by Ted Sherman

Created on: May 10, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Before my retirement, I was the boss of a division of 40 people for most of the 25 years I worked for a big company. I've heard all the excuses, and had to deal with them, often on a daily basis. Our hard-nosed company had very strict rules for behavior and performance, and it would have been easy for me to stick to the rules in every case of lateness. But, I can confess now, I bent the rules as often as possible, but I could only go so far with amnesty.

Most of the regularly tardy employees in my division were chronic latecomers. They also had the most creative excuses. Maybe my list can help some poor, overworked boss today in attempting to sort out the habitual offenders from the occasional late arrivals.

1. They sleep too late. Whether it is pure laziness or the fault of an active night before, the usual excuse is that the alarm didn't go off or their family members didn't wake them. That could be true. I remember when my brother was due for an important exam, my mother didn't wake him. She said he looked so peaceful, she just didn't have the heart to disturb him. It was an advanced economics exam, and he damned near flunked the course. Fortunately, the sympathetic professor also had a mother.

2. They're party animals. These were mostly the young and single, who had very active social lives. The luckier ones wandered in from different directions each morning. In some cases, I agreed to forget gigging them if they confessed to everything they did the previous night. It made for very interesting listening.

3. They're habitual drinkers and/or druggies. These were the most tragic, especially the ones who were on a downward spiral to unemployment or worse. I tried fudging for some at their early stages of addiction, but I usually lived to regret it. It was just delaying the inevitable. I remember one young woman who went from productive worker to sitting at her desk staring into space because of a growing cocaine habit. Eventually, I got her to accept psychiatric treatment, explaining she was as disabled just as legitimately as someone with a broken leg, and she shouldn't be ashamed to seek help. I didn't believe a word I said.

4. Their kids, always late for school, make working mom and/or dad late. My wife and I both worked, and we had school kids running around our house. If I knew I needed to go to the school or be late for any other unexpected reason, I called ahead and took a half day or full day off. Some of my employees never overcame the problem with better planning and discipline, and they suffered when I had to throw the rule book at them.

5. In some, it is an act of defiance. Most of the people in my division were creative workers: graphic artists, copywriters, video specialists. True to form, they tended to be more independent and more difficult to keep under strict conformity. I started out as a copywriter, too, so I had plenty of empathy for them. I looked and acted like a slob during all my college days, but when I went to work in the formal business world, I had to tone myself down to fit into expected dress and behavior codes. In my division, some of the lateness was intentional, pushing me, challenging management. In some cases, I could help the person work within the stuffy requirements. In other cases, it became thee or me. I stayed on for 25 years, so it was mostly thee in disciplinary cases.

Of course, there are many legitimate excuses for being late, at least on a one-time basis. However, for any manager, dealing with workers who are habitually late, unfortunately, the problem always boils down to fix 'em or fire 'em.

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