I live by this motto. I was taught that you always have to arrive a few minutes earlier than the time you are supposed to be somewhere. And this has caused me my share of long waits. Growing up in Panama where everything runs by the “panamanian time” (basically, getting everywhere at least an hour late) was a nightmare for me. And when I moved to Europe I thought I was going to leave this behind but there is just people who will always arrive late everywhere.
I had greater expectations for London, though. I really thought that people here were as anal as I am with punctuality but that is not the case. I find myself more often than not waiting on others. Everyone blames it on the public transport; it’s not as good as you would expect it to be. But the truth is that if you know the public transport has failures then you should adjust your commuting time accordingly. When I have to be somewhere that is 30 minutes away from where I am, I leave 45 minutes earlier. That way, in a good case scenario I arrive early and in a bad case scenario I still have an additional 15 minutes to make it on time.
In my opinion you don’t want to be known as the person who always arrives late. Nobody wants to work with someone who is not reliable and being late makes you an unreliable person. It shows lack of respect for other people’s times. And this goes as well for your personal life. Anyone can be late that one time, but consistently arriving late is annoying for everyone else and makes others not want to work with you. Or even be your friend.
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