Punctuality is a Must!

Punctuality is a real sign of discipline, a practice we try to instill in our youth through school bells. Not being on time is a sign of disrespect to someone or to the persons you are about to meet. Even the U.S. President George Bush is also a stickler for punctuality, going too far as to lock the door during Cabinet meetings when they begin. Thinking about it, it would rather be amusing to see the door handle jiggling form the outside by a Cabinet Secretary who arrived late for the meeting. If you are late for a class, for example, you are given a “Tardy Slip” which may carry a penalty of serving in “Detention” (the school’s own version of jail).

Nevertheless, schools are trying to perform or function on a routine basis and possess an agenda to follow and comply to in order to educate and inform our youth properly. It is unimaginable for a private or public school that does not operate according to such situation. I can still recall my friend Timmy is a real stickler for punctuality because she always exerts effort to keep her appointments and try to arrive on time if not a little earlier. Most of her friends (myself included) always joke about it and we actually nicknamed her “Timmy Time” because she habitually shows up quite earlier than just about anybody else does.

One thing that really pisses her off (and clenches her teeth) is when somebody is late for an appointment. And I remembered a funny incident she told us about her experience when she went fuming about “Doctor’s Offices” not too long ago. Anyway, it even drives her nuts when a person is not only late, but is even unapologetic for being late. When she was still managing a highly critical project on Information Technology, she will start the day with a status meeting with her team of programmers at exactly 8:30 in the morning. Someone would inevitably show up a few minutes later thereby, holding up and delaying the meeting.

Being a huge baseball fan, she would reprimand the programmers by saying, “Do baseball players show up at game time itself? No, they arrive earlier than that to warm-up, stretch and practice a little.” (As a matter of fact, if baseball players are late, they are fined). Later, to overcome this problem, my friend Timmy just changed the start of the meetings to 8:00 am (“Timmy Time”) thereby compelling the programmers to show up earlier so they could promptly and properly complete and finish their work. It is quite sad that we have to resort to such tactics just to get people to arrive on time.

We can also scold people for being late, let them go or fine them, but sometimes it can be a nuisance that people lack consideration and discipline for keeping an appointment. Perhaps we need to institute some school bells even in the offices and pass out “Tardy Slips”. Maybe it could be effective.