Giving back time It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which everyone is on time
It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which everyone is on time

It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which everyone is on time

Blessing Musariri Shelling the Nuts
There is a big difference between a reason and an excuse, in my opinion. A reason usually will have something to do with things one cannot control and an excuse is the attempt to assign reason to something within one’s control in order to escape responsibility for it. And so, a little illumination follows:

I was horribly late for my first job interview after leaving university. I left home in good time, but for some reason that day, traffic was particularly contentious.

I made it to my destination with time to spare however, but that’s when things began to fall apart. I circled the building four times before I found parking and by that time I was cutting it close. I was still within a good window of time to actually arrive a couple of minutes before my allotted time if I ran, and so I did.

I made it to the lift as the doors were closing and some kind soul opened the doors for me. I was headed for the seventeenth floor. As luck would have it, between the second and the third floors, the lift decided to have a Sod’s Law moment and stopped. I couldn’t believe it. It was like something out of a bad dream. It took a little while but building security finally opened the doors and hauled each one of us up and out onto the third floor.

From there I had to climb the stairs to the seventeenth floor. For a moment I wondered if there was any point in showing up. By the time I got there I would be all sweaty and winded, not to mention 30 or 40 minutes late.

I decided showing up very late was better than not showing up at all. At least I would explain what had happened. I could barely speak by the time I made it up 14 floors and I was flushed and sweaty. After explaining that I had literally completed an obstacle course to get there, I was told they would still interview me but now it was necessary to wait for one of the directors who had left to attend to other business.

I had done all that was within my power to be on time but things had just decided to come together in a way that was not in my favour and the directors accepted the challenges I had faced as circumstances outside the gambit of my control. Two hours later they interviewed me and much to my surprise, I got the job.

Now, if I had turned up late and said something like, “I’m sorry I’m late, when I woke up there was no water and it usually comes back by midday so I decided to wait for it but it didn’t come so I had to start looking for water ‘round about the time I should have been leaving home”, I doubt I would have received much sympathy or understanding.

Of course this is a very real challenge but one to which there is a sensible solution should a person care to prepare for the probability. And, had I been invited to a lunch meeting and then turned up inexcusably late saying, sorry I’m late, I thought it was an all day thing! Both of these are actual excuses I have been given for lateness and others are usually renditions of long and complicated-sounding tasks that a person decided to complete before trying to make it to where they agreed to be at a prearranged time.

Life in Zimbabwe can be very challenging, this I accept but, what I have learnt is that people prioritise what is important to them whether consciously or subconsciously and some people fail to prioritise at all and try to get away with it by claiming it as something they can’t help. It’s understandable when one has to rely on public transport and the kombi takes a long detour to avoid a police road block or you find yourself stranded and having to schlep it the rest of the way because of one, but some people subscribe too wholeheartedly to the myth of African people’s time. There is no such thing and we do ourselves a disfavour by accepting it.

If I calculated all the time I’ve waited for people it would add up to a couple of years I’m sure. Years in which I could have been doing so many other things. Five minutes I can forgive easily, ten is pushing it and I’m getting a little grumpy and by fifteen I’m not interested anymore and our meeting will not go well if you turn up as I am preparing to leave.

Contrary to what Louis Armstrong sings, we do not have all the time in the world and the belief that we do causes much frustration for those of us who have to wait for those who live by this. It is not cute, or fashionable. Imagine holding a meeting or a gathering where there is no set time. You tell people, we are having a meeting tomorrow come anytime you like between eight o’clock and five o’clock but at some point all of us need to actually be there together. What are the chances anything will be achieved that day? Who is going to spend the whole day waiting for other people to show up and hoping that at some point all of them will show up at the same time?

Why is it meetings are not planned this way to give everyone room to do all the other things they feel are more important? Too many people take an agreed meeting time as a option, as a point of reference around which they may circle until their eventual arrival. People do not agree on a time to meet so that one of them can arrive at that time to hold the space for the others to arrive at their leisure. People agree on a time to meet so that everyone can plan their day accordingly. Nobody has nothing better to do than to sit and wait for another person to get on with their life until they deign to grace you with their presence. Everyone is late sometimes, things happen, this is understandable, but habitually lateness is quite inexcusable.

One scene in the movie Changing Lanes sums it all up.

Two characters, one played by Samuel L Jackson (Doyle Gipson) and the other by Ben Affleck (Gavin Banek), collide on their way to their separate destinations and as a result one is late for a child custody hearing, which does not go in his favour as a result of his being late. This sets in motion a chain of events that finds the two locked in a heated battle to get even. At one point Banek approaches Gipson and offers to make amends by buying him a new car, but Gipson is not interested because Banek initially refused to help him after the accident and left him stranded — the reason he was late for his court date.

If anyone has watched Samuel L Jackson in any movie, they will be able to picture him very clearly in this scene, emphatically saying, “You think I want money? What I need is my morning back. I need you to give my time back to me. Can you give me back my time? . . . Just 20 minutes, can you give me that?”

Of course Banek could not give Gipson his morning back, not even those 20 minutes. No one can do that. So unless we all agree on a different concept of time that allows for those who can never stick to it, we are stuck with the one we have and it is necessary for everyone to respect it to some degree. To be honest, it is almost impossible to imagine a world in which everyone is on time, frightening almost, what would that mean?

A complete shift in reality I suspect, but a world in which “African people’s time” is not so blithely entertained is wholly achievable. Changing this should be something we all aim for in the New Year. Happy and punctual 2016 to one and all, may no one be required to give you back your time.

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