a) No, though I wish I was better about it. b) I admire it in others; I have a hard time faulting folks for not being punctual, though, because then I'd feel like a hypocrite.
I value punctuality in others. I'm not always punctual, but running late freaks me out all disproportionately. I still have problems with punctuality for nonwork things.
Being late freaks me out too. Today I thought I would be late for work because there was a train problem and I felt really stressed even though the worst thing that could happen was getting 15 minutes of my vacation time deducted (which is a lame thing about working for the government but certainly not the end of the world).
I'm in fact pretty patient about other people being late (within reason, or acknowledging it as certain people's particular disability and basically giving up on them), but I've gone so far as to skip (large-group) social things when I just couldn't handle the stress of running late.
There are definitely some people that I know will always be late and I've given up on. I don't mind when they're late to meet for coffee or something but I'm frustrated when they show up too late to keep a reservation for dinner or a movie. For my birthday dinner last year I told these people the reservation was for 15 minutes earlier than it actually was, and that seemed to work pretty well; maybe I should implement that more often...
1. Sometimes, depends on the occasion. For example, meetings at my office tend to start late, so if I think that's going to be the case for a particular meeting, I'll head up at the time it was scheduled for instead of 5-10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. Same goes for friends who are laid back about it. I try to arrive on or around the agreed meeting time, but NBD if I'm 10-30 minutes late. When I'm meeting punctual friends, I make more effort to arrive on time. Sometimes I'm still late.
2. Sort of. I like it when people respect my time, but I also understand that life happens and you're late sometimes. As long as you're not chronically 20+ minutes late, it's cool.
That definitely makes sense re: meetings. And I don't mind too much when people are a little late; 20+ chronic lateness is never cool though. I am a terribly punctual sort of friend, I'm afraid, though today I was actually quite late to dinner with my parents owing to an extra hour on the bus home from Philly. Serves me right for talking up being on time.
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b) I admire it in others; I have a hard time faulting folks for not being punctual, though, because then I'd feel like a hypocrite.
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2. Yes? But I give 30 minutes of leeway. Anything more than that and I start to think about getting cranky.
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2. Sort of. I like it when people respect my time, but I also understand that life happens and you're late sometimes. As long as you're not chronically 20+ minutes late, it's cool.
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