Texting before every Band Rehearsal...why?

[LBS-bass]

Aren't you using formal dinner etiquette rules and applying them to band rehearsal? I would consider it better form to get there a little early to get everything set up and ready to play at 7:00. Honestly, if I showed up at an audition or a first rehearsal at 6:45 and was told to sit in my car, the music had better be phenomenal or the "I don't think I'm a good fit for the band" text would be going out that night.

No, I tell them I want them there and ready to play by 7:00. That means get there with enough time to set up, so I am expecting people to begin arriving around 6:45. I do this because we used to say rehearsal at 6:30 and one guitarist would invariably arrive at 6:00. This is rude. I'm sorry. I'm busy during the day, the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 is when I'm going to eat my dinner.

Because it does put a burden on me to be nice to someone when they're intruding on my space and personal time, I started going out for dinner and telling people I will not be home until 6:30, so we should all be getting there in time to be ready to play at 7:00. I would rather go out to eat and let her sit in her car waiting for me to get home than have my dinner interrupted.

But after a few times of this, everyone more or less got the hint when I started saying "I will probably be out until 6:30 so I want us all here in time to be ready to play by 7:00."

"Be there AT 6:30" does not mean "be ready to play by 6:30." Those are two different statements.

If I showed up to an audition fifteen minutes early I would sit in my car until the appointed time. Someone else might be in there auditioning, or they might be finishing their own dinner. There is no excuse for being early; everyone has a smartphone or some way to know what their arrival time will be. The guitarist's excuse was always that she never knew how traffic was going to be, but her phone app does know what the traffic conditions are, and she was always a half hour early, so really she just was just bored and wanting to visit. Some nights I'm up for that but some I'm just not. I need my down time.

I get that for some folks practice night is party time and you're more about the hang than anything else, but I'm a bit of an introvert with a bunch of weird immune system malfunctions, and I don't need anyone draining my batteries until I'm ready to people. It's already hard for me to get through two hours playing the same stuff I've been playing for years. The only thing that sustains me at shows is adrenaline, and I don't get an adrenaline rush from rehearsals, so I'm tired.

If someone explicitly states, "hey, Tuesday night is practice and we can have a little visiting time before we play," then, sure there's no harm in that. But this is not super formal etiquette here. It's a matter being somewhere when you said you would be there. Not before, and not after.

 

[ChrisB2]

I believe people who are late (especially if they're chronically so) is the result of narcissism ("They'll wait for me. I'm worth it.") or an attempt at a "power play" ("I'll make them wait for me so they know who the boss is.").

When I used to be late often, it was neither of those but simply procrastination. I still procrastinate like crazy, but I don't waste people's time by being late for appointments.

I've perfected procrastination to the point where I eventually accomplish almost everything intended, while also conveniently escaping some tasks that disappear all by themselves for whatever reason.

 

[Michael Stanley 2112]

So ... I said:

(SNIP) ... For most situations, I live by the rule: "If I'm not fifteen minutes early, I'm late." With "set up" being an issue, for band situations, I expanded that time to thirty-forty minutes, depending on how far I have to lug my gear, help others with their load-in, etc.

and you quoted that and replied:

I hate this rule with all my being and if you show up to my house fifteen minutes early you are sitting in your car until I decide to let you in. If it's really hot I'm going to let you in but I'm going back to my dining room to finish my dinner and you can do whatever you want.

What has happened to etiquette in our society? Fifteen minutes early is a burden on your host, who is planning to see you at the appointed time, not the appointed time minus fifteen.

Then, you said:

(SNIP) No, I tell them I want them there and ready to play by 7:00. That means get there with enough time to set up, so I am expecting people to begin arriving around 6:45. I do this because we used to say rehearsal at 6:30 and one guitarist would invariably arrive at 6:00. This is rude. I'm sorry. I'm busy during the day, the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 is when I'm going to eat my dinner. ... (/SNIP)

So, I'm curious: is arriving at 6:45 for a 7:00 appointment less than " ... fifteen minutes early"?

 

[And I]

I like the band's banter and if they think a joke is funny, I have three seconds to read it. The main thing to keep in mind is if someone is on call and will get a ping when they get the text at midnight because they have to get everything. Anyways, with those situations, don't have a band discussion about something stupid when member X is trying to get some sleep.

my ringer goes off before i go to sleep, highly recommended. I also have the band text thread set to a different notification sound so i know i don't have to drop everything to check my texts...

 

[ChrisB2]

So, I'm curious: is arriving at 6:45 for a 7:00 appointment less than " ... fifteen minutes early"?

Someone's backpedaling.

Hey, I'd try to reverse outta that too lol

 

[LBS-bass]

So ... I said:



and you quoted that and replied:



Then, you said:



So, I'm curious: is arriving at 6:45 for a 7:00 appointment less than " ... fifteen minutes early"?

So, if you're trying to catch me out here because you don't like that I don't care for your rule, here's what you missed.

Ready to play at 7:00 is not going to bring my guitar player to my house at 6:00. It's not an arrival time. It's a start time.

