Redditor ReddBolt511 was curious to hear the best retorts people have given, or recieved, to being told they were late, leading them to ask:
"What's the best response to 'You're late'?
I learned my lesson.
"The first time I was late in over two years, HR wrote me up."
"In the evening I went home on time and HR asked me why I was already heading out."
"I told them I have learned my lesson and won't be late for the second time."- atot806
Tell me something I don't know.
"I know, thank you for your patience."- dayglo98
"This way, you’re not acknowledging your screwup, but commending the other party for waiting for you. Started doing this a couple of years ago and it works wonders." - Ma1
Priorities...
"Sorry I didn’t want to come."- HonestSapphireLion24
"I used this one in my last place of employment, works a charm." - Sashie-
Argue Peace Out GIFGonna have to do better than that!
"A bloke in my high school had a cracker that I’ll never forget."
"Teacher: 'you’re 10 minutes late'."
"Student: 'yeah sorry I was walking slowly'."
"It did not go down well."- Rosemount3051S
Catch me up, why don't you!
"Why?"
'What did I miss?"- rwubmc
Be one step ahead.
"Don't give them a chance to say anything."
"Walk in and say: 'I see you have started without me'."- JustBeingDylan
Here I Am Oscars GIF by The Academy AwardsGiphyBe like the superhero they are...
"Walk past them and say:"
'"Well, now we’re waiting for you'.”
"RDJ as Iron Man".- miguelmoen
Maybe just be honest?
"I remember a guy was late for grade 12 chemistry class and our chemistry teacher was really strict and when the teacher asked him why are you late he quickly spat out"
"'Because I didn't make it here on time'."
"It's a great line but he didn't do it on purpose."- nardpuncher
You knew it was coming...
"How do you know my menstrual cycles?"- ThisAnswerIsLit
Black Girl Period GIFGiphySchool
"I used this to explain why I was late in Uni once:"
"You're 5 mins late, you oversleep or something?"
"No, I just miscalculated how fast I had to walk" - Epsil0nStar
"My geometry teacher liked to say 'If you're early you're on time, if you're on time you're late, and if you're late it's unacceptable.' And I hated that phrase."
"So when I was finally late once she told me her little phrase, I asked if I could use the board. I drew out the transitive property we had learned, a=b, and b=c, so a=c. I then split up her phrase."
"A=Early"
"B=On time"
"C=Late"
"D=Unacceptable"
"So I demonstrated that if A=B and B=C and C=D then that means that if I'm early it's unacceptable, if I'm on time it's unacceptable, and if I'm late it's unacceptable, so my only option is to not show up at all. I thought I'd get a smirk and told to sit down since it showed I was applying what she taught us, but I just got detention instead. Probably the wittiest moment of my time in school." - DisgruntledDimebag
Track Star
"I did track and field for a bit when I was around seven. One guy came half an hour late to practice once, the coach asks him why he was so late. Without missing a beat he goes: 'Sorry mum hit a red light."' - Swooper86
Wizarding World
“A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. - Gandalf the Grey" - Wudchuck·
Into The Spiderverse
"Time is relative, right? Maybe I’m not late, maybe you’re all just early. - Miles Morales" - anxiously-applying
Clapping Back
"Your grasp of the obvious is inspiring." - spaghettiThunderbalt
Working the System
"I was running late for an important meeting once, and I knew I was gonna be 5 minutes late. So I stopped into a donut shop and picked up a dozen. Arrived ten minutes late, but apologized, held up the box and said, “I wanted to surprise everyone with this but the shop took longer than I thought it would, these just came out!” My delay was completely forgotten and I was actually thanked for it."
"Suffice to say 1) I’m American and 2) this only works once so use it sparingly." - What Archer What
Potty Humor
"I had a classmate pull this off. she looked the teacher dead in the eye and said: 'very bad diarrhea. I laughed to tears. The best thing was she really had to go." - EstaLisa
Uno Reverse
"I can go back home..." - GothamIntrovert
"I do recommend adding 'if you want me to' at the end because it might seem like a threat to go back home if they give you repercussions for being late." - EnderBoiiwastaken
Royal Response
"A queen is never late. Everyone else is simply, early" - blueeyed_bashful96
Quick Thinking
"It depends on which clock you are looking at."
