The Eighth Deadly Sin

Apparently (according to my wife) I’m a bit of a control freak. If she’s right, and I’m not a reliable judge on the subject, my control freakery goes into overdrive when it comes to time. I admit that I do have something of a problem with time; some might say it’s an obsession but whatever it is it’s definitely a problem. My problem with time is that I do have a tendency to be ruled by it; I have a mortal fear of being late. Shakespeare said “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late” and while I agree with him in principle, even I think that three hours is a bit strong; an hour is probably about right.

I’m not joking, I have been known to arrive an hour early for just about everything you can name because of my terror at the thought of being even one minute late. I hate the idea of going to a football match or a film or a concert and missing the first few minutes, this results in me kicking my heels waiting for whatever it is to start. That’s not to say that I haven’t ever been late, and sometimes it has been my fault, which I find absolutely mortifying. As far as I am concerned, if I’ve agreed to be somewhere at say, ten o’clock then the latest I would expect to arrive would be about ten minutes to ten. Not everyone subscribes to this protocol however, it is perhaps almost de rigeur for some people to arrive late and while they may call it fashionably late, I would have a very different word for it.

Basically the world is divided into the Punctual and the Tardy. Within each of these groups there are sub-groups so we have:

The Obsessively Punctual

This group of people have a pathological mania with time. They will arrive at airports two hours before the check in desk opens, let alone two hours before the plane leaves. They will arrive at railway stations early enough to catch the train before the train before the one they need to catch to get to their destination very early indeed. These people will arrive for a dental appointment with enough time to spare to read all of the magazines in the waiting room. These people will arrive at work progressively earlier and earlier, to the extent that some people think that they live in the office. These people will be outside shops waiting for them to open, outside theatres waiting for the doors to open, not because they are making sure of their place in the queue, but simply because they allowed an hour for a five minute journey and are now standing in the cold and the rain while their more tardy cousins are still in bed.  I am one of these people.

The Healthily Punctual

These people have a healthy respect for time but refuse to take things to extremes. They will be found in airport check in lines a sensible half hour or so before the desk closes, they will wait two or three minutes for a train that gets them where they are going with a tolerable margin of error. They are the people at their desk at a sensible time in the morning. They are the people that sit next to me five minutes before the curtain goes up when I’ve already had time to count the fibres in the back of the seat in front of me (twice). How I envy these people!

The Healthily Tardy

There isn’t much to chose between these people and the Healthily Punctual, except that they do cut things a bit fine sometimes. They will occasionally miscalculate and have to catch a later train; they will sometimes arrive somewhat breathless in the office at five past nine,  they will reach the airport check in desk puffing and panting just as the attendant is about to close. They will be the last on the plane, they will squeeze through the closing doors on the train as it is about to pull away from the station. For the Obsessively Punctual, or even for the Healthily Punctual, travelling with these people can sometimes be a white knuckle ride, a will we or won’t we experience.

The Habitually Tardy

These people can be relied upon to be late or at best have their more punctual colleagues and friends fretting that they will be. These are the people who arrive at work late more often than not. These are the people who arrive at meetings fifteen minutes after the appointed time and are surprised that everyone is waiting for them. These people always have a reason for being late and it’s never their fault.  The train was late. Well there has been heavy snow overnight, didn’t you notice and think it may be a good idea to leave a little earlier? I missed my bus, yes because you left the house late. These people believe that because it should take an hour to get from A to B, it will take an hour. They don’t factor in any contingency and always assume the best case scenario. In extreme cases these people think that their lateness is endearing; it isn’t. Some senior managers have a tendency to be late, subconsciously they probably think it’s justified because their time is more precious; this isn’t always true. The Habitually Tardy don’t get stressed about being late however, it is everyone else, everyone who is waiting for them that gets stressed (well I do).

Unfortunately, the Obsessively Punctual also stress everyone else out too, I know because I do it to other people (my long suffering spouse especially). I know that she understands that when we have a real deadline like a plane to catch, there is some justification in my anxiety to get there on time. I do accept that on some occasions, when it really doesn’t matter about the time, the artificial deadlines I create in my own mind are unreasonable and unrealistic. I’ve tried to fight it, I’ve tried to be more laid back and sometimes it works (for about a nano second, then we’re off on the spiral into nervousness). I think that I am probably too old to change now, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

I suppose my obsession with punctuality goes back to childhood and my early days at work. As a child I seemed to be forever waiting for friends who were late or never turned up at all. I would anxiously pull back the curtains and peer down the road waiting for someone when we had arranged to go somewhere and on more than one occasion I would end up going wherever it was alone, arriving in the nick of time. Nonchalantly, my friend would later tell me that they had not been able to go; in those pre-mobile phone days (in fact we didn’t even have a landline when I was young) it wasn’t possible for them to let me know. In my early days at work being late was considered a particular offense. We would have to sign in each morning and at 8.55 each day the signing in book would be taken to the manager’s office and the letter “L” would be written in red ink against the names of those who had not yet arrived. There was a stigma over the walk of shame to the manager’s office and the red letter.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, I was going to propose an Eighth Deadly sin; Tardiness but re-reading what I’ve written, I’m not sure whether there isn’t a ninth, Obsessive Punctuality!