I shouldn't be surprised but I'm still pissed off

[MaggieTheCat]

This is another rant about K.

I don't have links to my past threads but I know I have ranted about K before. Short version: He's never on time to anything.

My husband and I and K had tickets to a concert last night. It was at 7:30pm at a venue in the middle of downtown (and as we live in one of the top 10 largest cities in the US, that means lots of traffic, etc.) K wanted to do dinner before the show and we agreed, with the understanding that we were going to be on a tight schedule as we could NOT be late getting to the theater. In fact, I told him we had to be at the theater at 7pm, meaning we should be aiming to be at a restaurant by 5:30pm.

K agreed and asked if he could carpool with us. We said fine, we knew traffic/parking would be bad, again as long as he could be on time. He said just let him know what time to show up at our house. I told him he should leave work at 4:30pm and plan to be at our house at 5pm. He and my husband work at the same company, their offices are literally down the hall from each other, and if they both left work at the same time and came directly to our house, K could leave his car in our driveway and we could all take our vehicle.

So my husband gets home right at 5 and I ask where K is. He said K was on his way out the door right behind him. 25 minutes later, K finally knocks on our door. I have no idea where he was or what he was doing that it took him 25 extra minutes to get to our house; even if he had managed to hit every stop light red and my husband hit every one green it wouldn't have taken him that much extra time to get here. We didn't bother to ask or argue, we all piled into our car and got on our way.

Of course, by the time we got into downtown, fought through traffic, found an open parking garage, and actually got onto the street on foot, it was about 6:15pm.

K: We still have plenty of time to sit down and eat somewhere!
Husband: I'd rather find some place kinda fast if we can, we don't have that much time...
Me: Look, there's a Subway right up here.
K: I had Subway for lunch, I don't want it again for dinner.

Are you f'ing kidding me.

We ended up waiting until AFTER the concert to eat at an IHOP at 10:30pm because my husband and I didn't want to risk being late getting to the theater and pretty much everything else downtown besides the Subway that we saw was fancy, upscale, expensive, sit-down restaurants. The place we had tentatively thought about going to, a mid-range steakhouse, was a 10 minute walk away from the theater.

I know, this is entirely our fault because we put up with it and allow it to happen. To be honest he's actually been getting better about not being late all the time recently so I thought we'd be okay, especially since I stressed so much that we were on a schedule, and that my husband was going to check in with K when he left work. I didn't care all that much because I wasn't very hungry to begin with, but my husband was starving by the time the concert started -- let alone when it let out. I put up with K's crap because he's my husband's friend/co-worker and my husband likes to include him, but my husband was fuming by the end of the night, so hopefully next time I can convince my husband to put his foot down and tell K he's not invited, or at least that he's not invited to carpool with us to events like this.

Oh, and the icing on the cake was that K brought his Nintendo DS with him (well, we all did, it was a video game themed concert) and was playing it before the show started, as were we and several other people around us...but as soon as the conductor came on stage we and everyone else closed our DSes and put them away. Everyone except K. He kept playing his through the entire first song of the show before putting it away. I almost reached over, closed it for him and took it away from him myself.

[HYHYBT]

Have you tried something like "We're leaving the house at Time 1, eating at Restaurant at Time 2, and going into Theater at Time 3. Here's your ticket. If you're here, you can ride with us; if not, you know where we'll be"?

[eltf177]

At 5:15 I would have left without him.

[KitterCat]

Mr kittercat is like this. And the only way I've gotten him to be somewhat better is by telling him the event is important, stressing that we must be on time and then leaving if he wasnt ready. Its that leaving bit without them that seems to be the only thing that gets the message to sink in. You will go through some whining about how its not fair, and that he dosnt mean to be late, but k will eather learn to manage his time better, or be left to be on his trips alone.

