Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9309040324
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHIRL KASPER The Kansas City Star
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Your boss is not happy. Your friends nag you. They lie and tell you to show up at 8 when the game doesn't really start until 8:30. They say you'd be late to your own funeral.
Well, if it's any comfort, you're not alone.
Dru Scott, author of ``How to Put More Time in Your Life,'' says people fit into two categories: the organized types who buy their Christmas cards in July, and the rest of us - or as another writer put it, the punctually challenged.
President Clinton, of course, is notoriously late. We all know someone who runs a few minutes behind - chronically behind.
Steve Baru of Kansas City, a stockbroker and financial planner, admits that he's often late.
``I have a good reason,'' he explained. ``I'm a busy person.''
If a client phones at 2:55 and Baru has a meeting at 3, he has to decide whether the client's call is more important than the meeting. If it is, he'll be late.
Sometimes he's late for social engagements. ``I underestimate the time to get from one place to another,'' he said.
He's better about being on time if his punctual wife, Carolyn Hall, is going along.
``She gives me a little warning, like `Steve, we have to leave in one-half hour.' She'll say, `45 minutes and counting.'''
Tardiness is linked to what Scott calls your ``stimulation and excitement quota.'' Running late is exciting. If you have that high excitement quota, you have it for life, like ``blue eyes or brown,'' she said in a telephone interview from California.
Of course, you can fill your excitement quota in a more productive and less stressful way than being late all the time.
If it's not that you're just plain disorganized, there very well could be a psychological reason that you are late, although pinning the reason down is no easy task.
``I think as a general rule of thumb, we're barking up the wrong tree when we search for the reason,'' said Ray Higgins, professor of psychology at the University of Kansas.
``There are as many different reasons as there are people who show up late for work. Some people may have trouble getting out of bed, or getting their kids to day care. None of that necessarily applies.''
Certainly, however, showing up late to work or a social engagement could point to some anxiety or general reluctance to be there, he said. To deal with that, a psychologist would help the individual explore situations where he has difficulty.
Perhaps the person has an issue with authority figures or is anxious about a social situation for fear he can't hold up his end of the conversation. An anxious person might even be late to sabotage himself.
Liz Campbell, a Kansas City licensed psychologist, once forgot to show up for a job interview on the right day.
``I hoped they wouldn't hire me, and they didn't,'' she said. ``Then I could tell myself [how sorry I was].''
Then again, it is possible that a person chooses to be late because he gains attention or because it puts him one-up on the pecking order.
``Time is power,'' said Mary E. Corcoran, a time management consultant in Kansas City. ``Think about it. The king and queen make you wait.
``It's a sign of status. The very busy person - and the not too polite - will keep the person they consider with low status cooling their heels.''
Or look at the child who can't find his shoes. What better way to resist the parent who says to hurry up?
Then again, people who are chronically late may simply be romantics who don't have a good sense of time, Campbell said.
``It's not important to them,'' she said. ``They have a more global approach to life.''
Corcoran refers to the ``P types'' and the ``Q types.'' P's believe time is short and they have to constantly fight it and be conscious of it. They set their watches ahead and tend to get to meetings early.
Q's believe there is plenty of time to get things done, so they underestimate how long it will take to get somewhere or do something.
Kathleen Leach of Kansas City knows exactly why she's always late.
``I try to do too many things,'' she said. Time is precious, and if she has an extra minute or two, she hates to waste it. Take church, for example.
``I try to get there by 11, but it's usually 11:05. They say, `There she is again.'
``I had to water my plants,'' she explains. ``That's me.''
Still, some people have a problem with those who are chronically late and accuse them of being disrespectful.
``Our society guilt-trips the heck out of it,'' Campbell said, when sometimes it might be best for a person to just accept that ``this is me'' and try to live with it.
It's not as if the chronically late haven't tried to change.
Karin Golden, a public relations consultant in Overland Park, has a sense of humor about her tardiness - and a vanity license plate to prove it: ``O No Im L8,'' it reads.
By ``announcing it to the world,'' Golden said she was forced to work on her tardiness and was not as late, as often, as she used to be.
``Honestly, I'm not sure how far back the problem goes,'' she said, although she did recall when she was 8 or 9 and had very long hair. The family was going out, but she'd been too busy playing to come inside. When she finally did, her mother had no time to comb her hair and work out the knots. Instead, her mother grabbed the scissors and cut them out.
by CNB