Lateness....

Right so on we go to lateness.....

I can understand that my views on this might be taken as a personal attack on certain individuals....it's not at all. It's taken from my life experience. 35 Years and 1000's of people and certainly not just the here and now.

What I do hope though is that people do read it and cringe :-) and of course laugh as it's supposed to be tongue in cheek as are all my posts non food related.

So lateness....it's something that I really cannot abide. I'm not taking about once in a while lateness which could be due to factors out of your control. I'm talking about planned lateness and lateness bought on by ignorance.

My instincts and my faith in Humankind tells me that there are far more people in this world that want to be in the right place at the right time but there is an ever increasing amount of people that being just a little late for something is perfectly acceptable whether that be for work, a social event or even a mode of transport.

I don't like these types of people.......and I really do like a very wide demographic of other people.

Let go back to the points in the first paragraph.

Once in a while lateness is perfectly excusable providing the person who was late has a genuine reason such as being stuck in traffic, childcare issues, public transport delays, illness and right down to general bad luck. If they've left plenty of time for the journey and still arrived late then what else can be expected.

At least the person showed willingness and an equal level of respect for the person or group they were intending to meet.

Planned lateness, being "Fashionably Late" is just ridiculous façade. People say "Oh I like to be fashionable late" thinking that by using this pathetic excuse it'll cover up the actual reason.

Two reasons for this in my view. One is hideous insecurity, a complete lack of confidence, this I can understand a little bit to start with but when it becomes habitual then you start to question the validity of the reasons given for the insecurity.

Why is it so bad to have to stand in a bar on your own for a few minutes waiting for someone? Why does someone else have to be there before you? When is it that you start to trust your friends and begin to build better relationships?

The second reason which is complete self-absorption.

Not sure if that is an actual phrase by the way but it's the first thing that came to my mind.

These people do not live by the "Always treat people they way you'd expect to be treated yourself" motto.

These people are ones that demand your attention and get incredibly upset when it's not reciprocated. You can try and be as nice as you can to these people but eventually you just give up because the "Everybody look at me" and the "What's in it for me?" attitude is just too boring and repetitive.

What follows is bitchiness and attempts to divide your network of friends into separate entities.

Shhhhhhhhhhh........word of advice to these people...."You're being humoured, the people who you think are on your side know that you're an idiot"

Believe it or not this is not my most hated form of lateness. That comes from habitually ignorant lateness.

We all know these people too. These are the ones who leave everything to the very last minute. Thinking that getting somewhere exactly on time is somehow advantageous even though the chance of the doing such is virtually nil.

Typical scenarios -

"I have meeting in town at 3pm, it's a 4 minute walk from the train station, the 2:17pm train gets to the station at 2:55pm ................. The train will be late and I'll never stick to this schedule and be late anyway.......So what I'll do is sit on my a**e and not even consider getting the earlier train."

"Oh so the Tennis court is booked from 2pm to 3pm.....OK I'll turn up at 3:05, spend 15 minutes getting ready, 5 minutes warming up then we can play for 45 minutes...........Then I'll get a strop on when we're not allowed to overrun because someone else has booked the court from 3pm......and they have the nerve to be ready at 3pm too."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh can you stop doing this please !!!???

For this reason alone you will find life very hard to live. People like this to me are untrustworthy, unprincipled and unemployable.

Simple rule.......

If you have something booked that starts at 10am. Be there for 10am and be ready to start what it is that is suppose to be happening.

At work if you start at 9am then start work at 9am, do not turn up at 9am, have a cup of tea, catch up on Facebook..........................erm..............write a Blog....then start work. Turn up at 8:30am....do all that....and work from 9am.

If you are meeting people at a bar at 9pm. Be there at 9pm ready to start conversation and have a drink in your hand. Aim to get there at 8:50 to make this happen......you life is not that important, no matter what you think. Ten minutes out of it won't knock the world which revolves around you off it's access.

So what if there is nobody else in the venue when you get there. Knowing and trusting that your friends will be trying their hardest to also be there at 8:50pm should be enough to make you settled.

Absolutely nobody is looking at you and thinking "Ooooh they are on their own aren't they silly"

Nobody gives a s**t....FACT and even if they did then perhaps you should work out exactly who they are and go over for a chat because rest assured these people are just as self-obsessed and neurotic as yourself and you'll probably get on like a house on fire.

And thats it :-)

Tomorrow...........back to food and a very nice Curry recipe.