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Comment by normloman | Hacker News Reader

Chronically late people just have a poor sense of how long things take. They don't intentionally hold up your time to be a jerk. Chill out.

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Non performance plus a good excuse is still non performance. Chronically late people need to make an effort to be EARLY if they're so bad at estimating how long things take.

Some actually do; they still fail. Making an effort is, unfortunately, not a guarantee of success :)

You miss my point. We can all agree that being late is bad. But why villianize late people as selfish, when in reality, most are just absent minded.

I agree, this also struck me as a very judgmental article. I understand that some people are late because they lack respect. But that doesn't mean EVERY person that's late, does so for the same reason. One of my old professors was usually a bit late, but he had a heart of gold and really had no intention of being rude, he was just extremely disorganized in every possible way. But at the end of the day, he would often stays hours after class helping people without getting paid (on a Friday). I learned so much from him because he genuinely cared. Society is so quick to point at people and make judgements. Like normloman said, ... this article needs to chill out a bit.

Usually, judgmental behavior stems from the incredible all-encompassing feeling of self-importance of those making a judgment.

Chilling out is a preferred course of action. Also, hundreds of millions of people are parts of the cultures where it's absolutely normal to be late.

The US isn't generally one of those cultures - expecting someone brought up in the US culture of timeliness to act like a Spaniard when someone else is late will is not a reasonable expectation.

Not to mention, those inconvenienced by the late party also have expectations they have to meet, and so on. A professor who is 20 minutes late but still wants to lecture for a full hour can make you late for your next class, for which you are punished, not the previous lecturer.

Should we chill? To a certain point. But after that point, it's our lives which are negatively affected, and being annoyed at someone who is making our lives harder is hardly unreasonable.

Being absent-minded just shows that someone doesn't care enough to make an effort. Someone who cares about something will not be absent-minded about it if they are willing to try.

>Someone who cares about something will not be absent-minded about it if they are willing to try.

I'd prefer a person who is constantly late than a one with your attitude.

Absent mindedness is a character flaw. It's fair game to blame or villianize someone over it.

Wow, this is one petty evil comment.

I don't agree. It definitely is a character flaw. Mind that we are talking about chronically late people. So, that equates being late with being an asshole with no respect for other people's time.

I'm absent minded. Now my phone reminds me. Problem solved.

That may be true for some, but some people actively flaunt their lateness. They're not apologetic and are unconcerned with how it makes others feel until it begins to affect them.

These people are pretty bad, and I hope your view on lateness is only because you've never met a person like this.

Of course I've met people like these. They're also douchebags in other ways. And they're a minority of the chronically late.

Let me use some terms from criminal law here, to dispute your claim (excuse?) of them 'intentionally' being a jerk.

There are three kinds of 'intent' (roughly, 'mens rea'):

- 'objective' (it's a lousy translation but I don't think there is a better work for it in English); this is when you find a man in bed with your wife and you want to kill him, so you put a bullet in his head. No discussion here.

- 'knowledge of necessity': when the crime is not something you intended to do, but you knew that it would happen if you did something to get to another object. The text book example of this is a ship owner who wanted to collect the insurance money for his ship, so he sank it; the crew drowned. He didn't 'intent' to kill the crew, it was just a side effect of his actions in sinking the ship (he knew they were on it).

- 'conditional intent', in many US jurisdictions aka 'willfull blindness': this one is the fuzziest. It's when you knowingly and willingly took the chance that someone would die (or other crime would happen). Text book example: 'eggshell skull' (Wikipedia has a whole page; in short: guy throws a slipper at wife's head, wife has a medical condition that causes her to have a skull that is literally as thick (and fragile) as an eggshell; guy didn't know; slipper breaks skull, killing wife - still murder).

(I'm not interested in discussion on legal technicalities like the nuances of tort law under various legal regimes and mens rea as a precondition for qualification as murder)

So, to come back to the point: people who are chronically late know that they are late. They could do something about it; like adding extra time to their estimates of home long things take, or not doing certain things when they know they're late already (like the 'getting coffee' mentioned in the GP, that infuriates me - my wife does it too, making me go through customs with a screaming toddler and 20kg suitcase in one hand, and coffee in the other once, but I digress). These people just choose to not work on their flaws and inflict their (easily fixable!) bad habits on others. That is most certainly 'intentional' in all but the most literal interpretation of the word.

