archaeocoyote replied to your post: archaeocoyote replied to your post: ...
That’s the crux of the difference though, for me “around 3” is already implicit in “at 3.” Where I grew up to only way to get someone somewhere at exactly 3 would be to tell them to be there at 2:30 lmao. For lack of much word space I meant offense in the larger sense of disquiet or unhappiness - the point being that the monochronic attachment for politeness or peace of mind or whatever to clock-time vs polychronic people-time can cause this exact kind of mix-up.
These advicey articles are aimed at people who exist within cultural contexts in which being late is widely considered to be an error on the tardy person’s part, which is why they’re saying “I’m sorry” In the first place. And it seems clear that the authors of these articles KNOW it is considered an inconvenience/error, or it wouldn’t be in the list.
And they know that the target audience of the article is people who (probably) apologize too much and maybe don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves, but instead of encouraging that person to develop better situational judgment, they’re just handing out another blanket set of rules to follow, because ~surely~ the way to overcome a lack of confidence in yourself is to swap one set of rules for SOMEONE ELSE’S set of rules! One of those rules apparently being “don’t acknowledge mistakes, it makes you look weak.” (Unless it’s a “big enough” mistake, because then and only then will your apology seem sincere!! Naw, bullshit, you can be sincere and be seen as sincere for a minor error, and the article writers KNOW IT, because they often include “accidentally bumping into someone” as an acceptable time to say “I’m sorry” and quickly move on.)
In work settings it is extremely common for meeting space to be a hot commodity, and for people to have busy schedules, so putting “running late” into the same category as “tiny errors you should not acknowledge, because it makes you look weak,” doesn’t look like real good advice to me. (And if you’re fully half an hour late to meet a friend, depending on your relationship and the bigger context, that actually could be a pretty serious problem you should acknowledge, despite what some of the article writers believe.)
Here’s one of the most gross articles I’ve read on it but they all sound like they’re essentially plagiarizing the same original source, because this topic is trendy. Most of them demonstrate a LOT of really bad writing and terrible logic, especially on the “don’t say you’re sorry for being late” topic, though I’m skeptical about some of the other examples, too.
...not all situations call for your apology!
Take being late, for example. Instead of rushing in and saying “Sorry I’m late!” try using appreciation instead: “Thank you for waiting!” This little script flip changes a situation from being fault-based (yours) into gratitude based (i.e. warm fuzzies for your coworkers).
It IS the tardy person’s fault the thing is starting late, and no one is going to be fooled that it isn’t, except the people writing these damn articles! I’ve sat in enough meetings where people were annoyed by having to start late to know how this goes, and “thank you for waiting” isn’t going to help. We’re still running late! Just acknowledge the very real inconvenience quickly and move on, not everything needs to be a chance to “practice gratitude.”
