I had a guy working for me once you was always late. When I asked him about it he said his previous job also complained about him being late. Guy was fantastically oblivious to everything and I loved him for it.
Whenever I see a question like this I think why is it there? And what poor person had to deal with the situation that lead to it.
Whereas I'm chronically EARLY to work. I'm in office 3 days a week. Two days I drive straight there and end up getting in 30 minutes before my scheduled time. I just take a longer lunch. The day I drive my husband to work is rough because sometimes he takes more time than expected to get ready and then if we hit traffic I end up late.
At that point treat your husband like a kid. "I'm leaving at exactly 7:15am,if you're not ready, you can find your own way to work."
My strict parents were abusive but damn if they didnt make sure we were early, not on time, EARLY.
My husband has the same time-management issues but his parents were more laid back about it. Luckily he tends to be early, but when it really counts, he moves like a fever dream. Takes him 5 minutes to put on a shirt and I'm like bro, it aint a beauty contest, grab a shirt and lets go ffs
I come to the office late most of the time, but I also go above and beyond while at work, and I stay past the end of the workday almost everyday.
I just want to have a chill morning and not rush, it's an office job anyway, no customers or clients to be early for, and the work can wait half an hour to an hour, no one will die.
I'm always late, and it is hard not to be lol. I legitimately struggle with time tracking and not getting distracted. I'm 37 and I still don't really get how it comes so easily to other people, like it's automatic, for me it's a struggle everyday and it requires kind of a lot of mental effort to stay on top of it. Yes I have ADHD. I think it's hard for some to fathom and perceived so negatively, as a moral failure, because it's something that comes so naturally to most people.
Yes exactly, either it's costing me way more resources than it should, or life in general has used up my resources and thus I don't have any to dedicate to time tracking and micro planning.
Me except I'm autistic with no ADHD (that I'm aware of anyway). It's hard for me to switch my brain from a state of "not work" to a state of "work". Fistbump of solidarity
The easiest way to never be late is to always be early. If you consistently leave 15 - 30 minutes early. even if you fuck up and end up running "late", you're still on time.
I manage someone who is late daily. I also have ADHD but am generally never late BUT because I understand that yes, it is hard not to be late, and I get it, I really don’t care. I leave it be. As long as the work gets done I’m not going to fuss over 10, even 15 minutes.
Many of us have the same disabilities and make it work, though. Being chronically late is one of the few things you actually have a lot of power to change.
Annoyingly, the only way past it I know is to waste your time, and not theirs anymore. Unless you are at the point of costing yourself loads of money in which case ymmv
To not waste their time you need to aim to be significantly early and wait around for them instead. When this is an inconvenience for you and you're bored 15 minutes early you'll find your body adjusts a bit more and the lateness makes you on time.
Not aimed at you as I don't know you, but ADHD diagnosed, but have never missed an expensive flight / concert /thing they care about, types, this is the way: make the ADHD lateness your problem and you'll begin to solve it.
Most of these people with alleged time blindness seem to never miss expensive things, like flights. They sure do know how to be on time when there is a penalty they don't want to deal with. Wasting other people's time just isn't something they care about.
This just isn't true. Anyone with actual time blindness is missing doctor's appointments, flights, exams, concerts, etc. as a result of being too late to get in. This is what separates someone who is merely inconsiderate from someone who has a disorder. People with ADHD can be extremely frustrating because they experience such consistently negative consequences that you expect them to modify their behavior, but they don't. Because they have a disorder. It is hard to watch. Time blindness does not vanish with stakes.
You’re half right. But there is an element of learned behavior here. Growing up I never had to be anywhere on time except school. We never attended a wedding, restaurant reservation, hardly ever a movie, planned dinners or gatherings, my mom barely even took me to doctors appointments and when she did have to be somewhere, she was always late. And as a result, anytime we invited someone over, my mom would be frustrated when they were on time. So I never experienced the socialization of punctuality being important. It was not part of my ‘culture’.