That's the situation I am avoiding here.

When I say I want them there ready to play by 7, they arrive with just enough time to get their gear ready by 7. At this point I am expecting them at 6:45. I'm not saying "be there at 6:45" though, because apparently some of us are children and don't understand what "be there AT" means.

So instead I have to treat them like children and give them a different target. And that works. Nobody's there at 6:00, I get to eat my dinner in peace, and we are ready to play at 7:00, like we always were. The difference is that they're not milling around in my rehearsal studio for an hour, which seems like a win for me.

It's actually buying me additional time because the rest were never on time and ready to play until 7:00 anyway, so I had people in my house for an hour before we started, and now I just have them there for fifteen minutes with the same start time.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

No, I tell them I want them there and ready to play by 7:00. That means get there with enough time to set up, so I am expecting people to begin arriving around 6:45. I do this because we used to say rehearsal at 6:30 and one guitarist would invariably arrive at 6:00. This is rude. I'm sorry. I'm busy during the day, the hour between 5:30 and 6:30 is when I'm going to eat my dinner.

Because it does put a burden on me to be nice to someone when they're intruding on my space and personal time, I started going out for dinner and telling people I will not be home until 6:30, so we should all be getting there in time to be ready to play at 7:00. I would rather go out to eat and let her sit in her car waiting for me to get home than have my dinner interrupted.

But after a few times of this, everyone more or less got the hint when I started saying "I will probably be out until 6:30 so I want us all here in time to be ready to play by 7:00."

"Be there AT 6:30" does not mean "be ready to play by 6:30." Those are two different statements.

If I showed up to an audition fifteen minutes early I would sit in my car until the appointed time. Someone else might be in there auditioning, or they might be finishing their own dinner. There is no excuse for being early; everyone has a smartphone or some way to know what their arrival time will be. The guitarist's excuse was always that she never knew how traffic was going to be, but her phone app does know what the traffic conditions are, and she was always a half hour early, so really she just was just bored and wanting to visit. Some nights I'm up for that but some I'm just not. I need my down time.

I get that for some folks practice night is party time and you're more about the hang than anything else, but I'm a bit of an introvert with a bunch of weird immune system malfunctions, and I don't need anyone draining my batteries until I'm ready to people. It's already hard for me to get through two hours playing the same stuff I've been playing for years. The only thing that sustains me at shows is adrenaline, and I don't get an adrenaline rush from rehearsals, so I'm tired.

If someone explicitly states, "hey, Tuesday night is practice and we can have a little visiting time before we play," then, sure there's no harm in that. But this is not super formal etiquette here. It's a matter being somewhere when you said you would be there. Not before, and not after.

So 6:45 is both good and bad. Quantum etiquette, I guess.

 

[LBS-bass]

So 6:45 is both good and bad. Quantum etiquette, I guess.

No. You both missed the part where the original ask was "be there at 6:30."

I'll walk you through it.

When I said "be here at 6:30" someone always got here at 6:00.

When I say "be ready to play by 7:00" they all get here at 6:45.

In both situations we were always ready to play at 7:00. The singer was always late because he didn't want to watch everyone setting up. So he never got here until 7:00, and he still gets here at 7:00. Same start time.

How is gaining 45 minutes of my life back not a win for me?

 

[MultiScaleMale]

No. You both missed the part where the original ask was "be there at 6:30."

I'll walk you through it.

When I said "be here at 6:30" someone always got here at 6:00.

When I say "be ready to play by 7:00" they all get here at 6:45.

In both situations we were always ready to play at 7:00. The singer was always late because he didn't want to watch everyone setting up. So he never got here until 7:00, and he still gets here at 7:00. Same start time.

How is gaining 45 minutes of my life back not a win for me?

Didn't you say this?

I hate this rule with all my being and if you show up to my house fifteen minutes early you are sitting in your car until I decide to let you in. If it's really hot I'm going to let you in but I'm going back to my dining room to finish my dinner and you can do whatever you want.

What has happened to etiquette in our society? Fifteen minutes early is a burden on your host, who is planning to see you at the appointed time, not the appointed time minus fifteen.

 

[LBS-bass]

Didn't you say this?

Yes... I did... what are you failing to understand?

Is it that "be ready to play by" isn't the same statement as "be here AT?" I already went through that part for Michael Stanley. Be ready to play implies that you're welcome here for the time it takes you to set your gear up, and that amount of time is fifteen minutes before start time because i have a fully equipped practice studio.

Be here AT implies show up AT a specific time, which people are apparently not capable of doing. I actually had to train the group on the appropriate amount of time by also letting them know I'm not planning to be home on that day until 6:30. They're welcome to come early, but nobody's going to be here to let them in.

Way up yonder in this thread I did mention that herding cats successfully was one of my major job skills and I was so good at it that I received awards.

I guess y'all are the same people who would have shown up early to an already booked conference room and milled around outside the door for half an hour before your meeting, impeding hallway traffic.

It was never my job to entertain those people either

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Yes... I did... what are you failing to understand?

