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会传染的迟到坏习惯

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I recently made plans to meet a good friend for dinner. We picked our favorite Italian place in Brooklyn and both swore we'd be there at 8.


最近我准备与一好友共进晚餐，于是就选了布鲁克林我们最喜欢的意大利餐厅，并约好八点在那儿见面。



At 8:05, as I arrived at the restaurant, my pal sent a text saying she was running late and was just leaving her office -- half an hour away. She wrote again at 8:30, explaining that she had been delayed by her boss and was walking out the door 'for real this time.'


八点过五分，我到达餐厅的时候，朋友发来短信说她要迟到了，因为她刚刚才离开办公室，要半小时才能到。八点半，她又发来一条短信，解释说老板耽搁了她的时间，这次是真的出门了。



Over the next hour, I received more texts: She was having trouble hailing a cab; she found a cab; the cab was stuck in traffic. She then stopped at a hardware store to buy bungee cords for her new bike rack.


接下来的一个小时里，我收到了更多的短信：她打车遇到了麻烦；打到了车；遇上堵车了。然后，她在一个五金店停了一停，给她的新自行车架买弹簧索。



At 9:47, my friend entered the restaurant, apologizing profusely but looking strikingly unstressed. Good thing I adore her.


九点四十七分，朋友进入餐厅。她不停地道歉，看起来却一点儿也不内疚。幸好我喜欢她。



Remember when we would make plans to meet someone and then actually show up on time? If you were more than a few minutes late, the other person would have visions of you lying on a gurney with a toe tag.


还记得我们依照约定准时出现的时代吗？那时候，如果你晚了仅仅几分钟，对方就该想象你脚上挂着标签躺在轮床上的情景了。



Now, thanks to cellphones, BlackBerrys and other gadgets, too many of us have become blase about being late. We have so many ways to relay a message that we're going to be tardy that we no longer feel guilty about it.


现在，由于有了手机、黑莓和其它电子设备，太多太多的人开始对迟到不屑一顾。我们有太多方式向对方传达将要迟到的信息，所以就不再为迟到感到愧疚了。



And lateness is contagious. Once one person is tardy, others feel they can be late as well. It becomes beneficial to be the last one in a group to show up, because your wait will be the shortest.


迟到是会传染的。一个人迟到，其他人就会觉得他们也可以迟到。最后一个出现的人最占优势，因为你等的时间最短。



'Cellphones let you off the hook,' says Kelly Casciotta, a 34-year-old pastoralcounselor from Orange, Calif. She says she has been habitually tardy for years -- late to everything from concerts to friends' weddings -- and once showed up an hour and a half late for a date. Her husband says she has 'T.E.D.' -- Time Estimation Disorder.


加州34岁的教牧辅导卡斯欧塔（Kelly Casciotta）说，手机成了挡箭牌。她说，多年来她一直习惯性迟到，从音乐会到朋友婚礼，每件事都迟到，有一次约会还迟到了一个半小时。她丈夫说她得了时间预估紊乱症。



She says she feels little remorse. 'If I am heading to a meeting and am running behind, I feel I am being responsible if I text five minutes before the meeting is supposed to start to say I am going to be 10 minutes late,' she says.


她说她几乎不会感到愧疚。她说，如果我正赶去开会，要迟到了，我觉得在开会前五分钟发短信说我将会迟到十分钟就是负责任的表现了。



Don't believe that tardiness is out of control? Ask around.


迟到已经超出了人们的控制范围，不相信？问问周围的人吧。



Diana Miller, 65, a financialadviser from San Diego, says she broke up with a good friend who was habitually late.


圣地亚哥65岁的金融顾问米勒（Diana Miller）说，她和一个经常性迟到的朋友绝了交。



Melissa Gottlieb, 24, a Manhattan publicist, once asked a policeman to drive her to class in college because she was running behind. (He did it.)


曼哈顿24岁的公关专员哥特利布（Melissa Gottlieb）大学时曾请求一名警察载她去学校上课，因为她要迟到了。（警察答应了。）



Full disclosure: Last week I showed up 20 minutes late to pick up a friend for dinner. (He took it well, even though he was waiting outside in a tropical storm.) I've missed a flight because I arrived at the airport after the deadline to check baggage. And I was once more than an hour late to meet my bungee-cord buying friend.