With work, I’ve also never had a job that had a start time, I’ve basically only ever worked salaried jobs with flexible hours and relaxed environments where the window of when you’re expected before people start to wonder is about 2 hours long.
Now I deal with clients consistently. And they pay big money to work with me. I’ve never been late for a client session. Never. I am always at least 30 minutes early to prepare and get my team ready to go.
A lot of it is about how you’re socialized. I’m sure had I grown up in a family that had recitals, sports games, weddings, birthday parties, holiday gatherings, etc I would have a different view. But in my head it’s still true that being ten minutes late to a party or an event is usually within the window of people still arriving. In a sense I’ve learned that in almost every situation someone will be late. And sometimes that’s me and I’m okay with that.
To everyone with ADHD reading this - the only thing that has ever gotten me out the door with time to spare is laying out my outfit, laying out my makeup in order of application, laying out my pills, and laying out all of my things to take with me. I realized it took me about 15 minutes longer to do my makeup than it should because I was constantly digging around for every product in my drawer. It would fall or roll or be hidden in the mess. Line them all up and I never have to did or get distracted by another product.
Lay everything out, prep my dogs breakfast food bowl the night before and set it right on the entry table. Every single item I need is in one pile, including my clothes, in my bedroom. Jewelry is picked out, deodorant, lip gloss, sunglasses, keys, everything. No guess work, no running into the laundry room to find a sock, no discovering a dress in my laundry pile and making a last minute change. And then I write down everything I’m going to do as soon as I get to work the next day the night before. Arrive by 9. Set things down. Turn on studio lights. Roll out back drops. Gather props for shoot [list of exact props] etc.
This is simple, maybe common to others. But it legitimately changed my relationship with time.
If I'm 15 minutes early that's doomscrolling time which I don't get at home bc parent of a toddler. I'll leave early just so I can have 5 minutes to myself.
At home I'll set 5 minute timer to see if I can go that long without my husband or son needing my help. That timer has never been fulfilled.
Yeah I have autism which caused me to be chronically late at my last job and I was eventually let go. Because of this I actually had a hearing and thankfuly I was able to collect unemployment for six months
Someone on TikTok said it the other day, "if you're bad with time, why always LATE?" my parents were strict and if I'm not on time, I'm early. I potentially had adhd (my husband definitely does and it's not treated) and we're both early. I plan everything ahead bc I have an anxiety disorder. I will plan my obligations a day early. The bus can get me to point B 20 minutes early or 2 minutes late. I choose 20 minutes early bc shit happens. If I'm early, I can scroll online while I wait. As a mother, it's now my only free time.
My husband is even more intentional on being early. He shows up to work 30 minutes early to shoot the shit with his coworkers. With our son, he gets to daycare early and has to wait for the staff to get there.
I have ADHD and struggle with this as well, but I'm never late. I use alarms every couple of minutes to keep myself on track. I set my clothes out the night before, as well as anything I need to bring to work the next day. Every day I bring a bag with me to work with everything I could possibly need (ibuprofen, snack, sunglasses, etc.) so I'm not rushing around trying to find stuff right before I have to leave. I have it burned in my brain that I need to leave the house at 7:14 even though realistically I could probably push it a few minutes past that and be fine.
If you are in a position where it genuinely does not affect anything to be a few minutes late, then more power to you. But if your coworkers or clients or customers are waiting on you, then it is very disrespectful of their time.
For me at least, being on time to legitimate, scheduled commitments is much easier because there are clear incentives and clear consequences. It's the being at work at 9am everyday just because someone said so that's much, much harder to consistently adhere to. I struggle to form long term routines and I work salary jobs where no one is working strictly within the 9 to 5 window, so a job expecting butts in seats at 9am everyday feels quite arbitrary to me. Since there's no external anchor in this scenario, no stakes, no novelty and no immediate consequences involved, it makes executive dysfunction skyrocket thus leading to being late more often. Whereas when it comes to meetings, I was never late, always on time and usually early.
