Is it unreasonable to expect someone to turn up on time?

onlyroz

I think the level of punctuality required depends on the event and how many people are attending. If you're meeting a bunch of mates in the pub, where you intend to sit in the same spot for a few hours and you're not eating a meal then a staggered start is acceptable. However, if you're meeting another couple in a restaurant, and all you have to do while you're waiting is browse the menu and feel like a lemon, then anything more than 15 minutes late is downright rude.

As for events at home, again it depends how many people are coming and whether there is a set schedule for preparing the food. A dinner party could be ruined if the guest turns up 30 minutes late - however a barbecue in the garden is probably not quite so critical.

I do know far too many people who think that the world should revolve around their own schedule - my brother is usually at least an hour late for any gathering, which drives my mum bonkers as she has to plan the food around when she thinks he'll arrive. It's also not much fun standing around outside the museum/shop/cinema in the cold or wet waiting for your friend who is still choosing their outfit at home. If you're always late then it simply means that you value your own time far more than you value that of your friends.

Buzzybee90

purpleshoes wrote: »

Seriously, where did I say I just turned up and hoped for the best? Of course I know the times of the buses that run past my house. My point was that unlike other areas of the town, I have one bus company that serves the route and 3 buses run an hour. One every 20 mins.

So if I turn up for the 10.14 and it doesnt turn up, the next one is 10.34 so then yes, you are at the mercy of public transport.

I was going home the other day after meeting my mum, my bus was due at 3.34, it didnt turn up, I had to wait for the next one, it was at 3.54, that one turned up.

Lots of people have complained about the service, the bus company couldnt care less. The part of town my mum lives in, she can get an express bus that also serves as a service bus and another 3 companies run buses past the end of her road. The main bus company in the area which is the one that I have to use as there are no alternatives runs a service past her house during the day every 8 mins. She is much better placed getting into town centre than I am.

The service I use also used to run a bus once every 30 mins at night, its now been cut to one an hour. I cant get a train into town, the train station stop is midway between my house and the town centre and only serves the towns on either side of it, it only connects one other specific part of town to the town I live in.

But even my mum has problems with her bus service, more so on a sunday when they run less regularly and some minor bus companies who run during the week dont run at all, sometimes they are late, no matter what the timetable says.

There are other options such as walking, which I have done in times gone by, taxis arent an option due to lack of funds.

I find it a bit strange that when someone leaves the house 20 mins early to get to town and a bus doesnt turn up and you end up 5-10 mins late or so that in any way shape or form, thats your fault. Because in order to be on time, Id need to leave the house 40 mins early whenever I needed to meet someone and even then, you cant guarantee what might turn up and what wouldnt.

Not unrealistic that someone who pays for a monthly bus ticket or any bus ticket should expect that a bus should run to timetable barring freak weather or roadworks. Oh and on that note, my town for the last 18 months has been subject to massive roadworks which has also caused chaos with buses, they are worse now than they ever were. Sometimes my mum is late meeting me, it doesnt mean shes rude or arrogant or disrespects me. It means shes been held up, pure and simple.

A smaller bus company used to run the service that passes my house and buses used to run every 15 mins and they ran like clockwork. The bigger bus company used to run another bus that would take me and other people into town, you could walk 10 mins or so to get to the point on the route where it would pick you up, but that got re routed into a local hospital because if a bus serves a hospital, they get a subsidy, so that isnt an option anymore either and hasnt been for a few years now.

By the way I do hold down a job, I happen to work a 2 minute walk away from my flat and I do have friends. I just happen to have someone in my family who understands any time I am slightly late (which isnt always), that my bus service stinks.

And vice versa, because when my mum is on her way down to my house sometimes and texts me when shes at the bus stop saying the bus I normally use is late and so is she going to be, I know exactly what its like, so I dont get my knickers in a knot.

As I also said previously, if Im going further afield I can get an express bus that takes me into the nearest big city and I often go in hours early because the last one runs stupidly early.

Just that on a journey into town, if a bus is late or doesnt turn up at all, I might have to wait on the next one.

Not poor planning, not tardiness. Just a shockingly bad bus service run by a company who know they have the monopoly on that route and couldnt care less whether the service they provide is decent or not.

Never heard such judgemental crud in all my life to be honest and the response to my post above was clearly written by someone who didnt read what I had to say in the first instance and just wanted to get on their high horse and start making rude and untrue assumptions in order to score goodness knows what moral high ground.

When I was going home the other day after I met my mum and I was waiting for the bus home at 3.34, I expected it to turn up at 3.34, it turned up at 3.54.

My mum understands how bad that bus service is and sometimes when we have been out together and Im waiting to go home and a bus rocks up anything up to 30 mins late, shes upset for me at the fact that shes in the house and shes sitting in the house because shes got one first.

We have a fantastic relationship, I am not rude, nor disrespectful, nor arrogant.

And its pot luck. You could go out on any given day and the buses will run maybe not exactly on time, but a few minutes late. Another day you'll be standing freezing your backside off at a bus stop for 30 or 40 mins.

