Thursday, April 14, 2011

This post seemed a lot more interesting as I mentally wrote it in the car. I guess you had to be there.

So the business meeting. I was a little nervous for the meeting, since the person I usually work with up and quit, forcing me to meet with her boss, who is the vice-president of the whole dang company (and its not a small company). This was a meeting I was NOT going to be late for. Despite my husband's doubts, I do if fact know its quite rude and/or unprofessional to show up to certain things late. Even five minutes late. (I do NOT however agree that its rude to show up to anything at all late. Who the heck cares if the previews have already started when you get to the movie theater?)

The office building I was going to for the meeting is only a couple minutes from my house, so I knew exactly how long it would take to get there from my office (15 minutes). Since I did not want to be late, I figured I'd leave at 4:10 for the 4:30 meeting. I'll be 5 minutes early! Perfect! It didn't even cross my mind until I was actually shutting my computer down that it takes time to walk to my car. At least 5 minutes. Which just proves that (again, despite my husband's doubts) I'm not perpetually late on purpose. I swear, it just HAPPENS. I don't know why I can't figure in the time it takes me to walk to my car. Or, if we're at home, the time it takes me to find the right pair of shoes or where the heck my purse got to. That these things will take time just never occurs to me.

So, as I'm walking out of my building, I realize that not only do I have no time cushion, but I'm also not exactly sure where I'm going. I've only been to this building once, a year ago. I knew how to get almost all the way there, but that wasn't really going to do me much good, right? So I plug the address into the navigation on my phone. It says it will take 13 minutes to get there. I turn on my car. The clock says 4:17. Crap. Everything has to go perfectly (including finding the correct suite in the building once I get there).

At 4:23, I'm on the interstate and traffic starts to slow down. &^*% *&^%. I don't have TIME for slow traffic. I look at my phone to see if it will tell me how much longer the drive will take, hoping I'm still on schedule. I can't find a "minutes to destination," but I do notice the phone says 4:27 and immediately go into full-on panic mode. My car's clock is apparently WRONG. I've just lost four whole minutes!

(Which, side note, makes me think of The One Where No One's Ready on Friends when Ross' watch stops. "It's 7:33, I have seven minutes. I have seven minutes!")

Luckily, traffic picked up again and I went back to cursing anyone who got in my way while desperately trying to get time to stand still. As I approach my destination, I realize my freaking smartphone isn't smart enough to tell me which side of the street the building's on so I know what lane to get in. I pick a lane, get stopped at a stoplight, and recognize the building up ahead. As I sit there, the clock turns to 4:30. I have never wanted to be one of those annoying early people so much as when I sat there in the car, looking at the office I was supposed to be in right that minute, yet wasn't.

The ending is pretty anti-climactic. The light turned green, I remembered the way to the suite once in the building, the elevator was waiting for me, and I walked into the office at 4:31. I don't want to do that again, though. I am totally adopting a 15-minutes-early rule for all business meetings.

(Oh, and to add to my anxiousness, I totally forgot this meeting when I got dressed before work, so while I had luckily done my hair and makeup quite nicely, I was rather casually dressed for the suit-and-tie business meeting.)

1 comment:

  1. Ugh. I hate that. I budget time to get places and it always takes an extra 5-10 minutes to get loaded into the car (with the kids, etc.) And even after 3 years of being a mom, I still forget that.

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