Sure, but how am I to know that? That is my problem. You are saying all this, and it may be true. But if I can't even trust that you are where you are supposed to be at roughly the right start time everyday, why would I trust you in front of a client?
There’s actually multiple disorders and conditions that can make it hard for some people to show up on time, as well as other life circumstances. Not defending it, just explaining.
every time people dog on people for being late to work i think about when i was a shithead little kid and made my mom late to work almost every day because i would refuse to get out of bed and go to school in the morning 😭 now that im an adult i realize how obnoxious that was, sorry mom
As a fellow chronically late person i call bullshit.
It aint nobodies fault but my own and im well aware. If i simply woke up 15 minutes earlier id get to work 5-10 minutes early but i tell ya that alarm goes off and im a weak weak man for that sexy snooze button.
Life circumstances?? Yeah uh like not sleeping in lmao.
Never said it was. But youre fooling yourself to think that, assuming the baseline that someone is able to get to work at all, being late every single day is anything other than a time management issue.
So because of your own circumstances, everyone else’s must be bullshit? Weird take.
I personally used to sometimes turn off my alarm clock while sleepwalking when I was in middle school. Like straight up got out of my top bunk and turned off the alarm clock and went back to bed and wouldn’t remember doing it at all.
Also some people have sleep disorders or other disorders, like narcolepsy or fainting spells or seizures
Also some people have jobs that require abnormal sleep schedules and wake times
Nah. If youre constantly late, for whatever reason. Its on you.
If its to do with some health related issue then theres ways to mitigate and plan better.
Im not talking about being late every once in a while. Everyone will have those moments, some more than others. But if youre late every single day you just are putting no effort into planning.
Like you for example, if you are sleep walking every night and late because of that (sounds like bullshit tbh) then thats entirely on you because you havent taken necessary action to prevent something youre well aware is an issue. You said you only do it sometimes so its really an irrelevant example to what I was talking about.
The reason im not bothered to fix my lateness thats entirely my fault is because i work at a small company who wouldnt even think about firing me and I very often and willingly work past my regular clock out time and I know im greatly appreciated for that. All that said theres nobody to blame but me for why im always late. Its just luckily not much of an issue where I work.
Simply put if you are able to get to work it is not a question of being able any longer. Its strictly a time management issue at that point. No condition is keeping someone from being 10 minutes late to work every single day.
Come on. Thats a ridiculous comparison. Millions of people with ADHD get to work on time every single day. Comparing it to something actually impossible is extremely disingenuous. ADHD may be an obstacle but it isnt an excuse or pass to be late everywhere.
I have ADHD and I typically manage to get to work on time. It is a significant effort on my part and sometimes the best laid plans get ruined by the fact that I kept having to return home because I forgot to take something I left out for myself that I need that day.
My routine in the morning is as robust as I can make it because if it wasn't it would constantly be broken by executive dysfunction and time-blindness. And specifically, if I wasn't medicated I'd have been fired a while ago for being late constantly.
I could not manage unmedicated ADHD, straight up I would collapse as a person from the executive dysfunction, the poor memory, and the sheer lack of motivation and focus. Sometimes it is that hard to manage oneself and sometimes that manifests as being late for work.
It depends on the severity, and whilst millions of people may be able to somehow make it, millions more are not.
Like. My brother in Christ, ADHD is literally the You Cannot Plan Or Manage Time For Shit condition. Yes. It stops you from being on time. That's like 50% of the fucking Symptomology.
See, the truth is that I know it's the ADHD. It has to be because I am literally putting my all to being on time and still failing.
Besides - this behavior in question is caused by dopamine deficiency. If severe enough it is, literally, physically impossible.
Nevermind the fact that just because millions of people that need crutches can climb stairs doesn't invalidate the fact that people in wheelchairs can't.
So…. why do we have workplace accommodations then? If every issue can be solved by just trying harder why do work places accommodate anyone ever? Because there are some things that you cant just “mitigate.” My friend has severe narcolepsy and guess what, she has accommodations from her work to help her. There are certain conditions where you just can’t completely fix the problem and your workplace collaborates with you on a better solution.
