I am Always Late

For the last decade the issues of electronic surveillance and monitoring of employees at work became the focus of researches and management specialists. Electronic surveillance means using measures of electronic control over the work of employees, like video cameras, automatic devices monitoring telephone conversations or Internet usage, devices of automatic registration of entry and exit, electronic time control, etc. Many practical researchers speak for using electronic surveillance and monitoring at work. They say it can be a very effective tool for controlling the employees, catching those who are always late, detecting workers’ faults, idleness and frauds. “People won’t steal or slack off if they know they’re being watched. The average employee is productive 30 minutes out of an hour. They spend the rest of the time chatting, making personal telephone calls, getting something to drink, or going to the restroom,” says Maggie Morgan, a specialist of Sentry Surveillance in Kennesaw, Ga. (Electronic Surveillance in the Workplace, Norwich Uni.)

But, of course, specialists underline practical negativism and rejection of using daily electronic monitoring from the side of the employees. People like to be trusted and mostly pay back for this with good productivity and decent behavior at work. Many employees find measures of electronic control and surveillance to be the acts, which derogate from their human dignity and directly infringe the privacy rights of a person. Such opposition received immediate support by legislative regulations. In a number of European countries, like Austria, there are some restrictions for using measures of electronic surveillance at work. In order to establish any form of electronic control of employees, business organizations need to receive a special permission from the works council. Similar laws, establishing privacy protection regulations, were attempted to be adapted in our country, in particular, in California, but they were vetoed by the Governor at the early stages.

In any way, recently the demand and popularity of using different means of electronic surveillance in the USA is firmly growing. As the survey of NBC Nightly News shows, about 40% of American small companies use video cameras to control the employees during their working hours, (Electronic Surveillance at the Workplace, Norwich Uni.). Now more than 80% of the companies control Internet usage of the employees. Also, more than 50% of the companies monitor telephone conversations of the personnel, when in 2001 this index was only 9% (2005 Electronic Surveillance Survey). Besides, the researches underline that recently the sensitivity of the employees to electronic control and monitoring is decreasing (including those who are always late), and now the personnel becomes more and more tolerant to the measures of electronic surveillance at work. Especially after the events of Sept. 11, people started finding electronic surveillance and monitoring to be very efficient for preventing some dangerous criminal or immoral intentions of the employees.

Now many employers practice notifying their employees about the periods of using electronic surveillance and monitoring. Recently, the employers firmly extend usage of this type of control for keeping the threads of business in their hands. “To help control the risk of litigation, security breaches and other electronic disasters, employers should take advantage of technology tools to battle people problems—including the accidental and intentional misuse of computer systems, telephones and other electronic resources,” Nancy Flynn, director of a research project, commented (2005, Electronic Surveillance Survey). Of course, using the means of electronic surveillance at workplace is acceptable practice. Moderate usage of electronic surveillance, especially in small business, where it is much easier to control everything personally can assist in catching chronic latecomers, chronic lazy workers or those who do not want to do their job properly. Some control by electronic surveillance can be reasonable at large developed enterprises or production plants, but it must be done carefully and periodically. However, in the offices or factories, where bosses demonstrate trust to their employees and use minimal amounts of electronic surveillance, the output and organizational climate are a lot better.

I believe that virtually every one of us has a friend or an acquaintance who is always late. Some of the ‘luckiest’ have a spouse or a close family member who has a habit of being up to 1-2 hours late and make other people wait for him or her. The sad thing is: sometimes such chronic latecomers feel no guilt or remorse for their bad habit thinking that they had more important things to do or more significant things to think over while others are waiting for them. Sounds familiar? I can imagine how much anger, discomfort and stress you can feel when you have to deal with such kind of guys.

Below, there is a list of helpful tips for those who have to stand on the habits of chronically late people, who have to deal with them closely and fall victims of their improper behavior. I hope you will find those helpful and useful.

1. Accept the situation as it is and get prepared for waiting for your late-coming counterpart. In order not to waste your time, you can get prepared for waiting by taking things to be done with you. You can use this time for scheduling your meetings and planning your activities, looking for useful info online or chatting online with your friends, reading a book or a newspaper, making all sorts of arrangements, proofreading documents, etc. etc. Also, it is possible to arrange your meeting with a latecomer in a bookstore or a shopping mall, where you can use your time more effectively than just idle waiting.

2. Be prepared for the latecomer to fuss around and bring out the most amazing (and always very stupid) reasons why they were late. They can blame their pets, their business partners, their relatives, traffic, acts of God – whatever, to justify their being late (again and again). Try to act neutral in this kind of situation, do not show openly that you do not buy their reasons, but be kind and solicitous. Do not display your anger or disappointment: this can lead to more serious and dramatic consequences.

3. Do not nag, do not argue and do not lecture chronic latecomers. As a rule, they are kings of arguing and they can easily outlast you bringing more and more arguments. Nagging and lecturing will not be helpful as well because by doing so you are showing that you actually care and make importance of this nasty habit of your counterpart. The best strategy in such case can be showing that you are actually independent on their time and do not rely on their being on time. This can work out (at least some day one day;) )

4. If your counterpart is a “severe latecomer” (always late for work, sometimes late for flights, etc.), you should clearly specify the time for how long you’re going to wait. Do not feel guilty for leaving without any warning if you waited for the specified amount of time. Finally, if you are certain that your counterpart will be late, you can tell him or her to actually come 30 minutes earlier, or you can show up for the meeting 30 minutes later. But this strategy puts you at risk of being late yourself.

Success is something that can be achieved by using own talents, skills, knowledge, luck, as well as by using a combination of many minor factors, and sometimes such factors are absolutely strange and seemingly unrelated. Actually, it is not something new that a person’s name can determine his or her destiny to a certain extent. However, could you ever imagine that the people with easy-to-say names have much higher chances to achieve professional or personal success in this life, be more healthy and wealthy, more well-thought-of, respected and reputable, as well as have lower risks of developing a nasty habit of being always late?

The findings of a study of Australian specialists from Melbourne University’s School of Psychological Sciences suggest that those people with tongue-twisters names have much tougher life and have to face much more problems of all sorts compared to those people who have easy-to-say names. Our names play a very important role in how we are perceived by the others, and if your name is Spencer, Benson or Sherman, you will be judged much more positively than those people whose names are hard to pronounce. At that, specialists are convinced that the folks with easy-to-say names are usually receiving special treatments from teachers, more promotions from their employers at work, and so on.

“The effect is not due merely to the length of a name, or how foreign-sounding or unusual it is, but rather how easy it is to pronounce,” Dr Simon Laham, a leader of the study and an expert from Melbourne University’s School of Psychological Sciences, commented on the findings of his expert team. During the study, the specialists looked at the names and their professional or personal achievements. It turned out that those with surnames like O’Sallivan or Morten were ranked among the easiest and the most “successful” for their owners. The names of foreign origin like Loughnane, Farquharson, or Katorjevskiy, found the place among the hardest names to pronounce, thus being less positively taken.

The experts pointed on the fact that those people with difficult to pronounce names reported about their getting very stressed and dejected when the people around them fail or do not spend efforts for pronouncing or spelling their names in a correct manner. A great deal of people with foreign origin who come to or reside in other countries, are very well familiar with this kind of problem. Having not an easy-to-say name sometimes results in emotional problems, a lack of professional success and self-esteem, depression, sadness, and – being always late. Read more about the findings of this interesting study in the latest issue of the online Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.