Is it that "be ready to play by" isn't the same statement as "be here AT?" I already went through that part for Michael Stanley.

Way up yonder in this thread I did mention that herding cats successfully was one of my major job skills and I was so good at it that I received awards.

I guess y'all are the same people who would have shown up early to an already booked conference room and milled around outside the door for half an hour before your meeting, impeding hallway traffic.

It was never my job to entertain those people either

Ok, here's another award. Meow.

 

[LBS-bass]

Ok, here's another award. Meow.

Well, OK, if you insist. I kinda liked you around here but I'm sticking you on ignore today and leaving you there this time. Meow right back atcha, you get two awards!

You just want to fight for the sake of fighting here, even when presented with a sound explanation, and I'm really not interested in wasting time with internet trolls or scrapping with people who just want to scrap and argue. Enjoy the rest of your life.

 

[lermgalieu]

There is no excuse for being early

Well there's a phrase I've never heard, lol. I get what you are saying though, but would just leave it at "if you get here before 6:30, please wait in your car until 6:30." Because traffic conditions do change. People might run an errand beforehand and find it goes quicker than they thought. Etc.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I don’t think I’m the a-hole. Maybe I’m turning into OP

 

[Michael Stanley 2112]

 

[lermgalieu]

Well, OK, if you insist. I kinda liked you around here but I'm sticking you on ignore today and leaving you there this time. Meow right back atcha, you get two awards!

You just want to fight for the sake of fighting here, even when presented with a sound explanation, and I'm really not interested in wasting time with internet trolls or scrapping with people who just want to scrap and argue. Enjoy the rest of your life.

This is funny to me, because I am watching your basically talk to yourself in a series of posts and then I realized I must have already ignored the person you are responding to, lol.

 

[LBS-bass]

Well there's a phrase I've never heard, lol. I get what you are saying though, but would just leave it at "if you get here before 6:30, please wait in your car until 6:30." Because traffic conditions do change. People might run an errand beforehand and find it goes quicker than they thought. Etc.

It's a bit surprising to me that so many people have not been taught that this is just as improper as being late - in fact, more improper in some instances. "Fashionably late" is a thing because at certain kinds of events the hosts are invariably running a bit behind in preparation, so you get there late in order to give them a little breathing room between the stated start time and the arrival of guests. As our dearly departed friend pointed out, that's for somewhat more formal occasions, but an early arrival for a social event in someone's home is never really appropriate.

It's appropriate for medical appointments, it's appropriate for rehearsals in a paid-for space (though you may run into the last band to rent the space on their way out), it's appropriate for job interviews where it apparently makes you look proactive and interested to mid-level management types when (to me) it reeks of poor time management skills, but most people think it reflects well so I'd give them a pass on it when I was doing interviews.

I get that it's a holdover from the days when road conditions weren't known by GPS and being on the road was a far less predictable situation but we don't live in 1985 anymore. Of course, an accident could still happen just in front of you, and that's an excusable reason for being LATE, but attempting to avoid a very unlikely scenario is not a good reason to be extremely early.

 

[LBS-bass]

This is funny to me, because I am watching your basically talk to yourself in a series of posts and then I realized I must have already ignored the person you are responding to, lol.

This actually made me laugh out loud

 

[lermgalieu]

I get that it's a holdover from the days when road conditions weren't known by GPS and being on the road was a far less predictable situation but we don't live in 1985 anymore. Of course, an accident could still happen just in front of you, and that's an excusable reason for being LATE, but attempting to avoid a very unlikely scenario is not a good reason to be extremely early.

I guess all I mean is that yes, I agree that people shouldn't arrive before they are welcome to be there, but I am just implicitly thinking that getting somewhere earlier than you thought is not a reason to override that. I am saying that yes, of course someone could arrive somewhere earlier than they thought, but it's not valid to use that as an excuse to barge in before the time they've been welcomed.

 

[LBS-bass]

I guess all I mean is that yes, I agree that people shouldn't arrive before they are welcome to be there, but I am just implicitly thinking that getting somewhere earlier than you thought is not a reason to override that. I am saying that yes, of course someone could arrive somewhere earlier than they thought, but it's not valid to use that as an excuse to barge in before the time they've been welcomed.

I agree. I'm not actually the ogre I make myself out to be sometimes and when it would happen with my one problem child we wouldn't make her sit in her car, but it was a source of smoldering resentment - 'cause instead of really being an ogre I'm actually too nice to say, "why are you always here so da*ned early?"

You sort of know someone's attempting to convey enthusiasm, and that's a good thing, so you don't want to dampen their spirit, but you also want that part of your life back, because the reality was that it was pushing my dinner hour up into "barely digested my lunch yet" territory and I don't really want to be thinking that much about what's for dinner at 4 PM. The solution I devised worked well, nobody got their feelings hurt, and I get to plan my late afternoons with a little more breathing room. I anticipate now that someone could get here anywhere from 6:30 to 6:45 and my singer will arrive just before 7:00, which is pretty much what I was hoping for before, so I get the results I want and everyone's happy-- except for a couple of people on the internet.