You can work on it, it doesn't mean its going to happen.

Many things in life are inherently unpredictable. The number 1 cause of lateness is probably commutes. if your commute has a range of 50 minutes, to two hours. The only way to avoid being late is coming in hour early everyday. That's a massive cost.

Other stuff that can happen like, your webcam not working for an internet meeting, and so on.

Or an important client holding you up, before you before a meeting.

People aren't inherently being dicks, they're struggling to cope unpredictable nature of the world.

That's hilarious. They aren't trying to predict the stock market. They are trying to predict commutes (easy) and their current schedule(easier).

Why is it that it's always the same people? Does the universe have it out for them?

To me this is like the weight loss debate: yes a ton (but not many :)) of people have glandular issues/genetics/blahblah that makes them unable to lose weight. But most people saying they can't lose weight are just making up excuses.

edit: Why the downvotes? Downvotes != disagreement

Probably because some people don't mind wasting 30 minutes of there unpaid time coming in early?

Or they live within 20 minutes?

And predicting commutes is not easy. My commute can range between 50 minutes and two hours. Depending on Accidents, roadworks etcs.

If you have short distance to travel, you are less likely to come across this.

Your commute has ranged between those values, but do you think that the mode commute time isn't a good indicator? Or maybe you can use the 75 percentile time? Are you really saying you don't have a good judge of about how long your commute will take most days?

No one is saying you have to be right on time every single time. But we do have a problem with chronically late people.

It can literally change by 30 minutes day by day. With extremes at 50 minutes.

At 75 percentile you'd still probably have to come in 30 minutes early most days, unpaid. And for most companies being late 25% of the time is not good enough.

That range isn't the full curve, just the ones I've experienced.

Having had short commutes, and long commutes the difference is immense in being able to predict how long it takes.

The only way avoid this is to come in really early, and negotiate to leave work early. Or flexi-time.

Most people just accept it and waste 30-40 minutes.

And in locations such as yours, you've found people to be more lenient with times.

I'm originally from a country with fairly crap transportation infrastructure. Consequently, the culture is very much one of "we'll see you at around X" rather than "meetings are at X". And, no one has a problem because it's a well-known problem that everyone faces.

But if you are the one who is always late, then you are the one doing something wrong.

Note that I'm not talking about being late to work. I'm talking about being late to mutually agreed upon events at specific times in a way that causes other people to wait for you. Surely all work doesn't need to come to a standstill untill you get in everyday?

It isn't inherently wrong.

It's wrong because the specific group of people you interact with say its wrong. In a lot of times it isn't damaging financially, productively etc. It's only there because of a cultural rule.

In plenty of societies it isn't an issue. In others being 5 minutes late, regardless of any damage done can get you fired. That is what I don't like. It's there choice however, if they decide that being dead on time is the most important thing in the world they can pay the cost associated.

I avoid those companies anyway.

I am talking about meetings, not general work. Meetings mean you hold people up . General work means you probably won't. The article also talks about meetings, not general 9-5.

If your coming to work too late affects people then you should fix it. If it doesn't but is an abitrary rule you just have an overbearing boss, so fix that.

Note that everything doesn't come down to "if I'm not bringing corresponding value, they should fire me". It's that attitude that'll do you more disservice in the long run.

Not intentionally being a jerk doesn't mean you're not a jerk when you keep doing the same obnoxious behavior - and know it.

Well. Unless you pushback with cancelling meetings/calling them out on it, they will forever continue to waste everyone else's time.

I don't buy that they have a "poor sense of how long things take": they just don't care enough to keep it in mind.

I recently had a first-meeting with a new client. I waited 20 mins. He didn't show up. I left. Maybe a little diva-ish? Idk. All I know is instead of stewing about his lateness and excuses, now I could get on with my day with a sense of empowerment.

EDIT: Why the downvotes? Downvotes != disagreement. I can usually tell when a comment is going to be unpopular. This one confuses me. So please enlighten me :)

Such bull. Its inconsideration plain and simple.

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