by Andrew Smeja

Created on: November 08, 2009

I think at one time or another we've all depended on someone being somewhere at a certain time, only to be let down. Even worse, sometimes you have to call this person, and find out that they decided not to come. When this happens you feel disappointed, you might even feel hurt, or betrayed. The person must have a very high opinion of themselves, that they didn't think it was worth their time to call you, to let you know that they weren't coming.

My father never believed anyone was going to be anywhere when he asked them to be. For this reason whenever someone planned to meet him somewhere he would give them a time of ten or fifteen minutes earlier then he was going to be there. He would rather have someone else wait on him, then for him to wait on someone else. This worked out in his favor a lot. If ever he showed up somewhere and the person he was supposed to meet wasn't there, he knew they were already fifteen minutes late.

That strategy might have worked well for my father but I didn't appreciate it very much. Because of it I would often be waiting to meet him somewhere ten or fifteen minutes before he showed up. There are two reasons you can be later for anything, one of them being that something came up. The other reason would be that you didn't particularly care. The first is acceptable and is bound to happen, the second is extremely annoying to the people who are waiting on you.

When you force someone to wait on you because of your carelessness, you are waisting their time. Your making a statement to them, that you don't value their time, and that compared to what else you have going on they are unimportant. Many bosses frequently have to fire employees for being late, I've seen that at every job I've had. Its understandable that people are going to be late every once in awhile, that things are going to happen. But when you are late on a regular basis it makes people think that you don't care.

I personally try to be ten minutes early to anything I plan on doing. Accidents happen, there are traffic jams, sometimes things take a little longer than you expect them to. This is understandable, frequent tardiness isn't. I can't tell you how many times leaving just a few minutes earlier then I needed to kept me from being late. It hurts when people don't care enough to call you and tell you there not going to be somewhere, or that they are going to be very late. We all know how that feels, we shouldn't do anything to make another person feel that way.

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