Getting Ahead of Time

By Apolinario Villalobos

People who are always late in reporting to work or for their appointments, make me wonder. When I still had a regular job,  it has puzzled me a lot of time why I could make it to my job site on time despite my living a good fourteen kilometers from it and others who live nearby could not. Just like the management of other offices, ours also got worried because of rampant tardiness among employees.

Our management, to remedy the situation, has asked all department heads to advance their wall clocks by ten minutes, except for the bundy clock (used for timecards) which must be on time always. The instruction was filtered down the line and as expected, caused quite a stir among the employees.

Although, I was surprised by the request of the management, I was even more surprised by the unpleasant remarks heard from the ranks. What these complaining colleagues did not understand was the objective of the whole exercise. In the first place, the bundy clocks still ticked the standard time so the work schedules were not affected. What was affected was the ATTITUDE towards time.

It is not necessary for one to finish post-graduate studies to understand the adage that we cannot move back the hands of time. Time wasted is really time wasted in any language.

People run after time catching rides to their offices and other destinations. In Manila, everybody blames the traffic for not getting to work on time. What is funny is that we refuse to recognize the solution, which is just waking up early and taking the ride ahead of time.

In the offices, comfort rooms are crammed with employees at exactly one o’clock to wash up. Very few ever think of washing up several minutes before, so that they can begin working before, or at least exactly by one o’clock.

At the airport, passengers clog check-in areas when it is almost closing time. This causes long queue and sometimes, lost flight for some due to the on-time closure of check-in counters. The same scenario can be seen in piers and bus terminals.

My suggestions are:

-during workdays, there should be limitation in the time spent for socializing after office hours so that employees can have enough time for their travel home and catch up with enough sleep;

-in the morning, one should try to be at his/her desk minutes before the official start of office to review the previous day’s accomplishments and pending matters, aside from  other things to do before doing those that come for the day;

-have a grand time in doing weekend bonding activities with friends or families  on a Friday night or whole day of Saturday, so that Sunday can be spent for rest;

-to beat the pestering traffic jam, be on the road at least two hours before appointment time, never mind spending time a in coffee shop near the meeting place, if you arrived earlier than expected.

Most people tend to oversleep on their days off on the pretext that they need to rest. I tried this, but it just gave me a headache! My suggestion on weekends is for one to wake up while the sun is still peeping from the horizon, have a cup of coffee and contemplate on things to be done for the day, then, take a brisk walk or jog. The midday, can be spent for a nap.

What is sad, is that we only feel the ill effects of our bad attitude towards time when we become a victim, such as missing our flight, opportunity for a bus or taxi ride, resulting to lost revenue or job opportunities.  If we will not change, we will never be able to educate our children, too, and they will surely carry this habit with them when they will have their own family. There is a need to break the vicious cycle.

In looking for jobs, the hiring companies are looking for those who respect time. There is a story about an average college graduate who bet his co-graduate but a summa cum laude (they both came from the same school), to a much coveted job. On the appointed day, the interviewer of the hiring company who had the habit of going to the office early found the average graduate waiting outside the yet closed door of the office as early at 7 AM! The interviewer was impressed and lost no time in interviewing the “early bird”. After the interview, the applicant was told to report to work the following day. The average graduate applicant learned later that his summa cum laude co-graduate arrived for the interview, at past nine.

Finally, being on time is alright, but getting ahead of time is much better. Using the principle of space, I could say that more time gives us the opportunity to do more things. The best thing to do then is, get ahead of time... as lost ticks of its hands cannot be recovered. We must exert our best effort to “earn” time that can be used for other better things to do.

Again, lost time cannot be recovered, but we can “earn” time by getting ahead of it.