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Habits can be retrained. The tendency to be early or late is not a genetic trait, it's built into the personality from experience and can be relearned. This notion that "it's just the way I am" shouldn't cut it in certain cases. Typically in nature it takes a negative stimulus response to create changes in behavior, such as being disciplined or fired for being late. Of course if the person is important enough, I suppose the negative stimulus response of firing the person might come back to bite the employer so they don't do it...
Nice armchair theory. It's wrong. Anything can be retrained (temporarily) but it doesn't change the fact that people have different tendencies and those tendencies persist despite repeated "negative stimulus response".
“There are all sorts of disincentives and punishments for being late, and the paradox is we’re late even when those punishments and consequences exist," Justin Kruger, a social psychologist at New York University's School of Business told Reddy.
In fact, Type A and Type B people actually feel time pass differently, as Reddy reports. Over three previous studies Conte found that, for Type A individuals, a minute passed in 58 seconds, where as Type B people felt a minute pass in a leisurely 77 seconds.
When I hired people, I was much more interested in the skill set, enthusiasm and personality but I realize that I am in the minority.
Someone who is 5 minutes late could be an excellent worker and a good multi-tasker and used to being busy - skills I needed- vs the person sitting in my waiting room for 30-60 minutes prior. I'm sure they thought that reflected great on them but it did not.
I never hired the "sitters," I hired the "doers."
Those companies definitely exist. For example, I recall more than one recruiter/headhunter, as well as HM at Amazon itself saying if you show up to your job interview wearing a suit, you won't be impressing anyone. I don't know if they explicitly tell you NOT to show up wearing business formal (it can make a difference to see if you can follow instructions). However, if someone shows up wearing sandals, a T, and shorts, and shows industry and technical expertise, whereas the guy in the suit and tie is inferior in those regards, that guy shouldn't be surprised the other guy got picked over him.
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With me, again, unless I'm told otherwise, I play it safe and show up 10 min. early, in business formal.
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Originally Posted by MassVt
I don't think you're necessarily in the minority, though. If I was doing the hiring, I would have used the interview as more of a barometer than "being 5 minutes late". I remember many interviewers keeping me waiting for quite a while in reception rooms, and I seldom thought that that was appropriate, either..
Yeah, some places, they also use what the candidate knows about the company as a major source of points as to whether or not they're a good candidate. Others, it's at best a tie-breaker
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I was shocked when many of the regular staff I worked with didn't know what the company did. I guess they were never asked that question during the interview, or the company didn't really care. Me, I was hired as a summer intern while still in college, so I went through no interview process. I only talked to someone at a job fair.
More social engineering. There's a hands-free law that just passed, sir, I couldn't use my phone at all while driving. Or As you can see, I was but 5 minutes late. I honestly thought I had a shot to still be on time even with that delay, but the traffic lights just didn't break in my favor. And did you see the mess caused by the latest protest by the cult of the recreationally outraged?
This is my point of view about the hopeful employee who can't be there on time for an interview. He is a procrastinator who can't budget his time. That means that he won't get his projects done until the last second which can put the other employees behind if they can't do their work until they get the information from his project. This can cause unhappiness among my other employees
If an employee comes in late every morning, no matter how qualified he is, he is going to cause bad feelings and resentment among the other employees, especially if they must cover for him until he arrives. If it is difficult to hire good people, I'd rather get rid of the late arriver than to have my other good employees start looking for jobs elsewhere because they are no longer happy at work.
It takes very little to change a work attitude from contented to disgruntled and seeing one employee get special privileges causes discontent. I would prefer for my employees to work as a team and the perpetually late guy is not a team player. He is going out of his way to proclaim that he is special becasue he doesn't have to follow the same rules as everyone else.
Is it the end of the world, maybe maybe not depends on the hiring manager but it shows you don't respect the interviewers time and also if you can't be on time to the interview will you be on time for work?
More social engineering. There's a hands-free law that just passed, sir, I couldn't use my phone at all while driving. Or As you can see, I was but 5 minutes late. I honestly thought I had a shot to still be on time even with that delay, but the traffic lights just didn't break in my favor. And did you see the mess caused by the latest protest by the cult of the recreationally outraged?
Making excuses for your failure to properly plan to arrive on time only makes things worse. If you are late, and someone still agrees to interview you, own it. Don't make excuses, don't blame other things or people. Doing otherwise just shows that you don't take responsibility.
Showing up late cheats others of their time. I'm sitting there for 5 or 10 minutes twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to arrive... and you think that's not going to annoy me?
If you call in advance... "I'm running late, will be there at 10 past!" then that tells me you should have left the house 10 minutes sooner than you did. Bad planning. Inconsiderate. See all the things I've learned about you before you even came into the office?
Showing up late cheats others of their time. I'm sitting there for 5 or 10 minutes twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to arrive... and you think that's not going to annoy me?
You actually conduct your interviews on time? Geez, I'm always twiddling my thumbs for 10-15 minutes before the interviewer happens to walk into the room.
Showing up late cheats others of their time. I'm sitting there for 5 or 10 minutes twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to arrive... and you think that's not going to annoy me?
If you can't do your job without me then I better be getting paid more than you.
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