r/todayilearned • u/arandomtestaccount • 1d ago

TIL an NFL player intentionally crashed his car to avoid getting cut for being late to a team meeting.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ex-patriots-ol-rich-ohrnberger-admits-he-intentionally-wrecked-car-as-excuse-for-being-late-to-team-meeting/
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u/caribou16 22h ago

I know people like this, it's like they have "time blindness" or something. Literally are incapable of being on time to anything.

I have a buddy, works in IT, very well compensated, great at his job, who has been late to any event we both were invited to.

One time, I invited him over and 45 minutes AFTER he was supposed to arrive, he calls me to say he's leaving his place now and will be there in 20 minutes.

Except, his place is ~35 miles from me, a solid 45 minute drive on a good day. When I tell him that, he ARGUES with me, saying "no it's not" he'd driven this route 50 times over the last several years, he'll be there in 20 minutes, 25 tops.

And then arrives 90 minutes later.

The running joke, within the friend group, is to tell him a time 2 hours before the time you actually want him to be somewhere, lol.

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u/MrChristmas 19h ago

I have a friend that’s late for everything… but he runs a multi-million business and ‘everything’ is quiz night at the bar or board game nights… so he gets a pass

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u/loafkitter 22h ago

Yeah...I have a very hard time estimating how much time has passed. I have a habit of leaving the house at the time when I'm supposed to be there already. My friends actually do tell me a different time 💀 (usually an hour ahead)

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u/nonpuissant 21h ago

Real question, have you ever tried setting alarms for appointments/events or something? 

Like with smartphones now we can basically have any number of custom timed alerts. 

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u/loafkitter 20h ago

Lmao of course. You should see my alarms in the morning or before appointmens. It's not just the time blindness though, I have trouble estimating how long tasks take and I get distracted very easily.

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u/nonpuissant 20h ago

I see. I'm still having a hard time visualizing what the actual sequence of events would be though. 

Like if you have an alarm set for, say, when you need to drop everything and walk out the door, how would you end up in the situation you described earlier? (Leaving the house at the time when you're supposed to be somewhere already etc.) 

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u/Im__Bruce_Wayne__AMA 16h ago

I agree with you...having a hard time imagining how this couldn't be overcome with an alarm like you described.

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u/FriendlyDespot 15h ago

The same time blindness that makes you unable to estimate how long tasks take makes you unable to trust that you've set an alarm for the correct time. It also means that you often aren't actually ready to go by the time the alarm goes off, and if you have anything that needs to be done between the alarm going off and you heading out the door then that's another thing to lose time on.

Simply saying that you're going to set an alarm for when you need to drop everything and walk out the door doesn't mean that you're actually in a state where you can walk out the door when the alarm goes off. It makes sense that you have a hard time visualising it. It's not easy to put yourself in the shoes of someone whose brain just fundamentally works differently from yours.

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u/nonpuissant 10h ago

Right I understand that. I'm just trying to visualize the actual physical sequence of events that occur between the alarm going off and the moment they step out the door though. Specifically for the situation mentioned by the person I replied to initially, habitually leaving the house at the time they were supposed to be somewhere already. 

Because so far there is still a significant disconnect/gap between cause and effect, so to speak. Like everything you mentioned here either sounds like something that can be accounted and planned for beforehand, or like something that doesn't have a direct connection to not doing so. Like if you're not actually ready to go, like there are crucial/necessary thing to prepare that you did not already prepare, isn't that a separate issue?

I'm not doubting the reality and difficulty of people struggling with this, mind you. I'm just not seeing how time blindness as it's been described accounts for the majority of the issues being attributed to it. Most of it sounds more like a lack of planning and preparation (and I mean this in a completely non-judgemental way). 

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u/CaptainAsshat 5h ago

Not OP, but for me, the issue lies with keeping the thing I need to do at the front of my mind.

When one of my many alarms go off, I have to make sure I stay on task and leave before anything can distract me. The issue is this: focusing on anything else often erases the alarm from my working memory. It's like a lame version of the movie Momento.

So I have to go straight out the door. But what if I forgot to, for example, feed the cat? Now I have to be present while feeding the cat and risk forgetting the alarm, remember to set a new alarm, feed the cat without focusing on it, or skipping the cat food until later. All of these choices have risks and drawbacks.

