Picking Someone Up

If you drive to work with someone and they pick you up at the office at the end of the day or if you are just picking up someone from their office at the end of the day, should they be outside of the building waiting for you or should they be called when you arrive and then come down? This has been a big question/issue during my courtship and now marriage.

I can see it being both ways and have even tried to institute a compromise - the person in the car should call when they get within a few blocks and the person in the office should head down. This should eliminate long waits by both parties. It just doesn't seem to be working though. Some, has do with the fact that my husband doesn't always remember to make the call or maybe he doesn't have his phone with him or better yet it has died because he has forgotten to recharge it once again. All this has led to me standing outside of my building or, in the lobby of my building (which I don't like to do, because then you are more likely to have to make conversation) for unspecified amounts of time waiting for him to pick me up. I have come to resent this and become admittedly not so nice a person. I shriek, I rant, I rave about this injustice which has been put upon me. I do this mostly because I am lazy and I don't want to be standing around when I could be sitting around up at my desk waiting.

Scene from Monday (it is bitterly cold outside):

J (calls): I'm getting ready to go get the car.
A: Cool. Call me when you get close and I'll be downstairs.
J: Sigh, ok, why don't you just be down there in 10 minutes.
A: Fine, even though you are not usually here in 10 minutes.
J: See you soon.
J (calls again): The GD traffic is all backed up, K Street is a frickin mess. This is ridiculous. I hate this. I'm not even going to be able to pick you up for 25 minutes.... blah, blah, blah, rant, rant, rant.... oh, wait, it's clearing up. You had better shut down your computer and be downstairs when I get there. See you soon.

So, I dutifully, shut down computer, clear off desk, go to bathroom and head on downstairs. I bring with me a small box, 2 prints and 2 prints in frames since we have the car and I don't have to lug on metro. I go outside to wait because I figure that it's been about 15 minutes since his phone call and he's either sitting outside or will be there very shortly.

Outside - no sign of J. I lean against building and begin waiting after checking time to see what time it is 6:23. I wait and wait and continue to wait. Debate about going into warm building, decide fool heartedly not to. Look at watch again, it is now 6:37. I decide this is frickin ridiculous, I need to call him - I'm actually quite worked up by now. The phone rings though before I can call and it's him.

J: Hi. I'm almost there. I'm at 11th and H. Are you downstairs?
A: What??!!! Yes, of course I'm downstairs. I've been downstairs for like the last 15 frickin minutes standing out in the cold. What the hell took you so long?? You need to call me before you get here and then I'll come down. This is frickin ridiculous, rant, rave, rant, rave – I basically pulled the full-on Bitch card!
J: Traffic got bad. Why didn't you wait in the lobby? It's your own fault.

J pulls up. I get in and give him the evil eye. He then has the nerve to cold shoulder me as if I was the one who was in the complete wrong. As if he had done nothing whatsoever wrong and that I should be grateful that he came to pick me up instead of my catching the metro to his office which is in the opposite direction from my office - which he basically has to go by to go home. (I know that's not making the best of sense, but I'm too tired to figure out how to write it more comprehensively - maybe I’ll edit later.) I figure it is bad enough that when we drive in, I have to jump out of the car at union station and catch the metro from that point to my office so that he doesn't have to go two blocks out of his way.

So, is it wrong of me to think that he should call before he shows up or maybe he might have to wait 5 minutes downstairs if he even calls me when he gets here? I don't think so. When I used to pick him up I would have to wait most days for him to get down to the car and this was when we worked a block away from each other and I would call him to let him know I was leaving and getting the car. He still wouldn't be downstairs on time. I don't know. I love being able to play the martyr :-)