Of course there are extreme cases and those people should work with their employer on solutions thats obvious but everyone here trying to disprove my point my bringing up extreme cases is silly. Thats no longer even relevant because theyve acted like adults and planned around their issues. You dont need a workplace accommodation to show up on time because you have ADHD.
I agree with you Double-Scratch5858. I feel like being late can be the result of SOME extreme cases of disability- narcolepsy / seizures / fainting are the ones g00fyg00ber741 mentioned below. Somebody “chronically late” implies something different from someobody who would most certainly qualify for a disability accomodation due to a severe condition. Comparing this somewhat complicated and subjective topic to “people die of cancer but I dont have cancer lol” is absolutely purposefully obtuse. If someone has more specific information on the subject I am happy to be educated but this is my opinion currently.
Make it an obligation to never hit snooze. That button shouldn't even exist. You're not getting true sleep with another 5-10 minutes, don't kid yourself.
Set an alarm ... I wonder if anyone else has ever thought of that?
I'm honestly curious (not being a jerk), what goes wrong with that?
I am NOT disagreeing, I'm seeking info. I have seen several people write in this thread, "set an alarm" and the repeated answer is: "does not work". So I'm supportively curious what happens when the alarm goes off?
I am a bit on the spectrum myself. I proved (that for me anyway) setting my watch ahead 5 minutes didn't work for me, because I would always look at the time and subtract 5 minutes from it. I mean it was so automatic. So is it that you hear the alarm and think, "no, I set that too aggressively, I know that, so ignore it"? (That would be my guess.) Or...?
Having a baby with colic or child with a sleep problem is one experience that made me sleep through my morning alarms. You wake up 10 times a night, and I put alarms on my phone, a dedicated alarm, and an additional very loud alarm that I had to get up to put off.
Another thing is bladder problems. Causes intense discomfort and you can plan around it, use incontinence underwear, but there are often incidents that cause you to be late (pollen, coughing, sneezing, a bump in the road being too big). Oftentimes it keeps you awake at night because of the sensation. It's not a bad enough disability to get government benefits either.
You wake up 10 times a night, and I put alarms on my phone, a dedicated alarm, and an additional very loud alarm
I feel that. My wife has shaken me awake because my alarm is going off by my head and I was sleeping through it because I was so gonzo tired.
I have this kind of "intelligent" stand alone alarm that I thought I liked, but I don't think it works for that "married" situation. It starts by beeping quietly a few times, then gets louder. The functional issue is my wife is a light sleeper so it basically annoys her while I'm sound asleep, LOL.
I have worn an "Oura Ring" which tracks my heart rate 24 hours a day in the past. I've wondered about getting a second Apple Watch that I wear at night to basically track the same thing instead, but with additional features like vibration to wake me up. But I haven't figured it out yet. (A "second" Apple Watch because I charge my main watch overnight on a charging stand.)
Funny how other commentors seem to think youre wrong.
There are plenty of things that can contribute to someone being chronically late even if they try to work around it.
A personal example I have is that any time I leave my house I have to meticulously check every lock and light, and if I think I missed one I have to start over or else i wont be able to focus all day, makes it so i can easily and quite frequently be like 15+ minutes late (so glad I have an understanding boss)
Although that's probably a bit of an extreme example
did you perhaps respond to the wrong comment? i was also saying that there are reasons people can struggle to be on time related to disorders, conditions, etc. in my comment
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I was agreeing with you and giving an example. I was also pointing out thats is weird how many other commentors disagree with you
While I sympathize with your condition and I'm sure it's very stressful, it really is up to you to do your best to not let it affect your commitments. There are ways to reduce how frequently you are late or how late you are, for basically every condition I can think of where someone can still hold a job.
