Last week, I was reading a NY Times article about New York City’s Mayor, Bill DeBlasio, and his first hundred days in office. Nothing he said was really surprising. However, one thing that did resonate was a question regarding his legendary lateness. (He kept the reporter waiting for almost an hour.) The question posed was whether Mr. DeBlasio thought this tendency to keep people waiting was appropriate. He replied that President George W. Bush was very punctual but he got us into two wars. That was a curious response, I thought, and totally off the mark.

Just like President Bush, I am a stickler for being on time. I was taught it was disrespectful to be tardy for an appointment. I always thought that someone else’s time was as important as mine — whoever that person might have been. I think that people who are compulsively late are inconsiderate to say the least. Being late has a multiplier effect, throwing off the schedules of unforeseen others.

It is a trait of passive aggressiveness that signals to others that “I am important because I can make you wait.” An individual who has so little regard for the time of others sees a group and not a person. This may explain Mr. DeBlasio’s rhetoric of “two cities”. His policies speak to one group of citizens against another. They are not in this struggle as one New York. Rather, one group is a loser and the other a winner.

In the U.S., there are no group rights–only individual ones. We can speak of the rights of the individual or the responsibility of citizenship. Not even important elected officials should see themselves as more worthy of consideration than an everyman. One does not have to agree with someone’s policy to respect him or her as a person. I would submit that someone who is perpetually late holds others with disrespect regardless of agreement on policy.