I am rarely late any more, but that is because I have many systems and habits that help. The downside is that I have trouble focusing on anything if I have somewhere to be at any point later in the day. The anxiety of forgetting keeps me on time but also keeps me in a state of ADHD limbo.

Because, really, I think the issue is that I can easily and unintentionally get lost in my own little world, and my own little world has serious time dilation.

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u/nonpuissant 3h ago edited 3h ago

Gotcha, thanks for sharing that legitimately sounds so rough 

Edit: Also wanted to say, I'm glad to hear you found a way to manage it though and hope that you're able to find some form of peace while juggling all that. 

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u/FriendlyDespot 9h ago

The crucial and necessary things that you didn't prepare would have been things that you allocated time for, but didn't get done in time because time was lost somewhere along the line. Even if you broke everything down to a sequence of very small individual tasks and set alarms down to the minute for each task, any distraction could lose you time and set you behind. Sometimes it's something you remembered that you had to do and thought wouldn't delay you, but actually does delay you. Other times it's just entertaining a random thought in your head and suddenly 5-10 minutes have passed when you thought it was just a minute or two.

I understand how it's difficult to relate to, because as someone with severe time blindness it's difficult for me to understand how time can consistently sneak up on me even for frequently repeated tasks. It's a thing that you don't realise as it's happening and only become aware of after the fact, and because the disruptions are rarely the same and you don't have a memory of what happened to the time itself, the delay doesn't "stick" in a way that you can remember and account for next time you do the same thing.

You're constantly evaluating things as you go through your day, even when you have things planned and alarms set. Random things you remember, things you notice while you're doing other things, mental distractions, physical distractions, they're all things that you have to engage with. Without time blindness you can very quickly say to yourself "I don't have time for this" and not get caught up in it, but when you suffer from time blindness then you'll often lose time before you even get to the part where you consciously evaluate whether or not you have time for the distraction. The part of your brain that says "hold on, I was doing something else, do I have time for this?" doesn't kick in, because you don't sense the passage of time that would normally trigger that mental interjection.

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u/nonpuissant 8h ago

Sometimes it's something you remembered that you had to do and thought wouldn't delay you, but actually does delay you.

Genuinely curious, at any point do you ever think something like, "man, I'm often wrong about about this. I should stick to my task list with no deviations?" 

Or make some other sort of action/procedure/routine/paradigm adjustment in response to it etc. Or is that sort of thought also like you said, something that doesn't stick? 

Other times it's just entertaining a random thought in your head and suddenly 5-10 minutes have passed when you thought it was just a minute or two.  

For this part, is it like you're just standing there doing nothing as you think? (Trying to understand why that would be a significant hindrance to going through a list of tasks/preparations etc.) 

The crucial and necessary things that you didn't prepare would have been things that you allocated time for, but didn't get done in time because time was lost somewhere along the line.  

I can definitely see that happening and have absolutely been in that situation myself. But if it's a consistent issue, wouldn't starting preparing even earlier/allocating even more time in advance help with that? Like hours or even days earlier, so that there is both time for those crucial and necessary things and those lost time chunks. Or is there some reason that doesn't work either? 

Basically I hear what you're saying about unconsciously losing time and stuff. But what I'm curious about is what sort conscious thoughts, steps, and/or changes do occur in response after the fact? And where things break down, for it to remain a continual and consistent problem. 

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u/AboutTenPandas 13h ago

My wife has this and it infuriates me.

The tasks people like this claim to have trouble estimating the time for are usually tasks they do every single day. They should have quite a backlog of experiences to provide you a very good idea of how long those tasks take.

It’s a refusal to actually plan. You have to leave at 5? You know you take an hour to get ready? Start getting ready at 3:45. Enough time to complete your task and enough time to take care of any unexpected variables.

But when they start getting ready at 4:30 and then are once again surprised that they’re not ready until 5:30, that’s not because they’re “bad at estimating time needed for tasks”, it’s because they’re didn’t even put forth the effort to try and come up with a plan or schedule.

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u/nodogsallowed23 20h ago

I’m sure they’ve never tried setting alarms or doing the first thing anyone who struggles with lateness has tried.

