Punctuality

I hate being late.

I was raised in the Midwest, and it took a long while to drive anywhere, but when you had somewhere to be, by God, you made it on time.

I pride myself on my internal clock's ability to log hours / minutes spent, and predict how long it will take to prepare - transport - find - arrive at my final destination. With the advent of GPS all this can boil down now to beautiful science, with only a few exceptions for accidents or divine intervention. It honestly pains me to run late, to the point my stomach twists in on itself and the shame and horror of my inability to show respect for someone's time cripples me. I can't stand it. I tend to prefer leaving overly early and waiting, rather than face the painful recriminations of poor scheduling.

.....

Then I moved to California.

And I'm sorry, but this entire fucking state is late to everything.

It started with school events - watching in horror as people continued to roll in even an hour after something had started, and in equal horror as nobody stopped them. Then there were social events - again, a revolving door of people coming at all times of the party and leaving whenever. I learned my friends purposely set their start times two hours ahead of when they really wanted anyone to show up, knowing they wouldn't make it on time. Then professionally even there were latecomers to meetings, people calling in via Bluetooth from cars, and my mind just snapped.

How????

I get the ungodly amount of traffic this overpacked state has, God bless it, but sweet Christmas in July can we not learn to compensate?? Have multiple events at different times rather than an ongoing slosh that people will only semi enjoy half of at any given point?? Use all that Silicon Valley know-how to create more remote work opportunities where all you have to do is get up, get dressed, and stand in front of a computer screen at a reasonable time??

When I married a native I had to learn to let go, and for the most part I've accomplished it. I no longer get sick to my stomach, I just grit my teeth and swear under my breath a lot. Given my grumpy demeanor nobody really notices. When I do complain everyone assumes I'm joking and all I can think is how they would last back East where their lack of temporal concern would immediately blacklist them in their communities.

Perhaps that's the real problem, though. Out here there are no real communities - it's not about respecting other people's time, it's about doing things on your time - and hence if you have to deal with traffic or crowds or whatnot that's on society, not you. After realizing how we've crammed people into ever growing job centers, with no thought to the sheer number of parents or workers who have to navigate through the horde to get to soccer practice or sales calls, it makes sense that no one cares anymore about punctuality. They only care that you put in the effort to make it at all.

Maybe one day when I'm retired, I can go back to being on time.

Or maybe, by then, I'll have slowed down enough to where I no longer care.