More than three hundred years have passed since the great French king Louis XIV uttered his famous phrase “Punctuality is the politeness of kings”, accustoming all his surroundings – and after them, the whole world – to keep time exactly. Prior to that, people were half-hearted about punctuality; they could easily be an hour or even two late.

Now, with the presence of a whole bunch of various electronic gadgets, time planning services and smart watches, it would seem almost impossible to be late somewhere without force majeure. And yet, many people still manage to be late – and do it regularly. Well, that’s just their nature.

For example, this kind of person turned out to be a friend of the author of this post in the AITA Reddit community, which scored 24.2K upvotes and about 5.0K comments in just a few days. However, the Original Poster hopes that the lesson he taught his friend will stop her from being late. Well, let’s see.

More info: Reddit

The Original Poster has a friend who is constantly late anywhere

Image credits: দেবর্ষি রায় (not the actual image)

So, the Original Poster is 25 years old, he works at a university, and his friend is the same age and is a PhD student there. Since the friend’s house is on the OP’s way to work, he often gives her a ride to the university.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

What has always annoyed the OP about his friend, though, is that she is constantly late. It doesn’t matter if it’s work-related or fun activities – she’s always 15-20 minutes late. As a result, sometimes the OP has had to deal with problems at his own work – especially when he waited 20 minutes for this friend near her house, and as a result, he was late for work himself by the same 20 minutes.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

The OP says that his friend is always very apologetic about her lateness but nothing could really change her

The OP admits that his friend is always very apologetic about her lateness, but it always seems to him that nothing will change her. And yet, the man tried to do it anyway by teaching her a little lesson.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

The OP deliberately asked his friend not to be late as he had to give her a ride to an important PhD seminar

One day, when the woman was to attend a seminar that was crucial to her scientific career, she had asked him to pick her up in the morning in advance. The man also warned in advance that he would arrive at 8am, and would like her to be ready by this time too. The woman literally swore that she would not be late, and they agreed to meet in the morning.

Image credits: Rydale Clothing (not the actual image )

When the OP arrived at his friend’s house at 7:55, he texted to her that he was already there, and she replied that she would be out in “just a minute”. As the OP admits, of course, this did not happen, and at 8:01, he simply drove off.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

The woman was late once more so the OP simply drove off and she called him 20 minutes later asking where he was

At about 8:20, the OP continues, his friend called him and asked where he was. The man honestly admitted that he did not wait for her and left for work. The woman was very upset. She said that her seminar would start at 9am, and began to literally beg the OP to come back for her and still take her to the venue.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

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The OP admits that he could have, of course, made a quick trip to his friend’s house, picked her up and taken her to the university, without much damage to his work, but he decided that he did not want to do this and simply said that he could not come.

Image credits: u/Lateforexams115 

The woman asked the OP to pick her up anyway, but he just listened to her and hung up

Then the woman began to cry and said that otherwise she would not have time to attend this seminar, which was critically important for her, and an absence would be fraught with serious consequences for her. The OP listened to her, said “oh well” and simply hung up. After that, he calmly returned to his work.

Image credits: Brian Evans (not the actual image)

But then, as the OP himself admits, he began to wonder if he was right to do so and, in fact, doing harm to his friend’s career. On the other hand, he believes that such a serious lesson can help her finally learn not to be late.

People in the comments told him that the lesson, though a bit harsh, was rather fair and proper

However, the people in the comments quickly dispelled any doubts the OP had about him being right. After all, as the commenters rightly claim, even after the OP hung up, his friend had roughly 40 minutes to get to the university – and she probably made it herself by calling a taxi.

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Of course, the OP could have once again reminded the woman about his time restrictions. For sure he could have been kinder. Of course, he could have texted her that was about to drive off. However, he warned the woman several times in advance, so this lesson, according to most commenters, although it turned out to be very harsh, still looks pretty fair.

We’re almost sure you’ve already made up your mind about this particular story and its participants, so we’re already looking forward to your comments. And if you have ever been in a similar situation as well, then feel free to tell your own tale.

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