"We had a temp employee use that one once and I still laugh about it." - monstermack1977
Pranks
"If you know you’re gonna be late, change the time on your phone and then act confused as to why all your clocks at home were changed. And that you thought you were on time." - Competitive_Lab_3924
Power Move
"I'm early for next time." - Manifestival1
Next time you find yourself running late, rather than worrying about it the whole time, maybe spend it thinking of a clever response?
You'd be surprised how much is forgiven by a good laugh.
I love concerts and I've been very lucky. I haven't had a bad experience. Yes, Adele cancelled but I had already seen her.
Snoop
Stank Face Snoop Dogg GIF by BrownSugarAppGiphy"Snoop Dogg 2010 Took him 4 hours to come out because he was watching the lakers Celtics finals. Then when it ended we walked outside and people were getting tear gassed."
Purpledranksoxguy
Wigged Out
"The Wiggles last show in Brisbane (the original line up) my 3 and a half year old was crazy for them. She pooped herself in the first minute of the first song and then after I got her changed she decided the wiggles were the most terrifying thing she has ever seen. Didn’t even last the first half. What a waste of $80 plus $12 for parking. Didn’t even get to hear hot potato."
User Deleted
Fitty...
"50 Cent. Holy crap. We lived in a small Canadian crap town that was predominantly white and it was a big deal to a lot of people that he was coming. Show pretty much sold out. Dude has four or five other rappers perform as opening acts and then a guy who looked like 50 Cent."
"But didn't sound like him showed up and performed parts of songs for about 15 minutes and then walked off the stage. Literally 45 second parts of songs. It was amazing. People speculated for months afterwards that it wasn't actually him and that he ran into issues at the border."
User Deleted
Mudd
"Puddle of Mudd a couple years ago. They came on stage an hour late and Wes Scantlin was clearly f**ked up on something. He yelled at the audience to quote 'Suck a bag of d**ks' sang half the lyrics of two songs and stumbled off stage. Whole thing lasted maybe 10 minutes at most."
wikki_kid
happy youtube GIF"She was late coming on which wasn’t the best start. She was bloody awful singing live. The tickets were stupidly expensive and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a sell out, there was loads of standing room left. She didn’t do an encore. Oh and the sound was terrible."
BlahBlahBlah347
Oh Madge. I do have to say... as a true disciple... this tardiness issue needs to end. It's ridiculous!
Not into it...
axl rose GIFGiphy"Metallica/Guns 'n Rose's tour, don't remember the year. They co-headlined and would switch who played first at the different shows."
"Body Count was the opener. Body Count played a good show. Metallica came out and rocked it. Guns n Rose's came out about 2 hours after Metallica finished their set, drunk, out of tune and generally not into it. We left about 20 minutes into their set."
sanguinius74
Never Forget
"I was working as a stagehand for a Rockfest about 5 years ago, and the finale act of the entire festival was Rob Zombie. The show sold out and I was stoked to see a legend perform from side stage. However it was short lived, because after 1 and a half songs, Zombie's voice gave out and he had to leave the stage. There was a 3 hour waiting period and the audience was chanting for Zombie to come back out."
"But it never happened. The house told us to start tearing down the stage, and the crowd started to riot while me and the stage-crew went out front and began packing up the equipment. People were throwing stuff at us from the crowd, booing, and chanting (but I guess I would have been too if my $200 non-refundable ticket was wasted).Truly a memory I'll never forget."
JediMasterMacky
Thanks Lupe...
"It would have to be Lupe Fiasco in DC two or three years ago. He played half his set and the just bounced without telling anyone. Even the staff were telling us he was coming back out. Probably waited like an hour and then the house lights came on and it was over. Thanks Lupe."
erasethenoise
Oh Wu...
"I went to see Wu Tang Clan. Doors opened at 7, and I was there by 730. Show was supposed to start at 9. At 8 a DJ came on stage with his MacBook and played music 'to entertain us until the Wu is ready.' He played until almost 1am, and during this time he played six different versions of the song METHOD MAN."
"When the Clan finally came out on stage, you know who wasn't there? F**king Method Man. But I did get to watch my buddy literally pee on a guy who had punched a girl in the crowd, so it wasn't all bad."
Solid_Freakin_Snake
Booo
Fuck Me Pumps GIF by Amy WinehouseGiphy"Amy Winehouse in Dubai, a few weeks before she died. She was so out of it she barely sang and left it to her backup crew to entertain the crowd. She was booed most of the concert."
thebolts
The College Circuit
"Hellogoodbye performed at my college in 2008. It's a liberal arts school in the middle of Pennsyltucky, and the band showed up drunk, kept saying our town was a craphole, and repeatedly tried to cut their hour-long set short. They left the stage with a half hour left in their set, and the school's concert committee had to physically push the band back onto the stage. They put zero effort into the show and I lost whatever respect I had for them after having listened to Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn thousands of times in high school."
