Love my sister dearly, she’s one of my closest friends, but she is also the most unreliable people I know.

Today she was supposed to meet me at our mom’s for breakfast. She was supposed to bring an egg-bake. She overslept; of course. I 100% knew that she would, it’s what she does. Obviously no chance of taking mom to a restaurant for breakfast without reservations on Mother’s Day; fortunate that she likes Starbucks Breakfast sandwiches....so off I go.

Just so frustrating.

People like that get zero responsibilities from me. I refuse to rely on them for anything. Why bother if you know how it will end?

I decline to enable people like that.

Kin or not, if they say they're going to do something with/for me and blow me off without notice or apology, they get an earful from me.

My little brother is the King of that sort of behavior. I see it as a form of Narcissism - "What I randomly decided I want to do is much more important than what I told someone else I would do."

I would just assume she will not contribute at all and plan accordingly. Assume she may or may not even show up.

Honestly though, I’ve eliminated these types of people from my life. I don’t associate with them at all; I’m fine if they appear at the same venue but it won’t be because of any interaction I’ve had with them. I wasted a good portion of 10 years dealing with people like that - friends and family - no more.

People who are late are informing you that their time is more important than yours. Passive aggressive behavior.

I’ve found that people in general don’t seem to be very reliable these days.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
People like that get zero responsibilities from me. I refuse to rely on them for anything. Why bother if you know how it will end?

This. Don't ever rely on an unreliable person. If your sister asks to bring something, tell her to bring something that won't matter if she doesn't or doesn't show.

I've gotten rid of these people as well. Some of them are siblings.

One of my stepmother’s sisters is notoriously late to EVERYTHING. If a family function starts at 2 pm, you MIGHT see her arrive at 4 or 5 pm.

They learned pretty early on for the annual family reunion to assign her dessert if anything at all because if she was assigned to bring salad or something, it would never make it by the time it was needed.

If you wanted my dad to come over for dinner, invite him over for lunch.

I make it a point not to plan events with people that have this kind of reputation. I doesn’t mean I dislike them, I just put boundaries on them and move on.

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
Love my sister dearly, she’s one of my closest friends, but she is also the most unreliable people I know.

Today she was supposed to meet me at our mom’s for breakfast. She was supposed to bring an egg-bake. She overslept; of course. I 100% knew that she would, it’s what she does. Obviously no chance of taking mom to a restaurant for breakfast without reservations on Mother’s Day; fortunate that she likes Starbucks Breakfast sandwiches....so off I go.

Just so frustrating.

She still sucks (you know what I mean) but if that is "what she does," then why give her the job? Or do you just want your mother to know it was her fault? Don't play those games, if it was. (I bet she knows already.)

I had a distant relative? (Sister's husband's brother in law) that owned a jewelry store. He was trained as a watchmaker and always said how wearing a fine watch was a reflection of character.

He was always late to events he was invited to.

I also notice that the ones who do this float around in a fog of drama. When they are on Facebook their posts read like a soap opera.
If you attempt to talk to them reasonably about their behavior they are the (hand on forehead) "victim".

The sister I am referring to in my OP was recently gifted quite a bit of furniture from a generous aunt.

Her only responsibility is to rent a truck and come down to the cities and pick everything up and bring it back to her home.

Instead of doing what she should be doing, she and her husband are going to borrow someone’s “trailer“ and they hope to have it unloaded from the house in about an hour. LOL

I told her it took me an hour to load up the small van worth of things I was able to get from our aunt, it will take her at least twice that as everything is still staged in the house and not sitting in the garage waiting to be loaded.

I also reminded her that she should ask her husband if he has any friends in the area who can help them move things because some of it is quite heavy, she said they would figure it out.

There is a 100% chance the trailer they bring is not going to be big enough.

There is a 100% chance they are not going to get any help and her husband will not be able toGet this furniture out of the house and into the truck by himself.

There is a 100% chance I will not be answering my phone or text messages tomorrow when she calls in a panic looking for me to help move.

I always had a "15 minute" rule with people (mostly women) who were late. If they didn't call to inform me they would be late, after 15 minutes I moved on.

Several got pissed at me for not waiting for them.

My older sister was late her entire life. She had an 8 to 5 job. She usually got there at 8:30. She was a good worker. Her supervisor changed her hours to 8:30 to 5:30. She got there around 9:00.

My sister was late for every date with a guy. I would have to entertain her boyfriend for half an hour to an hour every time. She was almost an hour late for her wedding.

The only time she was on time was for her funeral.

quote:

Originally posted by LimaCharlie:
My older sister was late her entire life. She had an 8 to 5 job. She usually got there at 8:30. She was a good worker. Her supervisor changed her hours to 8:30 to 5:30. She got there around 9:00.

My sister was late for every date with a guy. I would have to entertain her boyfriend for half an hour to an hour every time. She was almost an hour late for her wedding.

The only time she was on time was for her funeral.

Then, she's still not that bad. I've heard that there are folks who were such habitual laters than they were late even for their own funerals. And, Satan was pissed.

Yep, my younger brother is the Mr. Late also known as Mr. Unreliable of our family.

For Christmas dinner, one year, he offered to bring the main entree - a spiral-cut ham; well he finally showed up 2 hours late with the ham (bone in)....we ended up just cutting chunks off of the ham and cooking them on higher heat

It's pretty sad, if you met him, you'd think he was kindest, most thoughtful person ever, but family members know better, we're apparently not as important than strangers

I gave up on brothers long ago. Ones a drunk and the other is an idiot.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
I always had a "15 minute" rule with people (mostly women) who were late. If they didn't call to inform me they would be late, after 15 minutes I moved on.

Several got pissed at me for not waiting for them.

I had a zero minute wait policy with my grandsons. They lived right around the corner from me so travel time was a non-issue.

If I was going somewhere and one wanted to go with me, I'd set the departure time. At DT +30 seconds, I was gone, grandson or no grandson.

Didn't take 'em long to catch on.