How to Get Around Being on Time

CW FISHER.
We've all been late to work, and we've all employed the same old tired excuses, usually involving traffic. The problem is that people eventually stop believing us. They start asking increasingly difficult questions such as, “Traffic?”

Sounds like an easy question, but it's a trap -- because just underneath this remark ...is rage on the edge of breakout:

You had traffic, I had traffic, we all had traffic, that's the nature of traffic, it's a group thing; traffic doesn't happen to one person, it takes piles of people, mounds of people of all kinds going everywhere at once and all of them going to work, drinking coffee, talking on the phone, reading the paper, putting on their makeup, clipping their toenails – and all of this while traveling between 3 and 11 miles per hour – effectively crawling like larvae to a hated place where our sense of self worth is daily diminished thanks to Total Quality Management which made consensus a euphemism for mass catatonia – but you, you’re different. You had traffic.

All of the above can be conveyed without words, and usually is. Therefore it's wise to respond preemptively next time. Master the following:

1. Keep your mouth shut. Sometimes they won't even notice you're late.
2. Don't explain. They don't to hear about it.
3. Never apologize. Force them to assume the best. Or nothing.
4. As you pass your boss: smile, nod, and wink. Some add a little kissing sound.
5. Use visual aids. If you rub your hands on your tires, a simple wave tells the whole story.

Some bosses may stop you, some may suggest you leave a little earlier. Well, excuse us, but we don't need this first thing in the morning. Reply this way: “Leave a little earlier? Hey, thanks! That'll get me home in time for Scrubs." Step away winking.

The wink is a good all-purpose gesture to learn. Discovered online by clever chatters, the wink first emerged as a semi-colon and a right-parentheses -- ; ). Done right, a wink can instantly undo hours of misbehavior.

Or end your career.

Hey lookit. We all know what's going to happen if we don't change our ways. People won't believe anything we say anymore. That's when lying becomes impossible, and so does telling the truth, because, either way, nobody believes you -- and pretty soon life itself becomes impossible. It's sad, but truth telling is a learned skill which the chronically late missed, due to traffic.