Tic Toc Tic Toc Tic Toc

Okay, I’ll admit it: I live by certain sets of rules. I have rules for just about everything: being a straphanger, grammar, workplace etiquette, winter driving; the list of lists of rules goes on for days. These rules (and many more*) have taken me 35 years to craft and have served me well over that time. There’s one rule, though, that I’ve come to think of as a matter of social convention; one that almost everyone must should abide by: punctuality.

See, I’m an incredibly punctual person. Actually that’s not true, punctual people are on time; I’m someone who’s notoriously early for just about everything. I’m usually, at least, 45 minutes early for work, doctor’s appointments, movies, parties, etc. It’s undoubtedly how my parents raised me (they, too are early people), but I think it may run a little deeper, since I was born almost a full trimester premature. I’m of the mind that when you have to be at a certain place at a certain time, regardless of how you have to get there, there are variables beyond your control which may impede you from getting there, at that appointed time** and it’s a person’s responsibility to take these things into consideration and to plan their trip accordingly; not making somebody wait is just good manners, regardless of who you are (or who you think you are). My thought is this: if you know that it usually takes 45 minutes to get from point A to point B, allow for an extra 30 minutes in case you get delayed.

The older I get, the more I realize, though, that I’m in the minority. I was in a training class, yesterday, which was supposed to start at 9am. I showed up at 8:45 and the instructor was already there. People continued to enter for the next half an hour, until the instructor started the class at 9:15; the last person wandered in at 9:30 without so much as a ‘sorry I’m late’. This is not the first time I was in a meeting or class and this has happened. My company has a mandatory training meeting, every 3 months, and employees are assigned a certain time to attend, during a given workday. Each employee is given the schedule, at least, 2 weeks in advance. Every single time, regardless of which meeting I’ve been at, there’s at least 1 person who will enter 30 minutes after it has already begun without the least sign of bashfulness. Personally, I would be appalled to walk into a room full of people that way.

It’s not just in business, though. Even socially, people seem incapable of being on-time. I once had a friend who was, habitually, at least 45 minutes late whenever we had plans. Once, he kept me waiting an hour and a half. I began planning our evenings together 45 minutes earlier to compensate, until he caught wise. He would, routinely, shrug off his lateness with a half-assed excuse. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a contributing factor to the termination of our friendship. To this day, when we see each other in other settings, he doesn’t understand why his lateness bothered me.

People just don’t seem to care anymore; they’re convinced that lateness is perfectly acceptable as long as they provide an excuse, “traffic”, “the subway”, “I’m a drag queen”, etc. Either they don’t know they’re rude or they just don’t care; I’m not sure which it is. When we coach our hosts/hostesses for Pampered Chef, we always tell them that the show will start 45 minutes after the time on the invite and not once does do they believe us. Come show night, sure enough, the last guest strolls in right on time, 45 minutes late. It seems that “fashionably late”, which was once reserved for parties, has become the norm; like Coach bags being sold in every mall in America.

*don’t wait until the last possible second to merge into the right lane, off the on-ramp, don’t keep milk on the door of the fridge, never wear mauve to a ball (or open your mouth)

** things like weather, traffic, and monster attacks