Okay, so we all know that showing up late (or not showing up at all) for an appointment is extremely rude and I’m sure we all know why, so I won’t delve too deep into the subject.
However, what many people don’t realize is that showing up early to an appointment can be just as rude.
When you show up early for an appointment, the person you are meeting with feels obligated to see you early even if it means throwing off their schedule. If I have a 2pm appointment with someone and they show up at 1:30, I feel an overwhelming amount of guilt for making them sit and wait for 2pm. If I wait and meet with them at 2pm, I should not feel guilt at all because I saw them at the scheduled appointment time. However, in my mind, I have just made them wait 30 minutes and I was the one being rude.
I bounce around from appointment-to-appointment a lot, so I always keep a book in the car and I have an iPhone. If I’m on pace to be early for an appointment, I’ll call or e-mail ahead to see if it would be okay to arrive early or if the person I’m meeting would like to keep the appointment as-is. Sometimes moving the appointment up early works great for both parties, but this is something that should be asked and answered, not just assumed. If the person I’m meeting with can’t see me early, I check my e-mails, I read my book, I’ll write an article or the outline for an article, I’ll brainstorm, maybe I go grab a cup of coffee or run an errand, sometimes I’ll even find a nice quiet place to park and just think or close my eyes for a few minutes. But what I never do is show up more than 5 minutes early to an appointment.
I think 5 minutes is a pretty good threshold on the early side and 10 minutes is a good threshold on the late side. Running 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late and there’s no need to call or e-mail. Anything more than 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late deserves at least a heads-up e-mail if not a phone call. Amd I think that anything more than 20 minutes late requires a phone call because by that point, the person you were meeting with may not have enough time left to meet with you before they have to move on to their next appointment.
