Why Be On Time?

I once took part in a one act play that required a small group of people to meet daily to rehearse. For a month straight we would meet every day to practice this play that was performed at the end of the month. Everyone involved was committed to their part and did all they could to make the production the best it could be.

That is, except for one person who was habitually late to EVERY meeting we had.

If we met outside of rehearsal to run lines: 15 minutes LATE.

A typical rehearsal on a weekday night: 30 minutes LATE.

Short break during rehearsal: 5 minutes LATE.

Every rehearsal started out on a negative tone because we sat there waiting for this girl. As the clock struck 7pm to start, I could feel each minute scrape across the clock as my life was thrown into the grave. Minutes would fly by, until the star finally decided to show ready to rehearse. Sorry, I was ready to rehearse ten minutes ago, now I’m pissed off.

Here’s a specific example. One night the actors and director were required to meet at the theatre at 5:30pm to block a few scenes. That specific afternoon I was attempting to finish up a few assignments, get a run in, and call my family to see how they were doing. Since I squeezed in everything I needed to do, I was only able to grab a bowl of cereal to eat before I rushed over to the theatre to be there before 5:30. I walked in at 5:28 to see that everyone was there… except Judy.

at 5:35pm , Judy responded to the director’s text asking where she was. She got caught up with her family, so she was going to be an hour and 15 minutes late to rehearsal (that hour and 15 actually ended up being an hour and half). The director, and everyone else, was pissed off and had to make up something to do while we waited for Judy to show up.

Not only did she not warn about being late until after we were all supposed to be there, she was insanely late! How can you be that late to something? I’m genuinely curious. At the time we didn’t know the reasoning, and I assumed maybe it was a family emergency. No, it was Judy being irresponsible.

What was even more tragic about the situation is that this person was likable and easy to get along with.

I get that we are all in college and still young, but time is running out buddy. In a couple of years you will be in the professional world and people lose their jobs for showing up late. Not only is the entertainment world extremely time oriented, all jobs are time oriented, and it’s just a general curtesy to not waste other’s time. We all have a life to get on with and we all have problems we are dealing with. Please don’t create another problem.

The idea of time management is pretty straight forward, but not many people get it. It’s something that is vital to almost any group activity. If you want to be late, be late to something that only involves yourself. If you make plans with someone, be ON TIME so that they don’t sit there wasting their time waiting for you.