A lot of hate for being late

One of my pet hates is lateness. I dislike being late, and get annoyed when others are too (although I do cut them slack if they have a genuine excuse). Of course, it depends on the occasion. The more important it is, the greater the transgression when lateness is concerned. If it’s just meeting a friend for a coffee, it’s not that big of a deal (but still irritating). If it's a crucial business meeting or a significant occasion (weddings, funerals etc.), lateness really does give the wrong impression. 

What really gets my goat, though, is people who are late all the friggin’ time. It can make my blood boil and I can’t help but have a poor regard for these people. I mean, how hard can it be to make an appointment? When you say ‘meet at 3pm’ what part of that statement do you not understand? In my view, being told to meet at 3pm and arriving twenty minutes later is the same as asking for sugar in your tea and being given salt. 3pm is not 3.20pm and sugar is not salt. Not only is it annoying, it’s disrespectful. I’m not saying my time is more important than anyone else’s, but if I agree to meet someone and they’re late they are purposefully robbing me of my time – time that I could be using for something else useful. Those twenty minutes could’ve been quite productive. Instead, because you’re late I’m sitting by myself, billy no-mates (probably just aimlessly scrolling on social media). Plus there’s the knock on effect. If I have other meetings I either have to cut my current one short or rush to make the next one. And as for a work context, it’s even worse. Not just because of the reasons I’ve mentioned but also because it simply comes across as unprofessional. As a freelancer, being late for clients all the time is not a good look - and may well jeopardise future opportunities.

The thing is, if you’re the kind of person who is always late, you probably don’t mind others being late. But if like me you find lateness annoying, you will automatically be cross with that person for being late. People like me are the ones who remember lateness and will make future decisions based on it. So, for example, I'd be less inclined to hire someone again if they demonstrated that they are unreliable and don’t care about other people’s time.

There may be an argument that strict time keeping is a ‘cultural’ thing, and that in places like, say, the African continent, being on time is not considered particularly important. Rather, times are just a vague and approximate guide. It's an important point, but may have a slightly racist aftertaste (although having visited a few African countries myself I don't think it's too off the mark). The argument goes the other way, in that there are cultures where being late is considered rude. And in some countries – such as Germany – there is even an expectation that people should arrive early for an appointment. Lateness is frowned upon much more in places other that the UK so it’s not like we are super strict here. I guess the question you need to ask is what is the dominant culture that you are living in? If you live in, say, Uganda and everyone's timekeeping is a bit slack then that's fine. But if you live in a country like the UK where lateness is considered rude or disrespectful then one should try to be on time.

As I said, lateness can be for a genuine reason. Traffic can be unpredictable or there may be a personal or family situation that comes out of the blue. It happens to all of us. But most of the time, it’s possible to arrive on time without any problems – and that’s what I simply don’t understand. It isn’t hard to be punctual. It just requires a tiny amount of planning and thought.

If you need to be at a certain place or time, just Google the ETA and work backwards from there so you know when to leave. Make sure you have a diary with appointments in them (don’t rely on emails or text messages). Confirm ahead of meetings that you have the date, place and time correct. All really simple stuff. It’s even easier these days with lots of meetings being held via Zoom or Teams – there’s no commute time so lateness isn't excuse [although I know what it’s like ... because you don’t need to travel it’s very easy to leave it until the last second to get yourself ready].

Believe me, I still fail to do these things sometimes and am always kicking myself for not doing them – they are simple things that anyone with a brain cell can do. But most of the time I arrive within 10 minutes of an agreed time without really trying. And what's bizarre is that I'm naturally chaotic. If I didn't put plans and coping strategies in place I would be all over the shop, never on time for anything. But because I care about other people (and also my own personal stress levels), I make the effort to overcome my shortcomings.

So, if you're a 'late person' do everyone a favour and put some effort into not being one.

It would make the world a much better place.

The Folly of Flying

I’m fortunate enough (if fortunate is the right word) to have flown on aeroplanes (or airplanes if you're from over the pond) fairly regularly in my life. Although I’m certainly not one of those insufferable travel blogger types who go here, there and everywhere in an attempt to gain some kind of approval online through likes and whatnot. Even so, I’ve probably travelled abroad as much as the average person and so
I’m familiar with the various ins and outs of flying. I must say, though, the excitement of galavanting across continents has lost its sheen. This is mainly because of the tedious pre and post flight process that involves endless queueing, waiting, undressing and shunting stuff around. Not only that, travelling is such an exhausting exercise - getting up before dawn to catch a flight, dealing with time zones, traipsing around unfamiliar cities on foot for far longer than you’ve ever done in your own. Who has ever arrived at their destination feeling alert and refreshed after several hours of travel? Certainly not me.

