Do you have any hot buttons? I do….

Yesterday morning I was waiting for a client to arrive.  At the time they were due to arrive (and they hadn’t), I called to make sure they were almost there, since we had to then drive to the actual appointment where someone else was waiting for us.  As it so happened, no, they were not close – they stated they were twenty minutes away, and they were late, not for any specific reason, because they “just left late.”

As I waited the thirty minutes it took for them to arrive, I thought about this hot button of mine which has to do with missing time commitments.

My actual issue is on both ends —

• I get extremely anxious if I’m the one that’s late.  If I am going to be late for ANYTHING, I feel as though I’m holding someone up from something else they might need to do.  And on those rare occasions where I just cannot make it in time, before I’m late I let the person who is waiting know that there is a chance I won’t be there on time, and I tell them why.  I think they deserve that.

• On the other hand, if I’m the one being made to wait, I don’t get anxious; I get annoyed.  I feel as though whoever is making me wait doesn’t care about me. They don’t care about my schedule. They don’t care if their delay will delay all MY appointments for the rest of the day. There are of course times where a delay is unavoidable.  But if they don’t contact me to let me know they’ll be late, or if they don’t bother offering an explanation when they finally arrive, grrrrrrr…..

I’ve always been this way. My stomach starts clenching if I’m on my way somewhere and I get stuck in traffic or if I run out the door a few minutes late.  And even if I’m in those situations, I’m STILL usually early.  My dad drilled it into me at a young age that we (our family) would simply NOT be late, so now if I’m not 10 minutes early, I feel as though I’m disappointing someone.

And if someone is late meeting me?  A few minutes isn’t a big deal, and I totally understand if they call and say they’re running behind schedule. But the ones that are seriously late with no call and no explanation….  argh.

I don’t have many hot buttons, but missed time commitments are one.

Do you have hot buttons? I do!