Punctuality...

 

See how heavy time is...

 

Time is a commodity, an advice I got 10 years ago when I started off as a lawyer. I never really that advice to heart as I live in a small town then where everything was reachable in 5 minutes. I can wake up at 8.45am to get to the office at 9am (just imagine how fast I take a bath) and still reach the courthouse at 9.30am. In the world of trial lawyers, waiting is a skill which need to be in your blood. You need a patience which will rival anyone. You reach the courthouse where all cases are listed as supposed to starts at 9am but they usually made you wait for nearly 2 hours before they tell you the case is deferred to another day. If you are late to court, usually your case will be the first one to be called and you will have to grovel at the magistrate's or judge's feet for the case to be reinstated (getting it back on the roster). So, 9.30am is considered as the safe time to be at the courthouse but this only applies to lawyers as the public who has a case there should never take this rule of the thumb as the norm for every courthouse.

So, during my time as a trial lawyer, time was not something that I took seriously. You can say I took it for granted. Until I met this one punctual client who seems to beat me at arriving precisely on the dot for ALL appointments. The problem is, he was an important person in politics when I first knew him (note the usage of the word 'was'). Logically, he would not have time to be punctual as he would have to attend to various matters which were supposedly important for a poltician. But, if he set a time, he was rarely late. I had to adjust my former lifestyle to accommodate this change. I then was taught by him the value of time as he was always under pressure to reach somewhere within a time frame that was set for him.

This man can have a meeting at his office, which would require a few high ranking government officials to come and brief him on current affairs so that he could make decisions and asked his officers to do something about it. I seen hime berated government officers who were late as he would have reached whatever place they were supposed to meet either right on the dot or at least with 5 minutes to spare. If it was even a social event he would have taken a bath, changed into the required attire and be there enough to know who would sit where so he had the advantage to excuse himself early. Of course, he had  a few trick of the trade but what I want to emphasise, a person can be punctual if he wants to.

Due to him, I have now been quite punctual for a few of my appointments with clients. But due to the nature of doing business in Malaysia, where people are always expecting other people to be late, I usually weight the need to be punctual according to the person I am meeting or what is the occasion. Being punctual is one thing but being punctual and wasting your time waiting is another. Hmmm....maybe that years of waiting in the courtroom has taught me something...