Not being late.

 I don't know how people feel about punctuality, 

but I know I'm really anal about punctuality.

I simply cannot stand people who don't take being punctual seriously. I seriously don't know what's going on with their minds, like, how can they be so thick skinned to allow people to wait for them? Maybe because I was taught since young to never let anyone wait for you, be it the person come and fetch you, or you go and fetch that person. When you say 8am, 8am is it. Reaching at 7.50am? Even better. Cause it's always better to wait for others than let other people wait for you.

Ok, I know I am not the most punctual person ever. I sometimes drag the time and in the end I am late, especially in the morning when I have to wake up for school. I mean, who likes school? Scratch that, who likes morning? Everyone wants to sleep in a little and I fully understand that. But what am I saying right now, is not being late to school in the morning. It's the afternoon outings with friends.

But before I move on to the late-for-outing problems, I'm not sure is this the culture of SG but I realized that most Singaporeans don't really know how to be punctual? Or maybe it's just my friend circle. I'm not trying to attack any nationality, race or belief. I'm talking about the group of people who are always being late. For example, school. I'm currently a Year 2 poly student in Singapore and since last year, the classes has just gotten from bad to worse. And what I meant was not the lecturers or teaching. It's the time. At the starting of Year 1, majority of the people would have been in the class before 9am for the 9am class. Then after a week or two, everyone started coming in at 9am, nevermind, still okay because you're on time, you're not late. Then some people comes in at 9.30am. Not even a 'sorry, I'm late' but rather just walking in like a boss and sitting down. Some people even came in at 10am, an hour late into class. That's Year 1. The worst of it. Now, in Year 2. It got worse. 9am class. If you come in at 9.15am, you might be actually the first to on the lights in and sit in class while everyone else comes in at 9.30am or 9.45am. And what happens to the lecturers? They wait for majority of the students to come and they'll start the lesson. Which causes the students to have the 'I don't care, he will wait for me' mentality. Everyone started coming to school even later, the supposedly 9am classes turns into 10.30am classes. They would just walk in late, with food in their hands and just walk into the class. To me, it kinda annoys me because you're not respecting your lecturers and other classmates. The class is 9am, some people comes at 9am and waited until 10.30am before we can start the lesson. Why are we even waiting for these late people? If they don't care about their education, do not make the effort to wake up on time to go to school on time, why should we care about them not being able to know what happened in the lessons? I'm saying, why should we wait for them? What makes them so special that we have to wait for them to reach in order to start the lesson??? And because of this, the early people comes in late as well because they are fed up of waiting for these late people. And you know what? The late people just come in even later than the early people eventhough the early people are already late. DO you get what I mean? Just, I don't get it. Were you always late in your secondary school? What happened if you were late? You get locked out or your points get cut. Poly doesn't have that. Is that why you people are always being late? Because there are no punishments, no price to be paid for being late because the lecturers wouldnt actually scold you? Really, people. I can't wait to see how these people will survive when they start working.

These group of people are not only consisting of late-to-school people. But what is worse, late for outings/dates/fun stuff. I can understand how you don't have the motivation to go to school and hence being not, not caring cause it's boring. But man, you're going out to have fun. If I were you, I'd wake up early and go out early cause that way, I wouldn't be wasting my precious fun time by sleeping it away!

I have a few friends for example, are NOT on time people. They would always set the time and then to be late for 2 or even 3 hours. YES. Not a few minutes, not half an hour but MORE THAN AN HOUR. WHAT. I get up at maybe 9am to prepare because we are meeting at 10am. I wake up usually at 2pm, I'm waking up 5 hours earlier because we had an agreement to meet at 10am. But then at 10am, you are still sleeping. Never mind, people makes mistakes, so after waking you up at 10am, I expect you to feel guilty for making me wait because you overslept. BUT NO. You might continue sleeping, not giving a damn about me maybe only getting a few hours of sleep because I slept late at night. You might wake up, then you take your own sweet time doing your stuff, and maybe something cropped up and your parents ask you to wash the toilet before you go and you never bothered to tell your parents that you're meeting someone and you're late. Or to at least inform me that your parents asked you to do something and you're gonna be late. No. You just make me wait, and wait and wait. Then maybe I thought of going to poop but I don't dare to go for the fear of you reaching and have to wait for me while I poop. Then I would just keep waiting until maybe 1pm when you finish reach. Or maybe worse, you just call and cancel the outing when I'm already all prepared, happy to go out.

Then instead of a happy outing, we may end up quarreling because you cancelled on me the last minute for the 1234567890th time. And I may never want to go out with you ever again. Because you broke my trust to be on time - sounds really serious right, but trust me, this happened.

WHY?

Just because we are friends doesn't mean you can take advantage of me like that, to expect me to wait for you. It's called not respecting because you do not take this outing seriously. You're not respecting me at all. No.

It might seem like a small thing for some people like, 'aiyah, late a bit nevermind, she will wait, I just say sorry can already.'

But no. Just. Ugh. NO. I woke up early because of this and you just didn't care. What am I to you? HUH? If you were to catch a flight at 4pm, you reach the airport at 6pm, do you think the airplane will still be there waiting for you? Your important test starts at 11am and you only have one chance to take this test, will you come to the exam hall at 2pm and beg for the invigilator to allow you to take your test? You're meeting your big client at 3.30pm, you reach at 3.45pm. Will your client still be there? Your cake bakes in 30 minutes, you check it after one hour, would your cake be perfect? Your mother needs an ambulance in 5 minutes, the ambulance comes after half an hour. Will she survive?

NO. THE PLANE WILL NOT BE THERE. YOU WOULD HAVE FAILED YOUR TEST. YOUR CLIENTS WOULD HAVE LEFT BECAUSE YOU NEED HIM AND HE DONT NEED YOU. YOUR CAKE WOULD HAVE BURNT. YOUR MOM MIGHT HAVE DIED.
(okay that's a bit extreme but I hope you get my point)











So are you still questioning the importance of being punctual?
Do you still think being punctual is no big deal?
Just. Please. Respect your teachers, respect your friends. Be punctual. Or at least not later than half an hour. They are not entitled to wait for you. Also, as I have said, I'm not the most punctual person on earth but I'm trying my best to change that. So people, let's try out best and change this culture together okay?

SAY NO TO BEING LATE!

xoxo