全盘揭秘：上周我去接一个朋友吃晚饭，迟到了20分钟。（他并不怪我，即使他一直在外面的热带风暴中等我。）我错过了一趟航班，因为我在办理行李托运手续时间截止之后才到机场。还有一次，和那位买弹簧索的朋友见面时，我迟到了一个多小时。



It's hard to believe I grew up with a father who is a Navy veteran fond of quoting a Marine friend of his: 'If you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late.'


我父亲是一位海军退伍老兵，他总喜欢引用他一位战友的一句话：如果你提前到，那就是准时。如果你准时到，那就是迟到。很难相信，我是在这样一位父亲的教导下长大的。



Of course, people were tardy -- even chronically so -- long before smart phones. How else would Lewis Carroll have come up with the White Rabbit?


当然，在智能手机出现很久之前，人们就有迟到的现象，甚至是习惯性迟到的现象。不然，卡罗尔（Lewis Carroll）怎么能想象出那只白兔子呢？



Some people were raised in cultures where tardiness is tolerated. Others learned poor time-management skills from their parents.


有些人成长于容忍迟到的文化中。有些人从父母那里学到了很差的时间管理技巧。



Far too many of us, though, try to cram too much into the day, leaving no time to get from place to place. And a few people use their tardiness to display power or control. (Think about the people who routinely show up late to meetings at your office. I bet they're not the peons, right?)


然而，我们当中的很多人都在努力将一天的时间填得满满当当，路上的时间一点不留。有些人以迟到显示权力或控制力。（想想办公室里开会经常迟到的人。我打赌他们不是普通员工，对吧？）



Here's the problem: Being late -- especially over and over -- can leave the other person feeling disrespected.


问题在于：迟到，尤其是经常迟到，会让对方觉得不受尊重。



And yet, delays happen. The car refuses to start, the baby throws up on your tie, a co-worker stops by your desk to chat just as you're packing it in for the day.


但是，耽搁总是在所难免。车子无法启动，孩子吐到了领带上，收拾东西准备下班的时候，一个同事走到你桌子旁边来聊天。



It's the varying nature of these unexpected delays that actually makes it so hard for people to be on time, says Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and author of 'The Upside of Irrationality.' Because what goes wrong is different each time, people fail to plan for the delays. 'They never take the average into account,' he says.


阿尔雷（Dan Ariely）是杜克大学（Duke University）心理学和行为经济学教授，著有《非理性的积极力量》（The Upside of Irrationality）一书的作者。他说，实际上是这些意外耽搁的不同性质致使人们准时到达如此之难，因为每次出现的状况都不同，人们很难为这些耽搁做准备。他说，人们永远不会在意司空见惯的事情。



It works like this: If every day as you left work to go pick up your kids, your printer broke and took half an hour to fix, you'd soon start planning that time into your commute. But it isn't always the printer that goes wrong. Sometimes it's an unexpected email; other times it's your boss. And because the cause of the delay is different each time, it feels unexpected.


是这样的：如果每天当你要下班去接孩子时，你的打印机都会坏并需要你花半小时修理，那么久而久之你就会开始考虑将这部分时间计入通勤时间。但惹麻烦的并非总是打印机。有时是突然收到邮件，有时是因为老板。每次耽搁的缘由都不同，每次都让人感觉出乎意料。



Dr. Ariely has found that people are more likely to show up on time if they have made a deal with themselves to do so.


阿尔雷博士发现，如果与自己做个金钱交易，人们就会更容易做到准时到达。



In an experiment conducted last year, he asked 2,500 Americans this question: If you knew you had a colonoscopy scheduled for a particular day, would you be willing to put aside $500 that you would forfeit if you didn't show up for the procedure on time? Sixty percent of the participants said they were willing risk money. 'They make this pre-commitment to ensure their own behavior,' Dr. Ariely says.


在去年进行的一个试验中，他对2,500个美国人提出了这样一个问题：如果你知道某天你有一个结肠镜检查预约，你愿意拿出500美元作为未能准时去做检查的罚金么？60%的参与者说他们愿意。阿尔雷博士说，他们提前做出这样一个承诺以确保自己不会迟到。



Elizabeth Bernstein


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