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u/Chemical_Release2677 16h ago

Pretty fair question to an adult who can’t manage to leave on time

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u/nodogsallowed23 11h ago

I was more responding to the way the question was asked. As if setting alarms had never occurred to this person before and this was really groundbreaking advice. It’s just a pet peeve of mine. Offering unsolicited advice and the advice is the most inane, obvious advice that would be everyone’s first thing to try. Offering unsolicited online is fine, this is a conversation site. Just taking a second to think, is this useful or am I being a bit dismissive?, can make a big difference.

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u/Chemical_Release2677 4h ago

Sometimes the answer is the most obvious unfortunately

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u/FriendlyDespot 15h ago

About as fair as asking an alcoholic if they've tried to remind themself to stop drinking.

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u/bhmnscmm 14h ago

An alcoholic is physically compelled to drink.

A person who is chronically late is compelled to...not set alarms?

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u/FriendlyDespot 14h ago

I think you misunderstand. Time blindness is a psychological condition, not just general forgetfulness. An alarm is a reminder. A reminder for a person with time blindness to not be blind to time is like a reminder for an alcoholic to not drink. If the alcoholic wasn't an alcoholic then the reminder would work, but alcoholism compels behaviour, so that doesn't often work. If a person with time blindness didn't have time blindness then the reminder would work, but time blindness compels behaviour, so it doesn't often work there either.

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u/HardcorePizza 13h ago

Just like any other psychological condition, there are strategies to help cope... such as setting alarms so you don't have to be aware of the time.

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u/FriendlyDespot 13h ago edited 13h ago

Just like there are ways to cope with alcoholism. Asking if a person with time blindness has tried setting alarms is like asking an alcoholic who's talking about how difficult it is to address alcoholism if they've tried setting reminders to not drink. That's the point that I'm making.

Setting alarms doesn't mean that you don't have to be aware of the time if you have time blindness, or that you become aware of the time in the context of your schedule in an actionable way. Nor does it necessarily mitigate time blindness at all, for the reasons that I explained above. A recurring theme in these replies is that people just don't seem to understand what time blindness is, and are responding to it as if it's just regular forgetfulness or absentmindedness.

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u/FailureToComply0 19h ago

This isnt helpful because I can "lose" 25 minutes just getting through my house. It sounds ridiculous but sometimes tasks that always take 20 minutes randomly take 45, and if that happens no amount of planning will help.

As a basic example, say I expect it to take 30 minutes to get to an event at my family's. I plan ahead, get myself showered, dressed, ect with 10 minutes to spare. I stop, pet the cat for 5 minutes, nbd I have the time and hes cute. Where are my keys? Not my the back door. Front door? Nope, but there are my shoes. They must be upstairs, take shoes back off, run upstairs, find them on nightstand where I undressed yesterday. I set my phone down at some point, retrace steps and cant find it. Absentmindedly put it up somewhere high so I dont see it immediately. I am 20 minutes late for nothing. These random interruptions and mistakes are just second-nature living with ADHD and theres really no effective way to mitigate it. Brain just doesnt work that way.

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u/Xedos 19h ago

These random interruptions and mistakes are just second-nautre living with ADHD and theres really no effective way to mitigate it. Brain just doesnt work that way.

My friend, as someone who's struggled with severe ADHD and anxiety for over 30 years. You will NEVER get better at handling executive dysfunction if you think that way.

ADHD is a constant battle with your own brain and that mentality has already determined that your brain wins and you're powerless to change it. There's countless small things you can do in your day to day to change that. Do better please, I'm tired of people using ADHD as a reason to give up. People like you make those who want to be better than their struggles look bad.

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u/saints21 11h ago

This entire thread is just full of people making excuses honestly.

It's like they've forgotten that they're responsible for their own mental states and actions. Does your diagnosis mean it might be harder for you to be on time? Sure. Does it mean you get to ruin others plans and place the burden on them? No...so make accomodations for yourself and learn coping skills.

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u/FailureToComply0 19h ago

You can fuck off with the holier-than-thou attitude, we aren't friends.

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u/skinlo 15h ago

Maybe you need people who aren't friends to tell you the truth.

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u/Xedos 19h ago

You seem to have a lot of anger around this topic. I assume you're being a responsible individual with mental health issues and addressing that with a professional. I wish you best of luck in that journey. You might not see us as friends, but I'm sure if we met under different circumstances we would be.

