There are three things that remind me of my father’s car: the Beach Boys, ChapStick, and a clock that is intentionally ten minutes fast. My father is one of those people who lives in his own time zone: Jeff Standard Time, sandwiched somewhere between Greenwich Mean and Mountain.
I used to tease my father for setting his clocks fast to try (and rarely succeed) at fooling himself into punctuality. Now I find myself doing the same thing. I know my alarm clock is set ten minutes fast, but there’s some glimmer of hope that in the fog between sleep and wakefulness, I’ll read the blaring red numbers, forget that I’m playing games with myself, jump out of bed, and get the proverbial early-bird worm.
Excuses, Excuses
Why are some of us chronically late while others are predictably punctual? A lot of reasons. We learn it from our parents. (Thanks, Dad.) We learn it from our culture. (In some countries, like Ecuador and Peru, tardiness is so culturally ingrained that the governments have initiated public punctuality campaigns.) We are better or worse at quantifying measurements like time. (I’m also hopeless when it comes to estimating distance or how many people were at a party. Jelly beans in a jar? Forget it.) We value and perceive time differently. (I like to think of it as a jumping-off point for negotiations.) We want or don’t want attention. We’re focused or easily distracted. We try to do too much. We are thrilled or repelled by the anxiety of running late.
There are myriad reasons. There are also myriad excuses.
Do Something About It
When I lived in New York, I could blame my tardiness on the city. There seemed to be a thousand and one obstacles to getting anywhere on time in Manhattan: subway maintenance, visiting dignitaries, spilled coffee, construction, street musicians, bagels, man on the tracks. I readily offered these excuses as I plopped down ten, fifteen, even thirty minutes late to work or a drink with a friend. “You would never believe the traffic on Broadway,” I’d sigh. The city was conspiring against me, and like Alice’s White Rabbit, I was perpetually late for a very important date.
