 PM appointment in New York City, you shouldn’t take the 1:55 PM train to New York City. She found this class very frustrating, but they were challenged. </p>
<p>Reminds me of some of our relatives!</p>
<p>The other thing this thread makes me think of is the new diagnosis, “executive function disorder,” which I take to mean: “Folks who can’t figure out how to do more than one or two things in sequence and finish in the right amount of time.” </p>
<p>I agree that we’re all imperfect which is why we need to be tolerant of mistakes and minor quirks. However, big annoyances that aren’t the result of “human error” need to be worked on.</p>
<p>If I was the type to habitually bounce checks because I was ADHD or just lousy managing money, is my H supposed to just overlook that as me being “imperfect”?</p>
<p>Someone who is habitually late may not cost the family money, but it is constantly annoying.</p>
<p>All of my friends are usually on time, except if there is traffic or some emergency. But I had the pleasure of watching a friend of a friend in action when we were staying with her one weekend. </p>
<p>We were seeing this movie which started at 9, and we to make it to the movie we should leave the house around 8:30. This woman told us at 8:30 we should get going, then she proceeded to tell us it would take her only a minute to address an envelope so she could mail it on our way to the movie, then she went into the kitchen to take something out to be defrosted for next day’s dinner, and then put a load of laundry in. By the time she was done it was around 9. This happened all weekend. I was ready to kill her.</p>
<p>I have a sil who is always late. I have never thought that she has ADD or any other executive function disorder but she exhibits so many of these behaviors. </p>
<p>Their house is very disorganized. It’s so crazy. For instance she will make dinner plans with one couple while promising to drive her kid somewhere else. If you are going to agree and have the other couple make dinner reservations wouldn’t you check your schedule? In her case I think she thinks someone will bail her out. She won’t tell her H that he needs to be somewhere until the last minute. Doesn’t she know he has to work and for him to make it, he has to reschedule his appointments. </p>
<p>She doesn’t answer her phone, doesn’t return phone calls except on her time schedule. She was complaining in September of 2014 that the accountant needed info for tax returns, not for 2013, but 2012 still wasn’t done. </p>
<p>She will spend money without ever thinking about how to pay it back or if they can afford it. I just once would like to go in vacation or buy something without thinking that I have the money saved to pay or if I could pay it back in a reasonable time period. </p>
<p>She also will do things for her kids that seem totally unneccesary and time consuming. I’ll do things for my kids but I don’t promise things I can’t do. </p>
<p>We like them but don’t make plans unless there is other people involved. It’s still so frustrating. Her H seems to be ok with her behavior and the craziness of the household. </p>
<p>With my friend when I take her places that are important to me I just tell her what time I am driving away and she has made it. It takes that one on one insistence and accountability to get her to be on time. If there is any wiggle room at all it doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Well, you know this about this friend and he is unlikely to change at this point. You just have to decide if the friendship is worth maintaining even though he has this irritating trait. Also, just tell him you will leave after 20 minutes late, or some selected time frame. And do it. </p>
<p>The only symptom of ADD or Executive Function Disorder my DH has is chronic tardiness and the characteristics he possesses that causes him to run late. He runs his own business with no problems; on the contrary, he has been very successful in his business. His office is organized, tidy, and he pays all his bills on time. He likes to pay our household bills as well because it’s important to him that he have all of his financial obligations organized and within arms length. He is a spectacular investor and has only involved himself in one business venture ever that did not make a profit. He can be on time when it is important to him to be on time. When he decides to be better at this, he does better. He just doesn’t always hold himself to this standard.</p>
<p>He coached our daughters for years in all of their sports activities, all the while running his own business. He never seems stressed out by his many obligations. He is very social and has many many friends from all areas of life. He has no problem maintaining old friendships and adding new ones. He manages very well to make time for all of these many people in his life. It’s impressive, actually.</p>
<p>As frustrating as his tardiness can be, his other qualities far outshadow it. He is a good husband and father. He is intelligent and funny. He is loving and generous. He treats me well and is a jewel to his mother and grandmothers when they were alive. He gives time and money back to the community.</p>
<p>Of course I don’t expect perfect, so most of the time I bite my tongue when he runs late. But as a person who is very punctual, I, as the flawed human being I am, am occasionally very frustrated or resentful of it! When it happens in clusters, it can drive you mad!</p>
<p>But I love him, and it’s just something that’s probably never going to change in any really meaningful way. So for the most part, I just count my blessings and count to ten, as he has to do with me and my faults as well. </p>
<p>That is part of it, but it’s more than that. Nearly the entire decision-making process is a problem, especially for any newly encountered situations. </p>
<p>When my son was little, and my H was home with him, my son threw his apple juice sippy cup against the wall. When I came home there was this big brown stain on the wall. Instead of taking some cleaner spray and paper towels and cleaning it up (and these things were right in the kitchen), my H went into our bedroom, grabbed my BLOW-DRYER and dried the AJ onto the wall. He thought that was the way to clean it up! (oh my!) </p>
<p>There are also issues with simply paying attention to what they’re doing. When S2 was an infant, H closed up the stroller and put it in the back of our car WITH THE BABY IN THE STROLLER. (this is why I do believe some of these horrible stories of people leaving babies in the backseat of their cars.) </p>
<p>I had this info from some website:</p>
<p>Executive functioning may involve abilities such as:</p>
<p>Estimating and visualizing outcomes;
Analyzing sights, sounds, and physical sensory information;
Perceiving and estimating time, distance, and force;
Anticipating consequences;
Mentally evaluating possible outcomes of different problem-solving strategies;
Ability to choose actions based on the likelihood of positive outcomes;
Choosing the most appropriate action based on social expectations and norms; and
Performing tasks necessary to carry out decisions.</p>
<p>People with executive functioning problems do not perform these tasks intuitively. They have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time and space. They also show weakness with working memory.</p>
<p>As with many other types of learning disorders, executive functioning problems can run in families. Executive functioning weaknesses can be seen at any age but become more obvious as children reach mid to upper elementary grades.</p>
<p>How Does Executive Function Affect Learning? In school, at home or in the workplace, we’re called on all day, every day, to self-regulate behavior. Here are some signs to look for:</p>
<p>difficulty planning and completing projects;
problems understanding how long a project will take to complete;
struggling with telling a story in the right sequence with important details and minimal irrelevant details;
trouble communicating details in an organized, sequential manner;
problems initiating activities or tasks, or generating ideas independently; and
difficulty retaining information while doing something with it such as remembering a phone number while dialing.</p>