Score With Your Boss: Be on Time!

Your Boss is really annoying. So you’re five minutes late, what’s the big deal? It’s not like your Boss is always on time. Besides, you have a life! There are lunches to make, kids to take to school – OK, kids to get up, get dressed, get fed and get to school, not to mention getting yourself up, dressed, fed and ready. And yes, agreed, it’s more often fifteen minutes than five, but come on! There’s traffic, and weather to deal with and everything else.

Which is exactly what you tell your Boss when he/she’s called you in to their office to reprimand you for “repeated tardiness.” Jeeze. This is worse than being called into the Principal’s office. You thought you’d left all that behind in school. Only this time the consequences are worse than detention. This time you could face your pay getting docked or a note in your personnel file that would hinder promotion or bonuses. Yikes!

You grumble your way back to your cubicle, wondering, “What’s the big deal?!”

The big deal is your Boss expects you to put work first. Not your life. Your work. Always. Every day. It’s a matter of respect.

Being on time, simply put, is a way of showing respect. It says “You matter. You are important to me.” Being on time says “I value your time, your priorities.” When you’re at work, your Boss expects work to matter to you! Your Boss expects work to be the only thing that matters to you during those eight (or nine or ten) hours. And your Boss expects you to demonstrate your awareness of how important work is, how much you value your work – by showing up on time.

Show your respect by personally committing to being on time. Set your alarm fifteen minutes earlier. Make the kids’ lunches the night before. Allow extra commute time for traffic or weather. Whatever it takes.

If you really want to impress your Boss, get in 10 minutes EARLY. Sounds like such a silly thing, yet getting in early is one of the easiest ways to score points. And I’m not talking an hour early. Just 10 minutes or so. Enough time so that you’ve already gotten your cup of coffee, and booted up your computer, or whatever it is that you do to be actually engaged in work, by the start of your eight hours.

Show your Boss that work matters to you, and you’ll start mattering a lot more to your Boss.