they are late because being on time is inherently inefficient and detrimental to maximal value extraction from the lives of individuals and humanity as a whole.
if you code then easiest analogy i can think of is that people tend to optimise for a certain wait time on average rather than always have cpu time available exactly when you need it.this is like - everyone should shoot to be at a meeting / event within a certain time frame that reflect the length of time this event is going to block them out for, how far it deviates from their planned activities and how much noticed they had.
If everyone is sometimes late then many more important things will get done much faster as people didn't just drop what they were doing to be on time.
rather than get upset by lateness I try to just never ask for people to be anywhere any given time..and if i am asking them then i think about how much extra time it takes out of their life to do it exactly when i asked (not 5 mins after or before - as both cause problems).
I also factor into these considerations that time is an abstract concept - so humans will never really give a hoot what it has to say, outcomes matter. i have never met an "always on time" person that doesn't spend way to much pointless time checking the time and thinking about the time... much like the ridiculous lengths you have to go to when programming to stop processing something at the correct time (e.g. truly deterministic control systems or games with a strong commitment to never drop a frame but carry out tasks that take way more than a frame to do)
I occasionally miss a train or a flight and that is deliberate because I optimise for minimal unproductive time waiting. The train/plane will leave without me if I am not there.
However if people are persistently late to multi-attendee meetings it increases total wait time over all the attendees which is not optimal for the group.
The more people are present and the less possible it is to start without them, the more wait time is being introduced by any person's lateness. Of course, there are far too many meetings with far too many people but that is a separate problem.
If someone just needs to chat with me at some point online or at my desk if in the office, we will usually agree a vague time slot as that is a 2 sided problem only and I can work on other things until they arrive. If they ask me to meet in a particular place where I cannot work while in a wait-state, I expect them to be on time.
if you code then easiest analogy i can think of is that people tend to optimise for a certain wait time on average rather than always have cpu time available exactly when you need it.this is like - everyone should shoot to be at a meeting / event within a certain time frame that reflect the length of time this event is going to block them out for, how far it deviates from their planned activities and how much noticed they had.
If everyone is sometimes late then many more important things will get done much faster as people didn't just drop what they were doing to be on time.
rather than get upset by lateness I try to just never ask for people to be anywhere any given time..and if i am asking them then i think about how much extra time it takes out of their life to do it exactly when i asked (not 5 mins after or before - as both cause problems).
I also factor into these considerations that time is an abstract concept - so humans will never really give a hoot what it has to say, outcomes matter. i have never met an "always on time" person that doesn't spend way to much pointless time checking the time and thinking about the time... much like the ridiculous lengths you have to go to when programming to stop processing something at the correct time (e.g. truly deterministic control systems or games with a strong commitment to never drop a frame but carry out tasks that take way more than a frame to do)