[MaggieTheCat]

There has been more than one occasion where K has agreed to meet us at our house at X:XX time in order to carpool to some event and he is 20, 30, 45 minutes late (there was one time that we were flying out of town somewhere and asked K to drive us to the airport (this was before we realized how notoriously late he was for everything) and told him what time we needed him to pick us up. He was a good 30 minutes late. Fortunately we still made our flight but we have never asked him to take us to the airport since then.) I have urged for us to just leave without him but my husband has always wanted to wait for him. Usually what happens is that by the time I'm annoyed enough to want to leave, my husband will call or text K, who will respond that he's on his way and will be there shortly so my husband will insist on sticking around the last few minutes till K arrives.

As far as giving him his ticket separately, I think that's what we'll do from now on (at least, that's what I'll suggest.) My husband seems pretty turned off from the idea of carpooling with K, at least, since he slows the entire group down; at least if we get to a restaurant and he's 20 minutes late, we can go ahead and order without him.

[blas87]

You will go through some whining about how its not fair, and that he dosnt mean to be late

Wha???

No, no no. What's not fair is people having such little respect for other people's time that they refuse to make an effort to do something as small as be on time.

[KitterCat]

Wha???

No, no no. What's not fair is people having such little respect for other people's time that they refuse to make an effort to do something as small as be on time.

Believe me, I have a long fuze and will usually just ignor another persons vices. I sort of work with the mindset that everyones got some sort of thing that ticks other's off. Given that after 9 years of marriage dealing with this problem I finally started working on his perpetual time problem. When his being late was affecting my hanging out with friends*, things had to change.


*We only had one car, and 2 kids, so if we wanted to see mutual friends it was usually done together.

[blas87]

I got so tired of it after only a short relationship, I can't deal with people like that anymore.

That, and working with the same people for years who believe that trotting into work 5 minutes late every day, then pouring themselves a coffee and sitting down for another 5 minutes is totally acceptable.

[patiokitty]

I used to have a friend that could never comprehend the idea of leaving on time. I got to the point that if she wasn't ready at the agreed upon time that I'd be leaving without her. She thought I was kidding and would still dawdle out late...and like an idiot I'd stick around until she finally got her act together.

Until one SCA event that I only went to because she begged me to take her, and promised that she'd be on time for once. Well, we ended up leaving an hour late from her place, but the real kicker was at the end of the night.

I hadn't been feeling well and not really up to being around a load of people, but I stayed as long as I was up to. I even gave her a half hour of warning to get her shit together or I was leaving without her and she could find her own way home.

At the end of that half hour I found her again and told her I was leaving. "Just another ten minutes!" she begged. So I gave her those ten minutes, and marched back in to tell her that I was leaving with or without her. She just laughed at me, so I got my son and I into my car and we left. I got a phone call from her about an hour later, asking me where I was. When I told her that I was at home she lost her shit - how dare I leave without her, blah blah blah. I told her off for being a selfish bitch and not bothering to be ready when I told her I was going to be leaving, and then for laughing at me when I told her I was leaving and it being obvious that she had NO intention of leaving until SHE was good and ready to leave.

I found out later that I was not the first one she'd done that sort of shit to, nor was I the last, but she no longer asked me for rides anywhere. I'm like that to this day - if I'm providing the ride then you get to deal with me leaving your ass behind when I tell you that we're leaving at a particular time.

[Nyoibo]

If we have to be somewhere at 6 and need to leave by 5:30 I tell my partner that we need to leave by 5, usually works and gets us there on time.

[Pixilated]

People like your hubby's friend will continue to behave like this as long as others put up with it -- they figure nobody else's time is as important as theirs. So perhaps it's a good thing that your husband really got the short end of the stick this time -- running perilously late for the concert and then having to sit through it hungry and getting hungrier because his "friend" couldn't be bothered to get there on time and then bitched about the only fast-food place in the immediate vicinity.

Unfortunately your best way of dealing with this in future might be to get drastic: tell him "We're leaving at XX:XX time and if you're not there I'm afraid we'll have to leave without you" and then DO IT. Yeah, he'll undoubtedly whine but you can remind him calmly that you did tell him that's how it would go. Or, as somebody has suggested, give him the ticket and tell him the event starts at XX:XX and leave him to find his own way there. If he's late and no late admittances are allowed ... oh well.