You and your friends make a plan to meet on Sunday morning for a swim. Or you have a regularly scheduled noontime workout. Or you have swimming friends coming from out of town who want to join in with your group.
You are on time. And they are late.
How long do you wait until you get in the water? How long should you wait for your late-running friends?
If the conditions are not ideal – perhaps the water is rough, the wind is blowing hard or the water is cold – it is more than likely that the grace period becomes longer. But what if you do not have much time and you have to get back to work? What if you want to get in a certain distance and every lost minute eats into your planned distance?
It depends if they are in contact with you via their mobile device. If they are stuck in traffic, you might be more patient and understanding than if they just got up late or simply forgot. But tardiness is tardiness and you are anxious to get in, especially if the water conditions look good. If you swim in Japan where punctuality is prized and expected in all aspects of life, school and work, the time limit to get in is much shorter than in America where 16% of employees arrive late to work once a week and 30% come in late at least once a month.
In the same way that a lack of punctuality at work can impact how you are perceived by your co-workers, so to is a lack of punctuality an influence on how your commitment and reliability is perceived by some of your fellow swimming buddies. Being late on an occasion or two is forgivable, but keeping your swimming buddies with busy lifestyles from getting in on time on a frequent basis should be avoided.
In America, the most common excuses for being late for work include traffic or transportation delays, lack of sleep, bad weather, problems getting kids to school, spouses and pets.
But according to CareerBuilder, some of the more outrageous excuses used by American employees include:
• The cat had hiccups
• Got distracted watching TV
• Thought she had won the lottery
• Roommate cut the cord to phone charger, so phone alarm didn’t go off
• A fox stole the car keys
• Had a job interview with another company
What are some of the most interesting excuses you or your teammates have used when late to an open water swimming workout? How long is reasonable to wait for your swimming buddy before you get in: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes?
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