Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Why I hate C.P. Time

I’m a pretty easy-going person but one of my biggest pet peeves is C.P. Time. Everyone knows what C.P. Time stands for, Colored People’s Time. Well, I have a serious problem with it. The problem is not that I follow C.P. time but my problem is with everyone else who does. I swear for the life of me whatever it is whether a potluck, dinner reservations, happy hour, the people I go with are always late. I run in many circles and like 90% of the time my party will be late. Most restaurants won’t seat you until your entire party is there so you’re left there to wait or lose your reservation.

Am I the only one that has a sense of time and understands the importance of being timely? Even as a child, I remember being the last one at daycare, after school, ballet practice, whatever because my Dad would always be late, he's still a major C.P. Time offender. Back then, I remember being upset that I was always the last the get picked up and vowed that when I was older I would not follow the same pattern of lateness. And to this day, I’m rarely late because I believe in planning.

I think it irritates me because when you take the time out of your schedule to leave work, meetings or other obligations early to just sit and wait for the others to arrive it’s inconsiderate and shows a lack of respect for other people’s time. A few minutes late doesn’t bother me, but it’s when I’m forced to wait for 30 minutes or even an hour without receiving a phone call, a text message, something, that's just inconsiderate. A simple call/text to say you're running late or looking for parking is understandable. What takes the cake is when you call these people to find out where they are and they tell you they’re on the way knowing full well that they are still at home and they live 30 minutes away.

I am a firm believer in the saying time is money. My time is valuable and I believe that it’s important to respect other's time. For the future when I plan something, I’m going to start making the reservation for 30 minutes after I tell everyone to get there, that way hopefully they’ll end up being on time.

3 comments:

  1. You are not the only one!! I hate the perpetually late people! Personally, I make it a habit of being at least 10-15 min. early, but usually I'm left sitting there waiting 10-15 after a supposed start time or meeting time!

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  2. You lot have this too?! This phenomena has also been experienced on a regular basis by yours truly in London. We call it Black People time.

    I wonder if they have it all over the world, maybe it's woven into the fabric of the universe itself.

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  3. Hi People - I am not a BP or a CP, but the AP's have the same problem - Australian People! It is so disrespectful. Later everyone comes late because no one likes to wait and starting time just becomes later and later. Imagine the presenter - how much time they spent preparing and how little time they get to present! RESPECT OTHERS!

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