"There was a girl who lived on my hall and she and her boyfriend were huge Hellogoodbye fans. They were so excited for the show, her boyfriend came in from out of town, and they left so disappointed. It was Bucknell University. Sounds like the band acted this way at most of their small college shows."
LoseItGainMore
After the Fight
"All of the concerts I've been to have been, at worst, decent but the worst of them would be Bon Jovi during the spat with Richie Sambora. Nobody had been informed Richie Sambora wasn't going to be there so, when they came out and started playing, you could just feel the entire energy of the crowd die down."
"As we listened throughout the songs, you could tell something big was missing. Bon Jovi just did not sound the same. It was disheartening. It's amazing how much Richie brought to Bon Jovi and yet people only know Jon."
Gotta Go
"Morrissey at Coachella in 2009. He whined the entire time and dry hacked because one of the stalls served meat. I had hitched a ride with a band that was trying to sneak in and I went a head and just bought my ticket. They soon gave up and texted me they were leaving. So I paid like over $100 to watch Morrissey gag and maybe ten minutes of Paul McCartney."
smokesmagoats
Not Prime
James Brown Soul GIF by EL ROCK ES CULTURAGiphy"James Brown, some time in the '90s. He was two hours late getting on stage, and then 90% of his songs are build-up while he shuffles back and forth. I hear he was great in his prime. I did not see him in his prime."
Porrick
Want a Tree?
"Saw Cake and between sets they spent 30 min trying to give away a lemon tree. They did this by having the crowd try and guess what kind of tree it was and the acceptable answer was Myers Lemon took the crowed along time to get there. It was a real energy killer."
throwmeawayphil
Imma Sit
"Matisyahu. He just paced around the stage for the first half of the show, stopped the set at some point to shout at someone in the crowd for smoking some weed, and then sat down on a speaker to finish the rest of his show. Like, he literally just sat on the speaker until he left."
YOURMOMMASA*ITCH
Lost
"Lostprophets. they were drunk on stage, played sub-par and certainly not a sell out. this was Newport in 2012, turns out to be their last ever concert before Ian Watkins arrest."
averybritishbloke
"I'm so glad I never got into Lostprophets. They were one of the bands I probably would have liked. I was utterly horrified by what happened, but it would have been 10x worse if I had been a fan of their music. I feel so sorry for the other guys in the band who worked on the music for so many years only for it to be tainted to hell. Watkins can f**king rot."
Bad Day
bob dylan deal with it GIFGiphy"Bob Dylan. I had to do a lab report that day and Bob Dylan was still the worst part of my whole day."
mhaydar
Ages Ago...
"Showing my age here. The Beach Boys in Adelaide Australia (back in the 70s). Came on stage an hour late and the lot of them sounded absolutely horrible through the whole concert, those harmonies they were famous for were left back in the US. I swear there must have been a lot of help when they created their albums, because live, they were terrible."
malleeman
Entertainers! Get it together! We pay a lot of $$$ for you. Have some respect.
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Prices and money. Just tell me how much it is. Don't round down. I'm going to be pissed even if you're a dollar off.
Actually... 10/10
Season 3 GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy“'I’ll try it out/l'll look into it.' 9/10 times, they won’t try it out or look into it."
xSevusxBean4y
On the Way...
“I’ll be there in five minutes, I just left my place.”
januspestifermundi
"I remember calling a friend who was late to a party and he said he is walking to the bus stop... only to realise later that I accidentally called his landline number instead of his phone."
that-69guy
"One of my friends growing up got called to work and said he was out of town. Yep, it was a landline. They fired him. It was McDonald's by the way."
Pud500001
Lazy
"I read the terms and conditions."
jessie-
"There was a case in the US where the defending company was unable to provide a witness that could verify all the terms and conditions. Even the lawyers who write them, do not read them. Nobody reads them all - nobody."
StarAStar1
"People are too lazy to read a short sentence on a door... but sure, they read the fine print on their cell phone contract."
Firethorn101
"friendly and human"
“Your call is very important to us…”
mcapozzi
Had to deal with an automatic phone system yesterday and it was so uncomfortable. It was clearly a bot. However it was clearly written in an attempt to try and be 'friendly and human' and it fell into the uncanny valley so hard it created an even deeper valley. It was saying stuff like 'in a moment I'll connect you with one of my friends.' creepy as hell."
