Originally Posted by
opushomes
At the Saturday night dinner for SinDo 2010, eleven people did not show up. It turned out that all were experienced DO attendees yet not one of them called, PM'ed or emailed with regrets. As a result a table was held for 1.25 hours for them on the busiest night of the week at the busiest hour for a restaurant in Singapore.
I sympathize with the frustration you must have felt as you were trying to get the restaurant to seat you with so many from your group not present. Years ago I was an organizer of many voluntary events and it was a constant struggle to get people to take seriously the need to commit, to arrive on time, and to notify if they could not make their commitment. One of my frequent refrains was, "This is not a gym. You can't simply decide on the way home from work if you want to drop in or not."
For something like SinDo I might be a bit more understanding of the complexity people face in making it to a foreign destination.... But then again, this is 2014, with near ubiquitous cell phone and mobile data access. Anybody who faced a last minute change of plans should have been able to tell you.