I have accepted the fact that I am obsessive compulsive about being on time.  While some people are OCD about washing their hands or making sure that things are locked, I am OCD about being on time.

I do not know where my obsession with being on time has come from.  My dad liked to be on time, but if we were late, it was never a big deal to him.  My mom, on the other hand, never cared if she was late and was late quite often.  As for me, I start to stress out when I think that I might be a little late.  When I’m in the car and think that I might be a little late, I am constantly looking at the time.  And even when I’m worried about being late, I’m usually at my destination on time.  I get it – I’m OCD about being late!

What I don’t get are those people that are always late.  I understand if someone is late occassionally.  There are many things that can keep someone from being on time: traffic, they overslept, had to take care of the kids, etc.  But everyday?

The reason I bring this up is because we have a start time of 8am at my office.  I am always the ONLY person at work at 8am.  The next person usually doesn’t show up until 8:15am, and then the rest start trickling in after that.  I have brought it up on many occasions, but it usually falls on deaf ears.  No one cares if they are at work at the regular start time or if they show up late.

The reason it bothers me the most is that we have student interns that work in our office.  I am the supervisor of these student employees and must enforce the rules, including making sure that they arrive at work on time.  I also want to teach them all that they need to know about being a professional, and that includes always arriving on time.  How can I punish the student employees when they see the professional staff members showing up late every day? How can I teach them that if they want to be considered professional that they need to arrive to work on time when the professional staff members in the office can’t even make it to work on time.

The worst part of it all is that many of the professional staff members that show up late to work every day are the ones that complain about our student employees showing up just a few minutes late.  How can they be that hypocritical?

It’s just very frustrating!