Leaving early

[Ed62]

We've had other threads regarding driving, but not this one. Do you leave a little early when you have to be somewhere at a certain time, i.e. work? Or are you the type who leaves, knowing (?) just how long it's going to take to get to your destination? I like to leave with plenty of time to spare.

Ed

[Salty]

Up until 14 months ago I drove 40-45 minutes to work and I always left early and usually got there early. The idea was to allow extra time for those occations where the traffic or something else slowed me up.
Now it takes me about 10 minutes to get to work and I still leave early enough to get there in plenty of time.
I also leave plenty early for interviews or appointments. Just seems to be my way.
I often sit in my car at work until it is time to clock in and I am amazed that there seems to be 30-40 percent of the people who get there within 5 minutes of starting time.
I can't live like that.

[jackellis]

When we go someplace together, my wife and I typically run late. When I have appointments I have to make alone, I try to allow plenty of time.

However, when it comes to being at the airport, I hate to sit and will get there with enough time to reasonably get through security but not too terribly early. My wife, however, likes to leave a lot more time for that stuff than I do.

[RodKirby]

I'm always (deliberately) early - and over the years I've learned how peaceful it can be - waiting by myself!

[Tom Slick]

My wife and I always leave early. it drives us nuts that our friends are always late.

[MilDoc]

I like to get to work 30 min early to check yesterday's results, tackle a few phone calls, etc. Sometimes there isn't that much to do so I read the paper and have a quiet cup of coffee alone in my office before the day starts getting hectic.

Always early by 10-20 mins for everything else, too. Have a friend who is always late. Drives me nuts!

[sacherjj]

I would like to leave early. However, I drive with my girlfriend, because we work at the same place. She doesn't always share the urgency. I keep trying to find new ways of breaking the fact that this really stresses me out, without really stressing out our relationship. Well, she is about to quit to do Mary Kay full time, so I guess that problem will go away.

[Alex Franke]

Regardless of how early we plan to leave, we're pretty much always late. We blame it all on the 2 year old and the 6 month old.

For work, though, I usually take the bus. So after having coffee at the Starbucks conveniently located at my transfer point, I pretty much consistently get to work at exactly 9:03.

[sparkeyjames]

Wow all you early birds. I'm cronicly late for everything except doctors appointments. I have a job that allows me a 30 to 45 minute leeway in arival time but I am always the person who stays late to get the work done. I'm hoping to be just as cronicly late for my funeral.

sparkeyjames.

[billwmeyer]

I like to leave early, but my boss frowns on that, so I leave at 5 like everybody else.
Bill

[sscherin]

I get to work at 6am.. I'll take off for work with enough time to get there 10 min early.. If I still have that 10 min when I get near the office I'll sometimes burn the extra time with a quick stop my McDonalds or the doughnut shop and roll in right at 6am.

Nobody else shows up till 6:30 anyway.. If it wasn't for the door scanner nobody would ever know if I was late.

[LCHIEN]

A couple of years ago Rod was in Houston. Several of us arranged to meet him. Pappy planned to stop by my house on his way in from San Marcus. I was going to drive the 15 or so miles in city traffic and planned to pick up Rod and go to Rockler at a certain time, meet others, peruse the store for X minutes and then go out on the town so to speak.

So I calculated forwards and backwards from all the appointments and extimated travel and told Rod I"d pick him up at like 2:42 at the hotel and I did exactly that at 2:42 as promised. He had a great laugh and said only an engineer would specify a time like that, not 2:30 2:45 or 3:00 but 2:42.

I hadn't even thought about it.

You can see that meeting at Rockler in this pic hangin on Rod's wall:
http://www.bt3central.com/attachment...1&d=1176979129

[RodKirby]

AND - I was on time

[drumpriest]

Well, I'm a software developer who does math for a living, but I don't pretend to run my life as such. I do calculate fairly exact times for trips that I know I'll be doing repeatedly, but chaos theory tells us not to expect them to be accurate.

My current job allows for a lot of flexibility, which is very good. It's down in the city, and I'm not. The average drive time is 35-40 minutes, but with a city being what it is, I don't count on that. It has ranged from 30 mins to 2 hours. So I can't guarantee anything there. So I leave with enough time on average, and hope for the best. If I'm not sure of the time, I leave some extra time, scaled based upon length of the trip.

I don't leave too much early most places, and I give the caveat to those involved that I should be there at XXX so long as the universe is OK with it. ;-)

[Popeye]

One of the first things I learned in my working life was that "if you're early, you can't be late". Served me well in 23 years in the Navy. Has served me well driving a truck. Never had anyone get mad at me for being early.
Down side is that it aggravates the bejesus out of me sometimes when people are late. Pat