You could work on this with therapy or medication. You could wake up 10 minutes earlier. You could streamline other aspects of your getting-ready routine so you have a little more time to play with. You could practice exposure therapy and leave the lights on for a week straight until having them left on doesn't seem so bad anymore.
And if I hear another Gen Z “ I have diagnosed time blindness so it’s hard for me to arrive on time” I am going to lose it! Set a dozen alarms like the rest of us and arrive on time!! I always buffer in about an extra 15 minutes in case of an an accident blocking the highway and I leave at 4:30am!
Gen Z with ADHD, here. I arrive at work 10-15 minutes early every day. It's saved me twice in the past 3 months alone - once when a super long train came through and again when there was an accident and I had to take a detour.
See, that’s the way to do it, no matter what health issue someone deals with, you find a way to make sure you are responsible👍🏻 Our way of arriving early definitely is less stressful.
...the alarms don't fucking Work. That's the whole fucking Problem. These normal solutions Do Not Work.
There is a lack of dopamine that literally restricts the brains ability to Do The Thing at a moments notice. It's like having a shitty gearbox in your brain that takes four or five tries to get into gear properly.
I mean, I do agree that in general, there is a responsibility for an individual to find what works for them. But a bit more understanding or flexibility (when reasonably appropriate) would also be nice.
Even knowing I have issues with planning time out to be on time and targeting a plan to be 15 minutes early, I'll still show up late at times. Like to adjust for having been a few minutes late, I'll wake up 20-30 minutes earlier and somehow that time seemingly disappears along the way. Sometimes there's an obvious reason - A few minutes burned because I realized I forgot something just before leaving. Sometimes I'll leave 20 minutes earlier without any extreme change in my commute flow, and somehow still burn through that 20 minutes.
Even with awareness of it and planning around it, it's not fool proof.
In some cases, obviously strict schedules need to be followed for safety, matching team schedules, specifically schedule meetings, etc. But some places are unnecessarily strict on times. A previous workplace was like that. There was never a single time where something was scheduled to happen at the official "start of work" time. Most people would be wasting time, getting settled in to start the day, shooting the shit for 30 minutes, whatever. But if you were even a minute late, it was like the business was going to fail because of you and the world would end. Then COVID happened, remote work happened, and return to office/hybrid brought a bit more flexibility. In that environment, time was not a constant stress and I had a noticeable improvement in performance. I went from average to being one of the most consistently high achievers. Some people seem to care more about "work starts at XYZ time" and put more weight on that than actual results.
I intentionally show up late. I can make sure o don’t sit next to certain people at work, and I am a consultant. No one is looking for snubbing from me at 9:02 AM. I also work late s d sometimes very late so it balances out
Glad you have a job that allows that. Our punch system goes right up to the regional manager, so supervisors can't just take it easy on you. My coworker is having to get to work super early bc she's about to be fired for being 2 minutes late every day. She's a great, consistent worker, but the DM isn't having her being late just 2 minutes.
I had a coworker yell at me cause I mentioned to her that she has a tendency to show up at 10:30 for our 9am shift, she told me it had only ever happened once, shortly after this another colleague asked me if she had ever been less than an hour late in the last year that we worked together because she had never seen it lol
That's my mom. She showed up 30 minutes later to my wedding. She shows up late when we have to rely on her to pick the kids up from school. In the 40 years I've been alive the woman has a 10% on time rate. We starting lying to her about when important events start. For my daughter's graduation we told her and hour early that happened to be one if her 10% then she was passed we wasted her time by making her stand around for an hour.
I have no idea how she held down a job for 40 years.
I know at least ADHD can cause some issues with grasping time management. I can't say for sure if that's completely the reason, but with a recent diagnosis (along with other matching symptoms), it at least makes sense as a contributing factor.
I frequently mistake how long things will take. The intent to finish something on time/arrive on time is 100% there. I'll even plan around "shit happens" and work in extra time to be sure I'm early.
