Chapter 33: On the Ball
“Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable!” ― Eric Jerome Dickey
In our technology driven world we should all be constantly aware of the time. Most people have smart watches, carry or are glued to their phones, or are on their tablets or computers out in public. All are devices which have a clock on them. Oftentimes though, people are too distracted by said devices to even notice the time. More often than not, punctuality is considered to be old fashioned and is ignored by society. Being “fashionably late” is even a term that is used by some. Growing up, we were painfully early to most events. Now, raising my kids, I’ve carried on that tradition. We’ve actually had to wait in the car because we arrived at our destination too early to go in. I always said that I’d rather be early than late. While there is a balance between being way too early or being late, I personally prefer to err on the side of early, leaving extra time for the unknown to happen and for you to still arrive on time.
When I started working in the camping world, I learned to despise the term “camp time”. “Camp time” meant that camps weren’t supposed to run on an actual watch, but instead be more “organic” in the timing of events. I’ve even worked at camps that wanted to change the times around so that lunch was at “lunch time” or activity time was at “activity time”. I have never seen a watch that can fit “lunch time” at the top of the face. This doesn’t work for many reasons. First, most state health departments need a physical time listed for when you are serving meals. Second, if an accident or incident happens, listing “free time” as the time of the event will not go over well with any governing organization, and third, there’s nothing worse than trying to run a program, only to realize that your next group is still at their last activity period.
I remember one fourth of July when Mr. Modern-Day Mountain Man drove a bus load of summer staff down to watch the fireworks. All of the staff was over 18, and most had been in the area before and knew the transportation systems or lack there-of. Mr. M-DMM told the staff as they exited the bus, that he would start the timer on his watch as soon as the grand finale of fireworks was over. At the end of the program, all staff had exactly 15 minutes with which to be back on board the bus or he would leave without them. Fifteen minutes after the fireworks were over, he pulled the bus out of the parking lot and started back up the mountain, without two of the staff members on board. I heard one person say, “Wait! We’re missing two!” and another reply, “He told them to be on time. Everyone else was on time. They had their chance.” For years to come, that story was repeated whenever staff boarded a bus. No one was ever late again, most were early for departure time.
(In this example, all the people involved were over 18 and were therefore, considered adults. The “missing” staff members were both people who had grown up at this camp and knew the town well. They also had decided to ride back up with a different staff member without telling anyone else. This obviously, would never be attempted with minors or campers, nor would he have left a single staff member alone.)
The lesson taught that night was long lasting. When new staff would arrive to camp, old staff would tell them, “Be on time, he means it!!” This made camp and outings run so much smoother. Very rarely were there large chunks of time to fill without notice because a group didn’t show up, very rarely did schedules have to be rearranged because someone couldn’t motivate their campers to get to the next destination. Schedule changes do occur at a camp, however. A storm may make an event impossible and a schedule will have to be changed. An outing somewhere may return late because of something not in your control such as highway construction or an emergency situation. For these events, schedules do need to have the option of flexibility. Being late to an activity period because everyone is not wanting to get out of bed is just inconsiderate.
“Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable!” Being late can be a nuisance. It causes delays and changes that didn’t need to happen to a program. Being late can be dangerous if a train isn’t running on time. Most of all though, being late is rude. It isn’t kind to the people in the program to have to miss out on the next event because you couldn’t keep them on time or the people who are waiting for the next event to occur. Camp programming is all about running the schedule like a well oiled machine. Be willing to make adjustments due to situations out of your control, but try your best to be consistent and considerate of all persons involved in your program. Enjoy the journey, but try your hardest to stay true to the plan!
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