I hate arriving early to meetings. I just hate it. I detest it, as a matter of fact. Yet, I do it consistently without fail. Do you know how horrible it is to arrive early to meeting after meeting? Sure, I can pat myself on the back and supposedly take pride in my punctuality. Time is money and punctuality is a good character trait (or so I have been told and so indoctrinated). However, there is a major set of psychological and physical pain points to be endured by consistently being early.
Let me explain.
When you arrive early you have to engage in small talk with whoever else is there as well. If you are there at 8:30am, all you want is coffee.
That’s the next pain point. You drink coffee and more coffee to do something. Then you end up having to use the restroom every hour for the next eight hours. There is a benefit to that in that I do get my fit bit steps in each hour. So, being on time and even early, means you exercise more. Maybe. Unless you get bogged down in deep discussions that have no breaks.
Which reminds me. By being early, your eight hour meeting becomes a nine hour one as you have to be social (see first point above).
If you decide to not engage in small talk so that you can conserve your energy (introverts get this point) you then develop a reputation as being standoffish. So, you are punctual but a snob. You can’t win.
On top of all that, by mid day you are sleepy and exhausted. Moreso than the latecomers. Then you need more caffeine. You get wired and jittery and make inappropriate jokes as a result. Some laugh. Others wonder from under which rock you climbed out.
What a downward spiral resulting from being an early bird. See what lies we were told as kids that the early bird got the worm. I see no worm. Just annoyances. And that is the moral of this story. Do with it what you will.
Categories: Culture, Humor, Leadership, mental health, Psychology, work, workplace
psychologistmimi 
Hahaha, you make a case for arriving late rather well. Eight-hour meetings would make me want to claw my neighbour’s eyes out. So maybe it is a good thing I do not have to attend the likes of those, for the sake of others around me. The most I have done is 3-4 hour editorial meets which made the fluids from my brain ooze out spectacularly.
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Haha. I like clawing out a neighbors eyes as a response. Lol
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😀
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Dippy Dotty took the words of justification for arriving late right out of my mouth!
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Lol. Indeed. I’m beginning to think that. But I need to be reprogrammed
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Completely agree. Luckily for me, my wife usually runs late to counter my running early so we frequently arrive just on time. Haha
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The ying yang approach. Yah! 🙂
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eight hour meeting!?!? – that sounds awful. I would rather be disemboweled. I have always wondered what it is like to be chronically early – I have never been early, I am always the one that comes barreling in at the very last minute. But based on what you say about being early, I have to say I think I would much rather be the on time verging on late person.
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Yes, eight hours makes for a dreadful time. I have to train myself to come in late so I can retain my sanity. Lol
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Ha! I love this! “I see no worm.”
We need to have a long chat about many things one day – preferably over cocktails!!!
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Ha, ha! This made me laugh, but it’s so true.
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🙂 cheers
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There’s some truth to this. 🙂
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👍
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Meetings by design, set in motion the grand old war for power.
What a waste of precious time.
Just a chance to prance!!
One-on-one will always get the results. Sending in the soldiers to battle out at the conference table is just protocol.B
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Meetings in general offer no worm. The less time spent in them the better. Although the one advantage I’ve noted about arriving early is grabbing the seat closest to the door so you can bolt as soon as feasible.
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