In the 3 months we’ve lived here in southern California, we’ve never once had a workman show up on time. Typically, they’re between 15 minutes to an hour behind. One has a habit of showing up, or having his crew show up, half an hour to an hour early. Sometimes they wait until the tail end of their window to show up.
Folks. This is ridiculous. How hard is it to set yourself a reasonable window of time and then appear within it? How hard is it to consider that your being on time impacts everyone else’s time?
I’m about to start a gig that will require me to keep pretty tight watch on my timeliness. And one of my clients is still billed on an hourly basis. So for me, this is nothing new. But I’m also not fond of being late for business appointments. And in a world where everyone and anyone is subject to review, might I suggest that this world is also not the best place for you to piss someone off?
Heck, part of me wants to bring back to timestamp clock.
I think this definitely qualifies as a pet peeve. And no, I don’t accept “the traffic” as an excuse. Build it in, for pete’s sake. Perhaps I am persnickety about this because I’ll have to keep a tighter watch on my time than usual, as I head into drafting of my thesis.
And part of me is terrified that this is just the way the world works here, and that I will have to suck it up. Hunh.
