The year is 2020. You’re sitting in your bedroom in a presentable top and pajama pants, gathering the mental fortitude to click on a Zoom link to join class, a club meeting or maybe a random webinar. You wait until the clock hits the exact start time and click to connect. Upon entering the meeting, the host announces, “Let’s just wait a couple more minutes for everyone else to log on.” Great, what a waste of time!
Covid and Zoom taught us a lot of things, including the idea that being early isn’t always a good thing. In fact, it disincentivized it. If you showed up before the Zoom meeting started, you probably had to wait until the host started the meeting, sending them an email notification of your presence in their Zoom meeting or were forced to make small talk with the other people who — for some strange reason — also showed up before it was fashionably late to do so.
Now, back to the present. As I arrive, predictably, five minutes late to yet another social engagement or walk into class at the exact minute it’s scheduled to start, I am reminded that I was not always like this. I was raised to think that being early is on time and being on time is late — and if you’re late, well, you might as well just not show up. But frankly, it’s not seen as a big deal to be late anymore, so no one does anything about it.
But I’d argue it is a big deal. Sure, unexpected situations happen every once in a while — a bus breaks down, a meeting holds you over, and so on — but the frequency at which we Duke students are late to things is indicative of broader problems than just the shortened times between classes or our perennial business. It signifies a lack of respect for other peoples’ schedules and poor time management skills. Perhaps it’s also a sort of retribution: You waste my time, and I’ll waste yours.
It’s pretty obvious why everyone always being late isn’t a great thing — and, indeed, it tends to contribute to additional tardiness when everything gets started five minutes after its scheduled time. What worries me more is that there is no incentive to be early, nor does being late bring any consequences. It’s rare that something starts on time these days, and even if someone arrives a few minutes after the thing starts, seldom are they admonished — and if they are, it often is seen as uptight.
When timeliness is taken seriously, it often feels like a generational clash. Now, the boomers and Gen X-ers may be misguided about a lot of things, but I think they’re on the right track with this one. Perhaps we Gen Zs don’t take things like being on time as seriously as our parents did because we lead generally easier lives than them and didn’t have to experience as much punishment growing up. Maybe offloading our calendars to our phones removes a sense of personal culpability. Perhaps, we do not care enough to be bothered by something silly like being on time.
You may disagree that we should harp on the little things so much. However, if someone cares little about the little things, I’d hazard a guess that they probably won’t take the big ones 100% seriously, either. A person’s relationship to and respect for their broader community is evident in everything they do. The way we’re acting shows we don’t care about how we treat each other — unless we want something from someone else.
Because it’s not just about being late — and at least if you’re late for class, you’re actually going to it — this is one of many ways we, as Duke students, have collectively decided to put ourselves over others. We make plans with friends just to cancel when a better offer arrives. We “forget” to show up to something and blame it on our calendars. We take ages to text people back, even though we see the message instantly. We keep friends around for convenience who might prove useful later on.
Living in this environment has caused us to adopt its norms. Although there are exceptions, all of the tiny daily choices and actions we make are influenced by the observations we make. Through trial and error, we see what gets us ahead and what sets us behind. Many disrespectful behaviors are only acceptable due to their near-universal adoption in our community.
The concept of altruism — the act of doing good by others without the expectation of reward — is alien on our campus. Indeed, when someone does something nice for me these days, I’ve started to question their motives. Maybe I’m just paranoid from one too many “Hey, how are you?” texts out of the blue that are followed up with a request for a favor.
Often, making a small personal sacrifice can greatly benefit the people around us. Pulling the door shut instead of letting it slam when you know your roommates are sleeping. Avoiding taking a four-person table during WU rush hour for yourself. Letting people who were at the bus stop before you enter first. We have no mutual impetus for calling out bad behavior because we don’t want to remove the possibility of us acting similarly later on — if we’re all rude, somehow that makes it okay.
I won’t blame this all on COVID-19, but I do think the pandemic enabled it. We would be remiss to dismiss the developmental detriment of essentially having no expectations and limited accountability to authority figures for two years during our development. When your goal goes from extreme academic performance to just successfully existing and back again, it’s no wonder we find it difficult to return to what real adults love to call “our new normal.”
The pandemic certainly illuminated the silliness of certain aspects of our society, but that doesn’t mean everything needs to change. The pandemic taught us the importance of interpersonal connection; now that meeting in person is again the norm, we should show each other the shred of humanity that it takes to plan ahead enough to arrive on time — or, better yet, a minute or five early. It’s not too late to set an easy goal for the year; I plan to do my best to respect the time of those around me and hope that they can do the same for me.
Heidi Smith is a Trinity senior. Her column typically publishes on alternate Mondays.
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