I'm almost never late for work. This is because with rare exceptions these days, I get there each morning by walking all the way from my bedroom to my office — a commute of about seven seconds…or up to ten if there's traffic. The traffic would usually consist of my cleaning lady vacuuming the hallway.
Back when I did have to drive to an office that wasn't in my home, it wasn't that easy but I usually managed to make it on schedule. This was just a matter of leaving my home at the proper time and being wise enough to avoid certain streets which seemed to be in perpetual reconstruction. The city seems to have a standing order to its maintenance people to always be tearing up any portion of Wilshire Boulevard on which I am likely to travel.
Years ago when we were all just getting used to The Internet, I came across a website full of maps and a tool with which you could find out the time it would take you to get from Point A to Point B. I entered the addresses necessary to measure what was then my 5-day-a-week commute and it said I could get to my current place of work in 14 minutes. I was startled because my experience had been more like a half-hour or a bit longer.
But then I realized: That was fourteen minutes if (big, impossible IF) mine was the only car on the road and I never had to stop for silly things like traffic lights or stop signs or even pedestrians. Later, more sophisticated map programs online took those things into account. I just checked out that same commute on Google Maps and it says that drive is a lot longer…from 28 to 39 minutes depending on the time of day.
And of course, it can be even longer if traffic is worse than normal, if there are accidents along the way…or road construction which no one told Google Maps about…even some not on Wilshire Boulevard. Twice in the last few years, I've tried to drive past CBS Television City and there was a massive wait because James Corden and a bunch of actors were performing a musical in the middle of the intersection of Beverly Blvd. and N. Genesee Avenue.
Also, I may discover a need to stop for gas or some other necessity.
Or I might not be able to leave my house exactly when I planned. An important I-have-to-take-this call might come in. I might suddenly remember something I had to do before I departed. I might oversleep. My car might not start. One time, I couldn't get it out of the garage because there was a traffic accident right outside and it blocked me until a tow truck came to haul one of the cars away. Another time, my electricity went out and the manual switch — which is supposed to allow you to open the garage door anyway — didn't work.
Things happen. And one of the ways I learned to minimize lateness is to recognize that things happen, to allow for them to happen and to not cut it close. It's like the difference between the commute I described a few paragraphs above this one taking 14 minutes and it taking 28-39. These days, you can't get anywhere "as the crow flies," even if you're a crow.
In my life, I have had three separate lady friends who, though smart in every other way, were unable to understand that concept. In two out of those three cases, the incessant lateness was a key reason those relationships ended. We missed flights. We'd get to a restaurant and find that our reservation was no longer valid. We missed the first 10-15 minutes of plays and live shows…and one time, we were so late they just plain wouldn't let us in nor give me a refund. On more than one occasion, we were running so late for an event that I realized there was no point in going and I tore up tickets for which I'd paid good money.
I have also had friends who were not of the romantic variety who harmed their careers by being late constantly — some writers, a few artists, a producer or two, one magician…the magician, when he had a gig, would get there too late to do the prep necessary to put on the best show he could do. So the folks paying him never got to see his best stuff. That does not help a career.
They usually had good excuses. One of the writers always had a good excuse. But he was always late and at some point, people just stopped dealing with him because he was causing too much trouble for others involved in the TV show he was writing. The good excuses didn't matter. And it wasn't that they didn't believe him. It just came down to "He's always late."
With the three separate ladies, I'd say, "We need to leave for the event at 5:00" even though the actual mandatory departure time was more like 6:00. They'd say, "Fine. It'll take me 45 minutes to get ready so I'll start at 4:15."
And then something would come up and something else would come up and something else would come up and they wouldn't be able to start until 4:45. And then it would take two hours.
You can't fix a problem when you don't recognize that you're the cause of it. But the way they saw it, Fate had made them late. Or other people had made them late. That damn computer broke and so it was the computer's fault. With the lady I just described, it couldn't possibly have had anything to do with her deciding to not start prepping until 4:15.
With that writer I mentioned, he'd get an assignment due on Friday and think, "I can do that in two days so I'll start on Wednesday"…and then it would take longer than he thought and/or the power would be out in his area and/or his computer would break and/or his mother would need him to drive her to the doctor and/or a thousand other things…
…but his lateness couldn't possibly have had anything to do with his decision to not start writing the assignment until Wednesday, right?
I could go on and on with stories like this. I could even include some where I made this mistake which I try real hard not to make. We can all screw up now and then. We can all be forgiving of others now and then. It's just lately I've had a lot of plans screwed-up and opportunities missed because someone was sure they could be ready by 6 PM and they couldn't and it caused problems for them, me and everyone else. But they always had a good excuse.