Early is On Time. On Time is Late.

I'm an old retired Marine. That mindset about time never left me. You show up early. You're ready before you need to be. You don't make people wait on you.

Not everyone got that memo. I get that some aren't as anal as I am. But is it too much to ask to just be on time?

Group settings drive me crazy sometimes. You set a time and most people are there. And then you wait. And wait. And wait some more for that one person who can't seem to get their shit together.

Every single time.

Five minutes turns into fifteen. Fifteen turns into thirty. Meanwhile everyone else is just standing around because one person couldn't be bothered to leave the house on time.

It's disrespectful. That's what it is. When you're late you're telling everyone else that your time matters more than theirs. That whatever you were doing was more important than the thing everyone else showed up for.

I get it. Shit happens like traffic, emergencies, life. But when it's the same person every time? That's not bad luck. That's a pattern. That's just who they are.

The worst part is nobody says anything. We all just accommodate it. Adjust the schedule around the person who can't be bothered to respect it. Enable the behavior by pretending it's fine.

It's not fine. It's fucking annoying.

I don't have a solution. You can't change people who don't want to change. You can tell them the event starts thirty minutes earlier than it does and they'll still be late to that. Some people just operate on their own clock and don't give a damn about anyone else's.

All I can control is me. I'll keep showing up early. I'll keep being ready. And I'll keep being annoyed when others don't.

Anyone else driven crazy by chronic lateness? Or am I the asshole here?

Thanks for reading,
Joe

_{Notes:
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