Its hard to predict. Oh and Im sure this post will be ripped to shreds by people who think I should leave home 3 hours and 45 mins early just to make sure I get a bus on time, for a bus journey thats meant to take 10 minutes.

But sometimes life gets in the way, you know, you meet people at certain times after you have finished work and they have finished work. And as I also said, my bus service at night is once an hour, am I supposed to go out 2 hours early just incase the next one doesnt show?

I dont know anyone who would think that was appropriate.

I grew up in an area much more rural than the one you described. So I learnt the drive when I was 16, I've never used a public bus in my home area. I couldn't rely on public transport, way too inconvenient (for the reasons you described!!)

Billie-S

onlyroz wrote: »

I think the level of punctuality required depends on the event and how many people are attending. If you're meeting a bunch of mates in the pub, where you intend to sit in the same spot for a few hours and you're not eating a meal then a staggered start is acceptable. However, if you're meeting another couple in a restaurant, and all you have to do while you're waiting is browse the menu and feel like a lemon, then anything more than 15 minutes late is downright rude.

As for events at home, again it depends how many people are coming and whether there is a set schedule for preparing the food. A dinner party could be ruined if the guest turns up 30 minutes late - however a barbecue in the garden is probably not quite so critical.

I do know far too many people who think that the world should revolve around their own schedule - my brother is usually at least an hour late for any gathering, which drives my mum bonkers as she has to plan the food around when she thinks he'll arrive. It's also not much fun standing around outside the museum/shop/cinema in the cold or wet waiting for your friend who is still choosing their outfit at home. If you're always late then it simply means that you value your own time far more than you value that of your friends.

I do completely agree with this post. And I also agree with what many posters have said, that it is rude and disrespectful to be late over and over again. And yes there are always people who think the world revolves around them.

I think that it's acceptable once or twice, but continually is unacceptable. I mean, how would they like it if someone treated them like this?

And I am shocked how certain people on this thread don't seem to think there is an issue with being late a lot, and that they even go so far as to say ' I wouldn't want to be friends with people so 'anal,' and are bullies if they want me to be on time when they arrange something.' What an extraordinary attitude.

SandC

I made some jokey but just a little bit not jokey comments last time I met up with a group of girl pals for afternoon drinks as the earliest of all the others (6 of us in total) got there 30 minutes after I did and I had arrived at the time specified that we meet.

There is always a 10-15 minute window around it but that was the first time I'd been sat there for half an hour on my tod - was slightly worried about gettling sozzled before anyone else arrived.

I'm not too bothered about it but then I am confident enough to be able to sit in a bar with a drink on my own - funnily though the other girls in the group would never do that - perhaps that's why they give it some minutes as they know I'll be there already or will have contacted them to tell them otherwise.

If it was a lift that I was reliant upon and it was constantly happening I would make other arrangements. They are the ones doing me a favour and it clearly isn't as important to them to be on time and I should not feel put out about it as a consequence.

Peter333

onlyroz wrote: »

I think the level of punctuality required depends on the event and how many people are attending. If you're meeting a bunch of mates in the pub, where you intend to sit in the same spot for a few hours and you're not eating a meal then a staggered start is acceptable. However, if you're meeting another couple in a restaurant, and all you have to do while you're waiting is browse the menu and feel like a lemon, then anything more than 15 minutes late is downright rude.

As for events at home, again it depends how many people are coming and whether there is a set schedule for preparing the food. A dinner party could be ruined if the guest turns up 30 minutes late - however a barbecue in the garden is probably not quite so critical.

I do know far too many people who think that the world should revolve around their own schedule - my brother is usually at least an hour late for any gathering, which drives my mum bonkers as she has to plan the food around when she thinks he'll arrive. It's also not much fun standing around outside the museum/shop/cinema in the cold or wet waiting for your friend who is still choosing their outfit at home. If you're always late then it simply means that you value your own time far more than you value that of your friends.

:T:T:T

Well said. Like I said earlier, someone would only do this to me 3 times and they would not be asked to my home again; nor would I arrange to meet them. I have very little tolerance for people with so little respect, and who often come up with any excuse under the sun for being constantly late.

Like I said, how on EARTH do they manage to get to work on time or to important appointments on time? Some people claim 'oh of course I get to important appointments, and work on time!' But they can't get to their friends home on time, even though (as someone said earlier,) their friends have the common courtesy to be on time for them!

Total lack of respect is all it is. No excuses. Not when it keeps happening.

Gloomendoom

Getting to work on time probably isn't a problem as it is usually part of a routine.

lostinrates

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Getting to work on time probably isn't a problem as it is usually part of a routine.

I think also, for some in certain travel areas its not as rigid.

My husbands contract means he is 'on duty' 24/7 every day of the year. There are office hours, but tbh, if he blows in twenty/thirty minutes late because he went to the gym later in the morning having been at work till four am, .....who is going to police that, and how? When his hours regularly are double or more what other people are expected to work?

So long as he makes targets, meetings, conference calls, deadlines, flights etc.....if he is late for work sometimes.....its not noticed, cared about or an issue.