Time Challenged

I'm not talking about "so many books, so little time" type stuff, here. I'm talking about those who view those little sets of numbers with that funny colon in the middle as a guide to the order of activities in their day rather than the explicit delineators for a specific, weekly, shared activity. Of course it wouldn't bother me much except that I am most often left waiting, thereby waisting* my time. This is my challenge. (*That, and apparently spelling.)


Actual photograph of the interior of some of my friends' heads. And you know who you are!

Is this the curse of homeschoolers everywhere? Or is it just me unable to go with the flow? I'm willing to accept that it's my problem with being too rigid, but then I wonder, how do they get anywhere on time? Surely there are things in life that absolutely require them to be on time. Somehow, miraculously, they get there on time.

Is it possible that my time is just not a priority for them? Hmmm. I'm going to have to think about that one.

As we like to say around here, "I've got issues."

Aaaaaagh.

There. I feel a little better now.

Comments

Shez said…
OOh, can I rant with you? I've lost count of the number of times I've arranged an event only to have hs'ers not show or the mom say, "my children misbehaved, so I decided they couldn't do x".

Unpunctuality drives me nuts, not arriving at all drives me even crazier. It's just good manners to arrive on time.

I had a Swiss grandmother who always insisted we were outside the door 10 min early. then we rang the door bell exactly on time.
October 24, 2008 at 3:39 PM
Lynne said…
Okay. I can respect an occasional follow-up to "You behave badly and we don't go", but really, that happens only once (and that's the beauty of follow-up).

But when something happens every week at the same time, is there any reason to be habitually late?

I think not.
October 24, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Christina said…
My dear southern mother instilled in me the idea that punctuality is polite. I'll take it one further and say that people that are habitually late are completely unconcerned with how their lateness affects others. Rude, indeed. Kind of like talking while someone is talking. Arrrrgh.
October 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Lynne said…
Oops. Now you may be talking about me, Fiddler. I do tend to do the talk-over. Sorry.

At least we're both sound darn punctual and we can be happy about that!
October 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Christina said…
No, what you're talking about is pretty normal in the give-and-take of conversation between friends. I'm talking about when someone is trying to tell a story or impart information to a group and someone starts talking about her own concerns. But then, I have issues, too.
October 25, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Lynne said…
Last weekend, I found some white t-shirts with big black letters proclaiming "I have issues."

I should have bought a couple of them for us. Darn it.
October 25, 2008 at 11:36 AM
HaynesBE said…
I think being on time is a matter of politeness, which is a matter of considering others. Other people's time may not always be the most important consideration, but being late means something else has been given a higher priority, sometimes intentionally and appropriately, and sometimes carelessly.
Just my 2 cents.
Beth
October 25, 2008 at 11:48 AM
Lynne said…
I see this is a hot button issue for a lot of us.

I really think being on time is more fundamental than politeness (the disregard for my time was rather tongue-in-cheek in keeping with "it's all about me").

I think being habitually, not periodically, late is an evasion of reality and in the stew of moral relativism we live in, no one calls people out for these short-comings which do affect the rest of us by being disruptive to our previously agreed upon schedules.

What may be lost here is that these people are my friends. They contribute to my life in one way or another and I like them! I'm just having a hard time with their lack of respect for the reality of time. So, I'm left wondering...if reality hasn't checked their behavior by now, perhaps it is only my problem.
October 25, 2008 at 12:14 PM
Lynne said…
And of course I meant "occasionally" not "periodically" which is the same as "habitually".

I am occasionally stupid.
October 25, 2008 at 12:19 PM
HaynesBE said…
I don't see why being late is necessarily an evasion of reality. Being on time just simply isn't as important to some people...or at least not as important as other things. I constantly battle this with my family (and I should hope they are my friends!) but what I notice is that getting someplace stress-free often competes with getting there on-time. While I emphasize on-time (the end result) the rest of my family seem to place a higher value on stress-free (the process.) Also, they don't think that 5-15 minutes here or there is such a big deal, while I do.
A part of me sees the importance of not letting being on-time ruin the process of getting there...but I keep thinking and hoping that with a little more effort (on their part of course!) we could have it all. Somehow I just can't get them to agree!
Beth
October 26, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Lynne said…
A difference of priorities - absolutely. Mere impoliteness - I don't buy it.

Okay. I'm going to have to think about it some more to flesh that idea out.

In the meantime, I need to go work on my preparations for something next week. I don't want to be late!
October 26, 2008 at 2:54 PM
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