For Heavens sake let’s stop this culture of tardiness:

Tardy (or tardiness) is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as ‘’delayed beyond the expected or proper time’’. Many of us are guilty of tardiness in our daily interactions with each other ! I have a feeling that the mobile phone has everything to do with it! How many times has some one been late for a meeting or appointment and when you call them up they say that they are right this minute entering the meeting venue and then you wait for another 15 minutes before they turn up?

I will start with a story. A few years ago, I saw the utter frustration in the eyes of one of the HR staff where I worked who had convened a meeting where members of staff were to be briefed about a new medical scheme at a meeting where representatives of the service providers were to give a brief and only 5 staff had turned up on time. To my utter disgust, staff took this as an opportunity to flaunt their tardiness by sauntering in late and without even attempting to apologise for their lateness! I am sure that the service providers out of politeness (and the potential for financial benefit from the organisation) chose to ignore this blatant lack of consideration for their time, but nonetheless something was imprinted in their memories for future dealings with the staff of that organisation!



Time causes pressure

 Since we all need to be open with each other, may I loudly proclaim that I am fed up with the tardiness shown by many of us in our attitudes to keeping time for important engagements, meetings and appointments at work, for functions or occasions. I am also fed up with the oft quoted cliché that ‘there is no hurry in Africa’.

I am a firm believer that we all have an equivalent amount of time within a day as God, in all his magnanimity, accorded each one of us.This means that the President of Kenya right down to the lowliest person in society has an equivalent number of hours, minutes and seconds within a day and there is nothing that anyone can do to expand this time. It is possible to change a lot of other things by buying the surplus of others to add to your own but is it possible to add on to your stock of time by buying surplus time from those who have extra? Therefore when you waste someone’s time by being late for an appointment or a meeting, then this is the height of unfairness and lack of consideration to others. When this culture of tardiness spreads to those that have convened a meeting, those that have a role to play in ensuring that everything is ready before the rest of the participants arrive as often happens...........……then people something is definitely not right!

If we attach as much importance to time as we profess to by being on time for our job interviews, or when we need to attend a movie or a church service or when we need to catch a bus or flight, then surely the same discipline should be inherent in all of us when it comes to work related meetings and engagements as well as in our social lives!

Granted that in certain instances it may well be beyond the control of an individual to get to a meeting on time but they should have the courtesy and decency to send an apology IN ADVANCE to the party you are meeting with expressing your inability to attend the meeting at the scheduled time rather than strolling in half an hour late (or not attending at all) and giving vague excuses when asked later on. Incessant traffic blamed by many in Nairobi and other towns and cities in Kenya should not be an excuse for lateness since proper planning will see that you leave earlier than expected so as to arrive in time for your appointment.  

Since time is a God given asset, everyone should be able to control and manage their time in a manner pleasing to God. So for Heavens sake, let’s stop this culture of tardiness and begin respecting each others time the same way we would wish our time (and material assets) to be respected!