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My brother has a lot of large family dinners at his house. When he says "We eat at noon", everyone sits down at the table just before noon and he locks the front door. If you are late you have to ring the door bell. He lets you in but really gripes about it. BTW no one has ever been late by more than 4 or 5 minutes and no one is ever late a second time.
Wow. Anyone ever choose to just not attend dinners at his house for this reason? I understand wanting people to be on time but this seems really extreme. If I were late I would expect people to go on without me and start the meal... but if I were locked out and chewed out I think I'd be having my dinners elsewhere!
My son-in-law is a college professor. If a student (even an adult) is late for class, he makes him or her sing for the entire class before they can and sit down. Although some of the exibitionist types seem to like it!
I spent 28 years working a job where we punched a time clock so everyone learned to be early. We were required to be in our coveralls at the 7 am start time. At 7:01 the supervisor went out to the time clock and pulled the cards of anyone who had not punched in. If you showed up at 7:02 you had to first go get dressed for work and then collect your time card and punch in. There was no grace period. Pay got docked in 10th of an hour increments so if you were 7 minutes late that got rounded up to 2/10th.
By the third late in any 12 month period you got a verbal warning about your excessive lates. Fourth occurrence got you written warning, 5th occurrence - a 1 day suspension without pay, 6th occurrence got a 3 day suspension and a 7th late in a year got you fired. Yup, you could be fired for being a total of 7 minutes late if you were one minute late 7 times.
I've been retired for 8 years but still tend to be at least 15 minutes early for most things, especially formal appointments such as doctor or vet.
My brother has a lot of large family dinners at his house. When he says "We eat at noon", everyone sits down at the table just before noon and he locks the front door. If you are late you have to ring the door bell. He lets you in but really gripes about it. BTW no one has ever been late by more than 4 or 5 minutes and no one is ever late a second time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sabride
Wow. Anyone ever choose to just not attend dinners at his house for thisreason? I understand wanting people to be on time but this seems really extreme. If I were late I would expect people to go on without me and start the meal... but if I were locked out and chewed out I think I'd be having my dinners elsewhere!
Nope, everyone is on time and no one decides not to come because of his rules. He only good naturedly chews you out for being late. Most of us come a half hour or 45 minutes early as he always has great wine and plenty of good tasting appetizers before the meal.
My brother is an excellent cook and has very elaborate meals. He times everything out to the minute on a spreadsheet so that everything is at the peak of flavor and ready to go at the same time.
Imagine it this way, wouldn't it be upsetting if you were eating at a cookout at someone's house and the steaks are done and ready to eat, but the corn on the cob needs 15 minutes, the baked potatoes have a half hour to go and no one has even started putting together salads. The steaks would either be cold (if you took them off the grill) or burned if you kept them on the grill to wait for the other foods.
Now at my brother's house when he says noon, everything is ready exactly at noon. When you are cooking a meal for 20 or 25 people timing is pretty important.
But why would you WANT "friends" who are completely disrespectful of your time?
Personally I would rather have a few friends that I can actually COUNT on than a large "friend network" of people who aren't trustworthy.
In an ideal world, sure...
The friend in question is actually one of my better friends. After she showed up late, I chewed her out, then forgot about it, and we had fun. I can talk to her about most everything, and she is fun to hang out with it.
I mean, it's an interesting question. Pride vs. friendship. Do you walk out after 30 minutes, and disown that person as a friend and then you have one less person in your life? Or do you stew over it for 10 minutes, forget it, and figure out how to deal with it next time?
I do not make friends that easily. Sure, if I could carbon copy my best friend 10 times, I would. But the truth is, the rest of my friends have varying flaws. All of them.
I had a vision of the always late relatives sitting down to have a feast of beets, cole slaw and cranberry sauce because all the turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes were already eaten. Pretty funny!
My brother has a lot of large family dinners at his house. When he says "We eat at noon", everyone sits down at the table just before noon and he locks the front door. If you are late you have to ring the door bell. He lets you in but really gripes about it. BTW no one has ever been late by more than 4 or 5 minutes and no one is ever late a second time.
Hahaha..... well, in many cases, the very BEST goodies had already been picked over and occasionally, some things were all gone, so yes, it was quite comical. I love your brother's policy of locking the door! See! Set those boundaries and it just might make a difference. Some people never quite get it until there are consequences.
I don't see it as a lack of respect or attempt to control others. I think these are just disorganized people who wait until the last minute and then they realize they have to stop and get gas, drop off a check and they meant to be on time but like always they failed yet again.
If you don't like how they are, just drop them off your friend list, or if you like them otherwise, try to accomodate their faults. If you know they will be 30 minutes late, tell them 5:00 when you really mean 5:30. Don't arrange anything that requires they show up at a precise time, their minds just don't work right for a man-made invention like time, they don't run on clocks -- either accept them or ditch them.
Yes, thank you.
As a chronically late person, I feel very bad when I read this sentiment over and over about being disrespectful of time or controlling because I am none of those things.
I have ADD and I am not on any medication and I function but I still struggle every day. Part of this whole thing is over-estimating the time it takes to do something, problems with time management, problems with organization, distraction, etc. To make matters worse my children are also ADD and we are a family of five, with one bathroom! Organizing any event that requires us all to shower/dress/eat and leave together seems monumental! I have worked over the years to make things go more smoothly and I have learned 'tricks' and so forth but honestly when I am late I feel like absolute garbage about it and never ever have I felt like "oh well, they can wait".. quite the contrary! I want to cry when I know someone is waiting on me or us and I feel like the world's worst person.
Thankfully my friends do the thing where they trick me about the start time for things, and they value my friendship for a hundred other reasons, like my generosity, my listening skills, my care and concern for what's happening in their lives, the things we have in common and our conversations, and how much fun we have together when we DO get together.
Nope, everyone is on time and no one decides not to come because of his rules. He only good naturedly chews you out for being late. Most of us come a half hour or 45 minutes early as he always has great wine and plenty of good tasting appetizers before the meal.
My brother is an excellent cook and has very elaborate meals. He times everything out to the minute on a spreadsheet so that everything is at the peak of flavor and ready to go at the same time.
Imagine it this way, wouldn't it be upsetting if you were eating at a cookout at someone's house and the steaks are done and ready to eat, but the corn on the cob needs 15 minutes, the baked potatoes have a half hour to go and no one has even started putting together salads. The steaks would either be cold (if you took them off the grill) or burned if you kept them on the grill to wait for the other foods.
Now at my brother's house when he says noon, everything is ready exactly at noon. When you are cooking a meal for 20 or 25 people timing is pretty important.
Yeah that is exactly why I am not known as a "good cook", again with the time management and planning issues on my part. I am horrible at figuring out how to cook a big meal without something getting cold.
I have a friend who does get really really upset about me being late and I love her to death but I do get really anxious about making plans with her unless I can get her to agree to something more "open", like "Saturday afternoon" vs. "Saturday 3pm". She is, in her words, "a planner" and I am not.
I had a friend who liked to announce, "I'm always late, but worth the wait". One day a group of us waited for her for 25 minutes, tired of her antics, up and left. We are no longer friends.
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Organizing any event that requires us all to shower/dress/eat and leave together seems monumental! I have worked over the years to make things go more smoothly and I have learned 'tricks' and so forth but honestly when I am late I feel like absolute garbage about it and never ever have I felt like "oh well, they can wait".. quite the contrary! I want to cry when I know someone is waiting on me or us and I feel like the world's worst person. 
One day a group of us waited for her for 25 minutes, tired of her antics, up and left. We are no longer friends.
