Why Are Some People Always Late for Work?

I am not generally a procrastinator. In fact, I actually enjoy planning ahead. As a student I always completed homework assignments early and I never miss deadlines at work.

However, for over twenty years I have had what some might call a "dirty little secret." For the better part of those twenty years I was late to work, nearly every single day.

I say "was late", not because I was fired, thank goodness, although I probably deserved to have been many times over, especially early in my career, but because I recently transferred to a new department within the company and have been on time every day since making that change several months ago.

Some might speculate that this simply represents the new job "honeymoon period" where I am trying to impress my new employer and that I will soon return to my latecomer ways. That could be true, although somehow I doubt it. There have been other "new jobs" where I arrived late on the very first day and every day thereafter, skipping the "honeymoon period" entirely. This time, however it just feels different and so I decided that it just might be the ideal time to begin to examine why.

I am sure that many may be wondering how such a problem began and why I wasn't fired or at least strongly reprimanded. In looking back I think there were a number of contributing factors at work.

First, I think it helps that I am an exemplary employee in every other way. I produce high quality work, meet project deadlines and am consistently friendly and helpful to customers and coworkers alike. Even though I would regularly arrive ten to twenty minutes after the official start time, when I did arrive I would get right to work and work steadily and diligently without stopping for breaks. I never took long lunches nor did I waste time chatting with friends.

Next, the nature of the work that I do does not necessarily require up-to-the-minute punctuality. Unlike manufacturing assembly lines or customer service jobs like restaurant servers whose tardiness can negatively impact the experience of the customer and place unfair stress and strain on coworkers who must cover for the AWOL individual, my work has always been rather solitary in nature. Research and analysis jobs where I largely work independently and have little contact with customers have fewer negative results owing to chronic lateness then jobs in which the tasks of one person are intertwined with those of another or there are significant amounts of customer interaction.

Finally, the corporate culture in my particular organization is rather non-confrontational. Only two times in twenty years was I ever reprimanded for lateness and even then there was no follow-up and no real consequence when the habit continued. As a young, inexperienced employee, I quickly got the message that as long as I continued to perform my job well then nothing would ever really happen to me as a result of being late on a regular basis. But even that doesn't explain the turnaround that has occurred in recent months.

Many articles on chronic tardiness focus on the procrastinator or the highly disorganized person who has poor time management skills. However, this description really didn't seem to apply to me. In situations other than my initial arrival at work I am on time and well prepared. There are several other factors detailed in articles on chronic lateness that do seem to ring true for me, however.

The first is the notion that the chronically late are rebelling against authority at some level. In the very early stages of my career I think that this was certainly the case for me. When I was growing up my mother's expectations were quite high with punctuality, good grooming, polite respectfulness and being well prepared for school occupying the top of the "must do" list. Life at college provided a respite from these stringent rules and while I was still a conscientious and well prepared student, I did begin to exercise my new found freedom through skipping the occasional class or arriving late whenever I felt like it.

Suddenly, upon entering the corporate world I was somewhat taken aback to find that there were rules once again. It is important to remember that this was back in 1985, long before employee friendly practices such as flexible work hours, telecommuting and casual dress options came into play.

To make matters worse, I was employed by a rather staid and traditional insurance company. In the early years there were actually bells; yes, bells like in high school to signal when it was time to start and end lunch and when it was time to leave for the day. I am sure that my then 22 year old sense of dignity was deeply offended by these perceived injustices. My need for freedom and autonomy gradually gave rise to the quiet rebel within who rationalized, "As long as I work productively for eight hours every day, what difference does it make if I start 5 or 10 or 20 minutes later than everyone else does?"

Rationalization, another tool of the chronically late, evolved as I progressed through various life and career stages. When I noticed that I suffered no real consequences as a result of my serial lateness I was less motivated to change.

A few years later, when I married and moved an hour's drive from my office I began to use rationalization to justify my habitual lateness even more. "I'm driving sixty miles to get here, they should cut me some slack!" or "Traffic was heavy, there was construction, ice, snow, an accident, a dust storm and a swarm of locusts!"

And later, after my son was born more rationalizations, such as, "The baby needed a last minute diaper change" or "I had to mix more formula before taking him to day care" began to appear. And, once again, with no career related consequences (I was receiving regular promotions and salary increases at the same pace as everyone else) there was no real incentive to change.

The final factor in chronic lateness that seems to apply to my situation is the tendency to use tardiness as a general avoidance technique. Experts indicate that the chronically late may be both bored and unmotivated by their work or suffering from some type of anxiety associated with the workplace which they wish to avoid. I think both of these situations have been true for me at one time or another.

I once worked on a team that seemed to be significantly overstaffed and I would complete my own work very quickly, help others with their work and then be at a complete loss regarding how I was going to pass the remaining three, four or sometimes five hours until quitting time. Here I merged the rationalization, "It is going to be slow this morning so why should I rush?' with the desire to avoid hours of the tedious process of trying to "look busy."

Later still I became a manager and about five years into my tenure the division for which I was responsible underwent a massive reorganization that caused nothing short of sheer panic among my employee group. There were some mornings when I simply did not feel up to the task of dealing with the various neuroses of my employees before 9:00 A. M.

But lately my chronic lateness for work seems to have resolved itself as I have advanced into yet another life stage. Having recently resolved a very stressful situation involving my teenaged son and advancing to a new job that serves to keep me challenged and interested every day I have lost the need to rebel. I am not experiencing any pressure from external forces that I perceive as "making me late" all the time and I am not really avoiding anything while in the course of my work itself.

Now I simply have a morning routine that includes at least thirty minutes of exercise, a quiet cup of tea, the morning paper and the first thirty minutes of my favorite morning news program. It allows me to arrive at work serene and worry free. This is in sharp contrast to the early days when I would rush in sweaty and stressed. Eventually this evolved into a combination of apathy, defiance and guilt.

I think the key to changing any bad habit is to seek to identify the underlying cause. It may be more complex than you initially think.

References:

Bailey, Eileen. "Chronic Lateness."

www.healthcentral.com/adhd/adu lt-adhd-190457-5.html

Wallin, Pauline. "Are You Always Late?"

www.selfgrowth.com