Fashionably late

One of my pet peeves is punctuality. I am almost never late for meetings, and consider it downright rude to keep people waiting. I had cause to consider this twice yesterday.

The first was a meeting scheduled for 1:30, at which I sat down - along with one other attendee - at 1:29 and waited for the rest to arrive. We waited four minutes, which is not bad considering. I have waited longer before. At a company I used to work for, a senior techie, who was always very busy, was such a stickler for punctuality that if the chairman had not arrived within 5 minutes of the scheduled start, he would get up and leave the meeting. Gotta love it.

The second occasion I had to consider the subject of punctuality yesterday was later in the afternoon. A social event had been arranged at a local bar for 5:30. Being an early bird, and not exactly overloaded with work at the moment, I left the office at 5:20 and get there at 5:30 almost exactly.

There were three people in the bar, none of whom I recognised. After a short wait, I realised that most people had either gone home earlier, or would be arriving later. As I couldn't be bothered to drink alone waiting for someone to talk to, I left.

There are undoubtedly times when fashionably late is the ideal time to arrive.