No Good Deed...

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

In the grand scheme of life, this shouldn't even be a blip on my radar, but it frustrates me anyway. I try to be a good citizen, team member, and all around good egg.

I'm also somewhat obsessed with time management and efficiency. Therefore, I've integrated little habits into my daily life to try to shave time off tasks wherever I can. And when it comes to my calendar, I always manage my meetings and appointments. I'll let people know if I'll be late or can't make a meeting ahead of time.

Another unconscious habit I've incorporated in my life is that I strive to be either early or right on time to every meeting. Whether the meeting is in person, or by phone.

Again, just trying to be a good guy. So imagine my frustration on my first conference call of the day when this happens. I was first on the call, so it was just me and the call leader. Cool.

We start in on my updates for the week, and then someone joins the call late, who has to drop the call at the bottom of the hour. "Jay, can we switch to Joe's updates since he has to drop in a few minutes?"

"Um, ok."

As they're working through Joe's updates, Chad joins the call, even later than Joe. Once Joe's done with his updates, the call lead starts taking Chad's updates. When Chad is done with his updates, he gets to drop the call. Wait, what? WTF?!

So, I call it out as it's just me and person leading the call again, "I'd like to ask how does that happen?" He replies, "How does what happen?"

"Where I'm the first on the call, and yet the last one to give his updates?"

The most frustrating part of all that was that he really didn't understand why I'd be asking that.

Seriously? This guy really doesn't understand why I'd be upset about having my [time wasted]? I had to sit through an additional 45 minutes of other people's updates, who were both late, and again, I was early.

In what world is that ok? I could have finished my updates in less than 5 minutes, and I could have gotten 45 minutes of my life back that I've lost and will never get back.

So, my lesson learned for today is, I should show up late so I can go right into my updates, regardless of who was talking at the time. Do I really need to be an asshole to get people to stop wasting my time?