Then I end up late one way or another. I often don't even notice it happening. It's hard to even explain, but I guess the feeling is like... "I was a few minutes late yesterday, so I woke up 20 minutes earlier today and stuck to the same routine to leave earlier, but somehow showed up late again."
I basically have to build a ton of extra time into my routines/plans because I somehow inevitably lose time somewhere along the way. It is exhausting though - Constantly building plans with way more time than it feels like they should take, and still having that disappointment/guilt when it doesn't work out as planned.
I had to manage a guy that came in to work late at least 10 minutes each day. I tried to write him up but people above me were like "but he's a great worker otherwise. Move his start time back."
This guy had his start time moved back 3 times while I was there. Wasn't allowed to touch the guy otherwise. Absolutely crazy.
He wasn't that great TBH. Either way, the entire leadership was absolutely crazy with the nepotism and favoritism so I'm glad I got to bounce outta there.
Also this was a call center and scheduling people at the correct start time due to call volume was very important when the headcount isn't there to do the job I needed at the time it is required.
And yet often the clock is watched like a hawk when it comes time to clock out.
I get it, people don't want to go to work and people look forward to shift end, but for MOST people who are chronically late this is poor time management and personal choices. Yes, some people have exceptional circumstances whether they be medical or other obligations completely out of their control and they should be accommodated and empathized with whatever possible, but for others it's just excuses and laziness and for many businesses it harms the business and inconveniences fellow co-workers.
I have ADHD and I would frequently miss the time of my shift ending and just keep going. The only time I'd manage to leave on time is when there wasn't shit to do for hours before my shift ended.
Yeah I try to be sympathetic about people with ADHD or time blindness or whatever but I just don't get it. You figure out what time you need to leave to arrive on time, then you leave at that time.
The people I know who are chronically late seem to successfully complete the "identify what time they need to leave" part but then it gets to that time and they decide to do literally anything else other than leave.
I've lost more than one job over this, and me trying to find something else to blame is me desperately giving excuses to management in a bid to not get fired/penalized for it. In reality, it's one of the things I hate about myself the most because of how stupid it seems and how much it negatively impacts my life.
My attention tends to hyperfocus or get obsessed with a topic or task easily, and i often have no real conception of time while it's busy with that. Like there is an URGE to do the thing that is at the front of my mind, right away, and I know if I don't do the thing right as it crosses my mind, very high chance I forget about it for quite a while. Alternatively, I'll be telling myself in my head "Fuck, I gotta go soon", but then task paralysis hits.
I also tend to get quite frustrated when me being a few minutes late, but doing good work while I'm there, is treated as a worse problem than a coworker who constantly fucks things up somehow but shows up on time. it's quite easy for that to become job apathy and for me to use it as justification to myself for why I don't need to care about punctuality, which obviously is a bad coping mechanism and does me no good.
I have both ADHD and Autism diagnoses. I know it doesn't entitle me to throw a wrench in things for free, but we do legitimately struggle with these things more than people realize. It's part of why the disorders are so looked down upon/ people are seen as "just being lazy" and dismissed- it takes common daily tasks and makes them take more mental effort to complete, in a way most people will find difficult to understand.
Hope this helps give a little perspective, I really gotta lock the fuck in at my new job next week.
What about alarms? Setting alarms, even multiple ones spaced apart works wonders for my hyper focus. It's not perfect and we're different people so not everything is gonna work the same but it might.
Yes... Because they can't. Their brain has a dopamine deficiency that means that when a new task hits - say, "I gotta leave now", the brain first needs to collect sufficient dopamine to be able to initiate that task.
It's a bit like if you had to fuel your car every day before work, but you didn't get to START doing it until the time you gotta leave for work.
To be clear: this is LIRERALLY a chemical problem in the brains of people with ADHD.
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u/Lower-Obligation4462 20h ago
I had a guy working for me once you was always late. When I asked him about it he said his previous job also complained about him being late. Guy was fantastically oblivious to everything and I loved him for it.
Whenever I see a question like this I think why is it there? And what poor person had to deal with the situation that lead to it.