NinjaBreadManOO
Money Travels
i see you no GIF by Shalita GrantGiphy"That check went out in today’s mail."
SantaRosaJazz
"I sent it a couple days ago, should be there soon if you don’t have it already."
LanfearSedai
If the check is late, it's late. They're still turning off the power.
No Answer
seth meyers GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy"Just about any response to 'how's it going?'"
beeg98
“sorry”
"When a mistake is made or whatever and the person say 'sorry' then the other person says 'it’s fine' when it’s not fine. They just trying to be nice and not have it be awkward."
International-Set956
"I wish there were a way to distinguish between 'it's OK (because it was OK for you to do that)' and 'it's OK (because I accept your apology).' But 'you've done nothing wrong' and 'I forgive you' both sound really formal, and also I feel like they sound too much like 'I'm judging you.'"
KpcAu
K.I.P
"I'd love to hangout some time."
SeaTurtlePrince
"I resent this one so much. I had a friend who would repeatedly say this, schedule a time and place to hang, but then not show up. Then she’d get mad at ME for being upset that she wasted my time. We stopped being friends over it."
cowgirltrainwreck
"I hate this. Leading people on is cruel Why can't you just say nothing?"
RadiantHC
talk to me...
"HR: You can feel free to talk to us if you have any questions or concerns."
My4skinBreaksCondoms
"Wifey used to leave comments in HRs anonymous box, but since it was a small company hr lady knew everyone and would come answer her directly. So we started messing with her by making progressively more ridiculous suggestions. Lasted a few years and a lot of laughs. And the HR lady got to know my handwriting too!"
moncompteajete
Go Away GIFYou've earned it...
"I don't like drama."
wyatt_slurp
"There's two types of that, at least, the cathartic purger and the a**hole that wants to relive their childhood and instigates drama rather than try to get it out of their system. That crazy maker type is why I have no respect for people that have PTSD anymore. I don't care what you went through, you deserved it as you're making others go through it. You've earned it."
agnostic-infp-neet
No doubt...
"Any variation of a guy saying that he could've/would've gone pro/D1 if it wasn't for an injury."
mylovertotoro
"Back in ‘82 I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile. How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind."
CPSux
Last Time
“'They did it for me the last time I was here!'”
“'They did it at [some other location that isn’t this one]!'”
"Shoutout to my customer service people."
burningtowns
"Omg as a lifeguard when people say this just because a different lifeguard was okay with something it makes me want to throw something."
Jumpy_Beach_6525
2 Words
winnie the pooh love quotes GIFGiphy"I'm fine."
MoonRise93
"r/beatmetoit I literally came here to say those exact 2 words."
MrPers0n30
Snake Eyes
“Went to Vegas and broke even.”
gdsmithtx
"I actually did this my first time out. Payed for vacation cost and all. Left with x and returned with x. Next time I went though… not so lucky."
Veni_vidi_vici-505
"It's believable if he says that only once or occasionally. If he tells you every trip he breaks even or it happens most of the time, that's a lie."
didijxk
Yeah right...
"I'll call you back."
myownpurgatory
"No you won't. I'll call you to chase it up, you'll be irritable on the phone because I rang even though you've been sitting on it finished for an hour, we both silently acknowledge you need a receptionist."
brockford-junktion
Constant panic...
"I drive better when I'm drunk!"
M4wR0
"Or 'I drive perfectly fine while high.' It doesn't matter if you think you do, just don't. It's about everyone else's safety and not just your own."
the_curious_ent
"When I’ve driven high as a teen, it was terrifying. Constant panic. A farm tractor could’ve beat me also. 30 under the speed limit. Quickly learned a lesson on that."
megocaaa
yes, but...
Sassy Red Wine GIF by Married At First SightGiphy"No offense, but..."
FWYDU
"I prefer 'with all due respect' not technically a lie, just the other party overestimating the amount of respect I have for them."
Lexnal
So Kind...
"I'm humble."
yeetus-that-cheetus
"I brag about how humble I am. Someday I will carve into a mountain a monument declaring to all just how humble I am... with spot lights shining on it and dancers out in front of my monument to my awesome levels of humble."
GreatJanitor
Humans are nuts. Save yourself the drama. Just be blunt and truthful. Save the energy.
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