Explaining Miranda Priestly’s schedule to the new intern in the originalDevil Wears Prada, Nigel – the art director – says: “She’s always 15 minutes early… Which means you’re already late.”
A punchy line, but hardly an original thought. “If you’re on time, you’re late” is an age-old mantra used by dragon bosses since (just before) the beginning of time. But apparently Gen Znever got the memo.
According to research compiled by Meeting Canary – an online meeting company – almost half of those aged between 16 to 26 believe that being five to 10 minutes late to work is “basically” being on time.
This is unlikely to surprise anyone. After all, what is punctuality about? It’s about respect, about acknowledging that there is a hierarchy in professional life. That some people and things are actually more important than you (as mind-blowing as that is): than your recent break-up,your pronouns, your food and gender whimsies, your wildly fluctuating mental health.
It’s also about mental rigour – discipline. Another word that’s likely to furrow Gen Z brows. Maybe there isn’t always a cast-iron reason why you have to be at your desk at 9am rather than 9.17am. Maybe you can get away with arriving late and leaving early, just keep skimming and skiving on everyone else’s dime. Or maybe your boss is also Gen Z, and you happen to know that she’s taking a “duvet day” with herJellycat plushies. But what if, as a point of personal pride, you decide you’ll be there by 9am regardless?
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Pride is definitely worth trying, in my experience. Combined with discipline, it may even leave you feeling better than a couple of hours’ bed-rotting and doom-scrolling on TikTok.
Far more surprising than Gen Z lateness was how forgiving millennials were of this generational flaw. But while around 40 per cent of them said they would overlook colleagues running 10 minutes behind schedule, this dropped to just 26 per cent for Gen X and 20 per cent for baby boomers.
I’m Gen X and I consider myself to be pretty laid back in most respects, but lateness? That sends me off the dial. Because it’s my time you’re stealing, and I care about that more than anything else.
A fortnight ago, I waited patiently for a shop near Marylebone Station to open so that I could buy my parents some chocolates before boarding the train. Inside was a blonde in her early 20s, enjoying a conversation on her mobile phone.
Now, having established her age, I didn’t expect her to let me in a second earlier than the designated 9am opening time (even though if that had been me, and I could see a customer waiting outside, I might have forced myself to open the door at 8.58am). But when 9am came and went, still she didn’t open the door – still she laughed and joked on her iTeat?
It was 9.07am by the time the blonde sloth finished her call and dragged herself to the door. And at seeing the fury on my face, she looked confused. After all, in her world she was pretty much bang on time.
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