It’s partly because of this that it makes me think about the fact that flying is one of the most unnatural things we as humans can do. Just consider the actual flying machines themselves: giant pressurised tubes laden with thousands of gallons of highly flammable fuel in the wings, screaming through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, reaching altitudes that would make your blood boil and your heart explode. One mistake by the captain or ground crew can result in catastrophic failure of the vehicle’s primary purpose - to defy gravity with maddening ease. And that’s what gets me about aircraft. They are magical. Unbelievably complex machines with millions of parts, much of them constantly moving, and many of them exposed to mind-boggling temperatures and alarming levels of pressure. Manuals for these things come in several ring binders which must be consulted during an emergency. Thousands of human minds have come together to create them and hundreds work on them day and night across the globe just to satisfy our desire for a ‘bit of a holiday’.

What’s more, it’s easy to forget that hundreds of these giant metal hulks are whizzing through the stratosphere at this very moment. Whenever you are reading this, a million people are suspended in the air sitting in rows watching a movie or consuming an overheated jumble of slop in a metal tray. Most of them aren’t really thinking about the miracle of flight and the absurdity of it all. They are completely oblivious, no doubt thinking about more mundane things.

Now, every time I board a plane I think to myself ‘this is madness, utter madness - what the blazes are we all doing?’. The way we willingly put ourselves in mortal danger like this astounds me. It must be because I’m getting old, of course. I never had these thoughts when I was younger. I absolutely loved flying in my 20s and 30s. I’m the same about rollercoasters. Used to love them before I had kids. Now, whenever I step on board I eye up the spotty teenager manning the controls and whisper a little prayer.

It’s just as well I never get to meet my aeroplane’s pilot – I’d probably be thinking he or she is far too young to catapult us into the wide blue yonder while physics tries desperately to unceremoniously bring us back to earth. I'd want to see their pilot's licence and all of their credentials before sitting back down in my cramped seat among all the other human cattle. Of course the fact that it's very hard to get into a passenger jet's cockpit without substantial training, numerous levels of security and all sorts of other checks is by the by.

I’m well aware that all of life is a risk - we face potentially fatal scenarios on a daily basis. Driving on the motorway, taking the train, eating in a restaurant. Anything could go wrong.

Thankfully, most of the time it doesn’t.

God, luck, statistics or whatever you want to believe in is on your side, most of the time. And the same is true of flying (statistically, the safest way to travel apparently).

So next time I get on a plane I need to learn to relax - and trust that the teenager up front is just as anxious not to crash as I am.

A death on the street

Yesterday our neighbour died just outside our house. He was in his car when he succumbed to a heart attack. I came home after a meeting to witness his body being put into the back of an ambulance. I knew it was a dead body because they covered the face and weren’t in any rush to leave. It was a surreal scene with police and paramedic vehicles blocking the street while neighbours stood outside their front doors looking on in shock. I didn’t know who it was at first, but it dawned on me as I began to take everything in.

The most unnerving thing was the fact that wifey and I saw him in his car earlier in the morning and she wondered if he was alright. I looked over (we were further down the street on the other side) and dismissed it as I attended to our foster son, thinking I saw him move as I looked over. I figured he was waiting for someone, maybe listening to the radio or something. It never crossed my mind that he was on the verge of death, maybe even dead already. Too much else clouding my mind - I had an appointment to keep, I was tired, I was worrying about finances or the state of the world. Maybe if I’d been more zen I would have chosen to do something. I don’t know.

A doctor friend of wifey said that most cardiac arrests outside of hospitals are fatal, so it was unlikely the outcome would have been different had we noticed earlier. And when we spoke to the neighbour’s son he reassured us we’d done nothing wrong. He was a retiree with a history of heart problems so it didn't seem much of a surprise. Perhaps it was just his time to go and things conspired to make it that way.

Still, can’t help but feel some guilt - he was right outside our house but we did nothing, and his wife is now a widow and his kids have lost their father. Damn.

I hope I can learn from this. Always err on the side of caution (even if you might feel a fool), don’t put your own petty circumstances above others and accept it may be your time to be a hero. 

It might just save a life.