This morning I got a text from a co-worker at 8:00AM asking if I could have an email coded by 9:30.

Since it was work, I couldn’t just tell the truth and say, “Um, no?” I had to reach for some sort of true statement that would deflect responsibility from the task. “Well, I was planning to get into work around 9:30. I can work on it then.” It was good. Neutral. Don’t admit fault or apologize for your arrival time. Stick to the facts. She seemed cool with that.

Then I got on the N train and it was delayed for half an hour. I got into work at 10:15.

Now, if Satan himself needed to create a perfect hell for me because I did some truly terrible stuff like murder or true betrayal of a friend or creating detention centers for children at our border or passing a Muslim travel ban, he would put me in traffic in a car when I’m supposed to be someplace.

Being stuck in a subway is not as bad because there’s space and I usually have a book, so, I’ll file this under mundane daily dramas. I did have to deal with subtle jabs that we were “running a few hours behind” in email exchanges all day but I’m a grown ass man who also doesn’t do any client facing.

There are people who value punctuality. The philosophy seems to be that if you are ever late then you are disrespecting other peoples’ time. I, however, find it disrespectful to listen to someone talk about how it’s disrespectful not to be on time. I would like the time spent listening to that lecture back but life doesn’t always work the way that we want it to.

Though, there are days with work and meetings and rehearsals and shows and each one starts five to ten minutes late or we sit around a conference room or a theater and ask “who’s supposed to be here?” I probably lose hours a week on that stuff.

But whenever I’m waiting for someone, I never think to myself, “Man, who the hell does this person think they are?”