Punctuality

I have heard that Americans are very punctual and do not prefer wasting others time by being late. For this reason during my initial days at onsite I used to go five minutes before the scheduled time for each meeting. My first client was very cool and understandable and never bothered even if I pitched in late, those made me take things for granted. My client’s attitude made me stop worrying about being late for each meeting whenever I was held with some important task.

But there is one person who awfully yelled at me very recently for being late by 2-5 minutes for one appointment. That made me realize how Americans are very concern about being on time. I do not blame him for scolding me but understood the importance of being punctual. That incident switched me back to be on time for any appointments/meetings. It is advisable to go early but never late. Today we had our status meeting with our folks at 5p.m, last time I was the first person to reach the meeting room and after 10-15 minutes people showed up, so this time I decided to start bit late for the meeting. When I opened the meeting room door at 5.10 P.M, I only saw my manager in the big meeting room. After couple of minutes, people came in and the room became quite occupied.

The way Indians value time is completely different from the way Americans do and this is something each one of us have to learn from U.S people of being punctual no matter what and avoid giving excuses.