Will it kill you to be on time?

Say the word ‘time’ and the two most common associations that spring to mind are, ‘time and tide wait for no man’ and ‘it’s about time.’ Beaten by the one we ask five times a day at the very least, ‘what time is it?’ As a commodity we kill it, waste it and treat it with genial contempt until we run out of it and then we are on our knees begging for a little more.

It is a sobering thought, for example, that most of our waking lives are spent waiting. For things to happen, transport to arrive, people to meet, places to reach, traffic jams to navigate, minutes and hours squandered in simply standing by.

And then there are people in our lives who contribute to this wastage and manfully massacre the minutes. Go to a doctor for a ten o’clock appointment and it is now 11.30am and you are drooping like a cut flower with no one to do you any reverence. I have yet to meet a dentist who will see you on time.

Fetch up at an office for a prearranged meeting at ten minutes to eleven so you can be sure you are not late and this is after three reminder calls from this person’s secretary reconfirming the meeting and sending you the address and that newfangled schedule sheet and now it is way past, but the door stays shut.

You have to have very little selfconfidence if you get your jollies making folks hang around outside your office. I think people who are most secure would see you at once and get you out of the way.

Then there is the guy who initiates the meet but on the day hands you to one of his minions because he is far too preoccupied. Sorry, no can stay, have an important meeting. Oh I am not good enough for you, you bigshot, if I wanted to meet your lackey, I would have called him.

But there is nothing worse than the man who asks you to come from 20 kilometres away and just when you are parking and have shot a huge hole in your work day thanks to this arrangement you get a call from one of his aides to say he has had to cancel. For sheer inconsideration, this is hard to beat. You think I enjoy coming this way and going nuts looking for a place to park the car and taking on the traffic just so you could cancel? And unless your house caught fire or your wife has run away with someone, wouldn’t you have known earlier that you would not be available at the appointed time and been a little more thoughtful about the person toiling all the way to you for nothing?

Pretty much as bad as this fellow is the board meeting monster. They ask you to bring your team for a fullon presentation and the CEO will have his frontline and then you arrive — all five or six of you — and they will escort you with great ceremony just short of trumpets and elephants to the board room with all those pads and pencils so sharp you could use them as a weapon and then ask you if it’s tea or coffee or a juice and even as you are admiring this display of hospitality, they will dump you totally and now you are left to your own devices doodling with the sharp pencils and making silly conversations with each other.

Now it has been nearly half-an-hour since you and your team were confined to this room and you get restless and irritable and I have always suspected that it is a corporate ploy to get you off the edge of your game and make you sag so you are not at your best. At which point, along comes the assistant secretary to encourage you that the boss and Co are on the way. Instead of throwing a fit, we are grateful for this bit of news.

I once started the discussion by saying, won’t work, we are a lean, mean fighting machine, we don’t sag because we have to wait. Suffice it to say, we never went through with the deal. One trick is not to talk about strategy when they leave you to cool your heels. They could be listening in.

Another person who goes up my nose in this time killing sphere is the chap who invites you into his office on time and you are awed there are still people like that except that once you have sat down he either pushes off from his chair and canters off somewhere or gets on the phone to chat to someone or his secretary comes in with a sheaf of papers and you are now an unwilling witness to this charade and your time is being gobbled up and you are truly trapped.

Worse than all these is the chatty fella who is so cool and casual he wants to meet for coffee so you fetch up at this place in a mall and you are sitting there like that solitary cactus in those western movies and this is the third time the waiter has asked if you want anything and you have that asinine look on your face and explain elaborately how you are waiting for someone and then he finally comes and sits down. His phone goes off and now he is off on this long conversation and you are left high and dry with the coffee bill. And he is the guy who invited you. There must be a reason why people think it is okay to waste your time but I haven’t found it yet.

Unless your house has caught fire or your wife has run away with someone, wouldn’t you have known earlier that you would not be available at the appointed time?