Being Late - Fashionable or Rude?

February 27, 2010 - One of my pet peeves is people who are late, especially when it is more than a couple minutes, and when it happens often. I know there are some who believe that being late is fashionable. Try convincing the host, who has worked all day to make everything perfect and get all the food to be ready at once, that you are sorry you are late, you were being fashionable. When you tell her that duck, as you might be wearing whatever she has in her hands.

When I was growing up we were taught you be on time, or you call and say you will be late, and you make every effort never to be late. It is rude! Nowadays, I will get a call asking if I am going to so and so's party. When I say yes, the next question is, when are you going? I find that a puzzling question as the invitation we both received told us what time we were supposed to be there. That's when I am going. What about at work, you are in a meeting waiting for others to join. And you are waiting, and waiting, and you look at your clock, and then you all joke and say, oh we follow professors rule and give them seven minutes. And so it goes. When they finally come, the comment is always the same . Sorry I was late I was in another meeting. What they mean is, sorry I am late I was doing something more important than this meeting. Then ,as if that isn't bad enough, they want to know what they missed. Like we should start the meeting all over again to bring them up to speed. And worse, most of us stop and bring them up to speed. My grandmother would have been appalled. She would have said, "Thatsa nota nice". Or, what about when you show up for your doctor appointment 10 minutes early so you don't keep anyone waiting and throw off the doctors schedule, and then the doctor is running late and you sit for an hour waiting. When you finally get seen and you ask what happened, was there an emergency, you hear, no just running late today. A call before hand would have been nice, so that maybe I wouldn't have spent my entire lunch hour waiting to be seen, so I won't have to be LATE back to work.

So what can you do, you can't make folks be on time. How should we react when folks are late? Here are a couple ideas: If it is your party and folks are late...put the food away and smile and say, "Sorry we already ate". If it is a meeting, when they show up, smile and say, "oh we just finished up" and then leave the room. And if you are at the doctor's office, lay down on the floor, begin shaking all over while moaning loudly, and if you are lucky, maybe someone will come to your attention.