I was late one too many times
I'll start with what happened and go from there. At my day job they are pretty lenient when it comes to arrival times. They understand that pretty much everyone in the department is a working and adult and morning conflicts happen. I fall into this category, except for the morning conflict piece. I just happen to live 30 minutes away from work. I never took leaving earlier in my day seriously as I have been consistently 20-30 minutes for about 3 years.
During a yearly review I had made it a goal to arrive on time. I failed at the goal, but everything else went to plan. After the year was over and reviews were under way I was told by someone over me that "my attendance" is not an issue. From their perspective I happen to be late every day, but I always got my work done so no harm done. Reminder that this has been a habit for mine for about 3 years.
Something Changed
I was consistently late 15-20 for pretty much 3 years, until road work started on the highway that I took. The day roadwork started I was stopped for 15 minutes, which translated to me being about 33 minutes late to work, a 13 minute increase. I left at my normal time through the back roads, but the route was slower. I arrived 31 minutes late that day. I arrived 30 minutes late a few more time as I tried to figure out what the best new route was given the road work.
I still live with my parents at the time of writing this and we happen to have a student living with us during the summer to give them a helping hand. Two days this week my and this student's schedule aligned such that he was in the bathroom first and I had to burn 5-10 minutes waiting for him to finish. I understand the root cause is me not getting early enough, but I think that detail matters. I quickly showered and left on the backgrounds in my tested path, but I was stuck behind a semi truck going 45-50mph for most of the trip which slowed me down even more. This translated into me arriving into the office at 8:31am and I have stand up meeting every morning at 8:30am.
I coworker on my team called out
Well, Gio is late yet again today. So I am wondering if moving this 830 meeting to 8AM will inspire him to show up.
The follow up from the supervisor was "I will talk to him." This was news to me as I my attendance had not been brought up as a serious point of contention for about a year. To be clear, I agree that being punctual is a skill I should have and it is in my benefit to be punctual. Just because this work place is lenient doesn't all others will be.
Thinking through what happened
Again, I want to be clear. I know that this co-worker meant no malice and is setting the bar for standards and that overall being punctual would be a positive thing for me...but it still bothers me.
As I am trying to think through it, this feels like a weird thing to worked up about. I won't try to guess intentions. Thinking about why I bothers me so much is because I think it was a non issue for the most part and it felt like became an issue literally overnight. Realistically, this was something that was probably in the back of this person's mind for a while without me knowing how important it was to them, but again I won't try to guess intentions. I should not have been late to the meeting, but their message came 15 minutes before the meeting started and thus wasn't directly me being late to the meeting, but being late in general.
What does it matter?
My initial thought was "Why does it matter"? I could see it from a "letting the team down" perspective, but our team works independently for the most part on all tasks. The standup is to keep the group informed on what we are working on. So it wasn't from a necessity point of value. Ultimate I believe this was just a values difference that lead to this being an issue. Don't get me wrong, I get it. If you show up to work every day on time and leave on time you naturally start to feel resentment towards the person that shows up late and leaves early. Here's the thing, that only happens when you start caring too much about the actions of others, and when they don't align with personal values. That inherently is flawed.
Some peoples advice and values can be boiled down to preferences. "I prefer to live my life this way." To me, this was a values difference since I always got my work done when needed, and no one had brought it up to be an issue until today.
Why I'm Heated
The biggest reason this has me upset and ranting right now is because it feels like someone is imposing their preferences onto me. I have always been more of a "you do you" and care less of what others are doing. Other people not doing work or putting in the perfect 8 hours every day doesn't affect me, I digress. Part of the reason this upsets me is because it feels very "kindergarten" It reminds me of a kid going "Teacher, teacher! He isn't coloring like he should be"
Teacher, teacher! He isn't coloring like he should be.
This is something that I have always hated since childhood, and my solution early on that took for the rest of my life was to never let anyone have something over me. Not giving someone the option to talk shit because it was factually false. "He isn't like he shouldn't be." Was solved with getting an A in the assignment. This meant that I always followed things by the book and exceled to my best ability in all tasks just so no one could say anything. Did I care that others weren't doing the same? No. This same idea is why I hate debt. It is why I hate not being the best, because it gives someone an angle to attack. In different words the goal is to be undeniable and that is how I have these kind of issues in the past. I guess I slipped, and its time to do it again.
I prefer to take more humble stances, but we'll let this post be an ego post
What I am going to do
So what now? Am I going to arrive on time. Yes, but I am going to make it my mission to never be late again. I am going to solve this problem such that no one can ever say "I was late." I normally wake at around 6am and f*ck around for the most part. As soon as I wake up I am going to get ready and arrive for work. Some days I'll be an hour early, other days I may be 15-20 minutes early, but what I wont be is late.
The irony is that the person got what they wanted.
Honestly, now that this has been written I almost don't want to post it. I'm sure I'll look back and laugh at this at some point, and that primary point of this blog is to document good and bad after all. So I'll post it