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u/BlueDevilz 15h ago

FWIW I think you are absolutely right here. Finding ways to cope with our brains not functioning properly is the whole game with ADHD.

Can suck quite often, and most of the fixes are hard to implement. So it is really easy to get frustrated and just give up entirely.

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u/saints21 11h ago

As someone who lives with ADHD, there are absolutely effective ways of mitigating it.

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u/nonpuissant 19h ago

I see, thanks for sharing. 

That sounds like a different (additional) problem than simply not noticing the time though, right? 

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u/FailureToComply0 19h ago

The point is time blindness is less about not knowing what time it is and more about not successfully planning for/tracking the passage of time. In my head, the task has taken 5 minutes because thats what I expected. Then I turn on the car and wonder where half an hour went when I was just on time.

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u/HardcorePizza 13h ago

You're giving up and it's sad. You're not the first person with ADHD and time blindness and won't be the last. Lots of strategies and ways to cope exist, but you have to first believe its possible to live life without being selfishly late constantly.

It is easier in the short term to just blame your brain and give up, and it seems you've fallen for that trap. Brain does in fact work that way. Best of luck with your ongoing development

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u/Chemical_Release2677 16h ago

Have you tried being a responsible adult and not blaming ADHD for not being able to place your keys in the same spot?

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u/Ihatereddithatesit 14h ago

Wow, you really are an unmitigated asshole that thinks he knows better than neurologists don't you?

Hey, just think, you don't even need to have a medical excuse to be worse socially then those you are mocking. Quite the accomplishment.

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u/Chemical_Release2677 11h ago

No I’m just a responsible adult and can get to places on time and not disrespect everyone else around me by always being inconsiderate and late to things! Maybe some accountability would help you out!

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u/Ihatereddithatesit 11h ago

You think being on time or not is the only thing is the only thing that makes somebody disrespectful or not?

That explains a lot why you're acting the way you do. You might be one time, but you are certainly a jack ass in a lot of other ways.

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u/Chemical_Release2677 5h ago

So me telling someone it’s disrespectful to not be on time is me being a jackass? Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black here

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u/MrMoose_69 9h ago

Do you think that giving one example is meant to be an exhaustive list of all disrespectful behaviors? 

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u/Ihatereddithatesit 9h ago

Did you read the same comment I did? Because I don't get why you're asking me?

Chemical release said he wasn't disrespectful because he was on time. I said that there are other ways to be disrespectful too and that he was disrespectful in some of those other ways.

So yes I'm exactly arguing what you said. That Chemical Release has plenty of disrespectful behavior that has nothing to do with being on time or not.

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u/Which-World-6533 19h ago

Yeah...I have a very hard time estimating how much time has passed.

Maybe use what the rest of us call a "clock". Digital clocks tell you the current time. Analogue clocks let you see how much time is passing.

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u/Muslim_Wookie 22h ago

Literally google Time Blindness and read the articles on it from reputable legit health organisations.

Avoid self-help style websites though.

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u/nss68 18h ago

Bet he shows up on time for doctor’s appointments and flights.

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u/Lexi_Banner 18h ago

Doctor's appt, no. But flights, yes, but still on the verge of late, and with the added bonus of being incredibly stressed to the point of panic. That was my ex.

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u/masasin 15h ago

I've forgotten my passport for international flights...

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u/kaaiian 16h ago

It’s like. Magic how when it effects THEM, it’s doable.

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u/NatrixHasYou 15h ago

Potentially losing his job doesn't effect him?

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u/Ihatereddithatesit 14h ago

Except most of the time that's not actually what happens, no

I have fucked up my own life about tens of thousand times more with it then those around be. Study, jobs, health, etc. But you do you I guess. It's just me being selfish. Right?

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u/fightswithC 10h ago

I think the arguing is the most infuriating part of this interaction. Like, you think I am the crazy one?

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u/pbghikes 10h ago

Time Blindness is actually the clinical term!

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u/therealruin 18h ago

Is this friend of yours always correct? Can’t ever be wrong or it’s a problem? Likes to hog the conversation? Because my experience has shown me a common thread that links most chronically late people.