I still remember the last time I was hideously, heinously late. It was a work trip and I was due on a connecting flight, transiting through the sprawling ugliness of Dallas airport. Our flight from London took off late, and my colleagues and I had approximately 25 minutes to get to the other side of the terminal. I’d already spent most of runway descent furiously calculating the speed at which I would need to sprint to the correct gate. I made it with only a few seconds spare – just in time to see the faces of my dismayed coworkers as they were barred from boarding.
Call it parental upbringing or overcompensation for my ADHD, but I was not brought up to be late. If you’re lucky enough to have been raised in an Asian family, you will know that timeliness in certain aspects – like getting to the airport four hours early – is not merely a nice suggestion but a mandatory obligation, on par with filing your taxes or pretending to remember an aunt you last saw when you were three. But it seems like I’m a dying breed – the last gasp of a generation of chronically over-diarised and natural latecomers who were whipped into being on time.
According to a survey of 1,000 British adults carried out by online meeting company Meeting Canary, nearly half (46 per cent) of Gen Z workers aged 16 to 26 believe that being five to 10 minutes late is effectively the same as being on time.
As people get older, they become less forgiving, with 39 per cent of millennials shrugging off the lateness of friends and colleagues but only 26 per cent of Gen Xers feeling the same way. Baby boomers (those aged 59 and up) come down the hardest on latecomers – 69 per cent are of the strong belief that late is just, well, late.
“It appears being 10 minutes late is now the equivalent of being on time, especially for the younger generation who are clearly more forgiving about time-keeping,” commented Meeting Canary founder Laura van Beers.
Predictably, this age-related attitude to timekeeping has become another salvo in the ongoing generational wars, with boomers on one side of the battlefront and zoomers on the other (if they ever turn up, that is).
But I’d wager tardiness doesn’t just relate to how old you are – it’s also about the culture and country you grow up in. Airport hyper-punctuality aside, my dad’s Indonesian and Singaporean family drift in for Christmas dinner anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour late, mysteriously materialising just in time for food to land on the lazy Susan.
My Nigerian friend once waited seven hours for Burna Boy to show up for a gig in Lagos – the former laughed this off as “Nigerian time”. (In the interest of fairness, I will note that the African Giant star started this year’s Glastonbury set bang on schedule.)
The circles you run in can also shift the Overton window of what constitutes lateness. At university, my friends and I knew we had to be on time for seminars, and that bled into post-graduation life for a few years.
But now that the disapproving stare of lecturers is a distant memory, most of us have loosened up – it’s not unusual to arrive at a party half an hour to an hour later, much to the bewilderment of partners and boyfriends who have blown up balloons for a prompt 9pm start.
According to Debretts, this kind of loosey-goosey lateness is tantamount to slapping the birthday girl with a fish before the candles are lit. “Being late is not a sign of importance or great industry,” argues the authority on modern British manners. “It is a sign of poor organisation, thoughtlessness or rudeness.” Ouch.
I’m not a heathen. I do understand that there are events that necessitate promptness, like job interviews, weddings and funerals. It would be rude to keep a friend waiting on their own in a bar or restaurant or leave a client hanging on a Zoom call. But group occasions are a different story – is any dinner party host truly thrilled by the on-time guest who requires entertaining while you’re still trying to find matching cutlery?
I’d argue that my friends’ lateness may be incomprehensible to outsiders, but is actually a sign of true intimacy. I distinctly remember when the shift happened: With barely 20 minutes to go and my make-up half-done, I suddenly realised that I could still fix my shoddy eyeliner because everyone else was going to be late.
It was like receiving an unexpected gift, one borne out of truly grasping my mates’, uh, flexible perception of time. Likewise, I don’t think my cousins mean to be rude – they just know from years of experience that my mum’s Christmas ham is best enjoyed once it’s cooled to room temperature.
The next time someone you know is late, find it in your heart to forgive them, for it might be a sign of affection and understanding. Unless, of course, they’ve made you late for a flight.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
