Wasted Time
Date: Jun 14th, 2008 2:11:45 am - Subscribe
Mood: tired
Currently Reading: Lord of the Flies ( ISBN: 0-571-05686-5 ): Taking Pictures
There are very few excuses that I accept for people being late to appointments or in some cases just never showing up. My time is valuable. My time is money. And the only person in the world who should be allowed to waste it is me. When I get up at 8:30 in the morning and go into work I'm not doing it for my own health and enjoyment.
There are countless other clients that I could be seeing at that moment. There are other people who could be offering me their money in return for my services and I could have accepted any one of them. Yet I didn't. I accepted one person and put all others aside so if that one person doesn't show for their scheduled appointment that means that I'm out for the income of that slot. It means that I got up when I didn't have to, wasted gas when I didn't have to, and sat around twiddling my thumbs while waiting when I could have been doing a thousand other more productive things.
Being late is also an inexcusable act. If one is late it can set me back and give me undo stress and aggravation, again wastes my time, and the chances I could have used on a more reliable client or doing more productive things.
Of course life throws lemons your way. There are some things that can not be helped, but most of the excuses that I have been thrown have been deplorable.
~ There was heavy traffic / I was stopped by every light on the way / There was an accident / Insert other traffic related gripe here
I'm sorry, but I do not accept this as a valid excuse. When I make an appointment I am sure to give myself plenty of time to get out of the door and drive to where I'm going. Traffic problems are very common and one thing that you should always account for. Even if you end up having to wait a little longer for getting there earlier it's better then putting back the person who was kind enough to offer you their services and a chunk of their life when they could have been sleeping in that day or seeing other clients.
~ My alarm didn't sound this morning
I don't care. I've had the power go out in my house and my alarm fail me in the past yet I still manage to wake up and you know why? Because it's another simple problem that one should account for. Set two alarms, arrange for a friend or relative to call you and wake you up, set the alarm on your cell phone if you know you have an appointment the next day that you need to keep. How in the world do these people survive in the working world anyway? I can't imagine that your boss would forgive you if you tried to pull that excuse for being late why do you think it should work for me?
~ I forgot
Get a calender or even a piece of paper and a pen and stop whining. It's not that hard to remember a date and time. And if you forget before you can get home and write it down don't guess. Call the place. I don't know about other places, but I'm more then happy to remind clients of the appointments they hold for me. I'll even call people the day before their appointment to remind them assuming they didn't make it that previous day.
Or in my case if you're really bad about remembering times wake up early and call them to remind you. I know that tomorrow I have a vet appointment, but I can't remember if it's 8 or 9 so I plan to wake up at 7:40 ( the vets is only five minutes away ) to ask them which it is. If it's 8 I'm up and ready on time and if it's 9 I got back to sleep for an hour.
~ I couldn't find my cat/dog this morning ( in case of animal related appointments )
Again I don't care. I've never had this problem. If I know that I have a vet appointment the next day I make sure to find the animal that's going and put them somewhere where I can easily get to them the next morning. It won't hurt your cat or dog to be locked up in a room for one night. And it's not as if their litter box, food dish, or water dish are nailed to the floor and can't be moved.
Of course there are valid excuses for being late or not arriving. Emergences are one. No one plans to have an unexpected emergency and I would never fault someone for being late or missing an engagement due to one nor would I fault them for not thinking to call. If a loved one has a heart attack or breaks their leg the last thing on your mind is going to be to cancel all your previous appointments.
Unbreakable engagements are another. There are some situations that we simply can't get out of even if we had prior ones. However in this instance I have trouble forgiving people who forget to call. If someone you know needs you to pick them up from the air port when you're supposed to be getting your hair done you can't exactly leave them there, but you should at least have the basic human decency to call your stylist and cancel your other engagement. Don't just not show up.
Car troubles I guess fall into emergencies though in this instance, assuming it isn't an accident, it's always polite to call the place and inform them of what's going on and that you're either going to be late or not arrive at all. I've actually had this happen to me. Someone made an appointment, but called me thirty minutes before informing me that she couldn't get her car to start. While I might have already gotten up and headed into work for her appointment I was able to go home and get more things done that day rather then wait around for an hour ( hour and thirty if you count the fact that I arrive at least thirty minutes early ) for someone that wouldn't show. She gave me all the notice she could and that's all I ask of people.
I'm a generally lazy person. I like doing things on my own time taking however long I please. Unless I feel that something is important enough to merit immediate attention or I truly enjoy what I'm working on I won't put much effort into its completion. However while I have no problem wasting my own time when I see fit I would never waste that of another persons. It's not in my place to do so and it's incredibly rude and callous of me. I make sure that I don't do it very often, but being human I do slip and when that happens I don't try and make excuses for my actions. If I'm late or don't show up it's of my own fault and there's no reason for it. I just wish that others took the same consideration for me. I wish that I didn't have to threaten to block clients because they miss so many appointments without informing me thy're not going to show.
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