My grandfather did his best to instill a few basic principles in his children and grandchildren. One such precept was: if an appointment is worth making, it's worth keeping. From my grandfather, I developed a strong aversion to being late and a strong dislike for when others are late for me.

Particular friends of mine in college tried to break me of this ingrained attitude. I was too uptight, they'd point out. Blah, blah, blah. They were probably right, and I certainly did come to recognize that sometimes things just happen and it's no use to have a brain seizure over being a few minutes late for some pre-ordained meeting time. Nonetheless, the general principle has stayed with me. I tend to arrange my schedule to allow extra time to get someplace, just in case of bad traffic (or whatever).

Sometimes things just happen. But, in one case, things are getting ridiculous.

In my current position at work, I have a number of managers to whom I report. There's the Group Program Manager, who is responsible for coordinating the program managers for the "hardline" site development group. Because this position is actually vacant at present, the person acting in this capacity is our Director of Site Development. There's the General Manager of one of the stores for which I am responsible. And, since the General Manager position happens to be vacant for two of the other stores for which I am responsible, that role (those roles?) is (uh, are?) being handled by the stores' Vice President.

While I report to each of these folks, there is no real direct reporting relationship that they have to each other. Well, okay, the General Manager dude reports to the Vice President -- which could pose some interesting complications but hasn't yet -- but the Director (er, Group Program Manager) actually reports through a different branch to the Senior Vice President above my particular Vice President.

This is what the old-timers at my company used to call a "matrix" before they decentralized into store-based units; back before a movie of the same name hit the scene. When the decentralized units were dissolved and reorganized along functional lines again, the reconstituted structure was no longer referred to as a "matrix" (which, given the themes of the movie of that name, would be amazingly apropos), but rather have simply been dubbed "re-centralization".

Yes, centralization means I have three bosses. The Group Program Manager (er, Director) is my *official* supervisor. But, come on. When you are responsible to a vice president in addition, you'd better believe that the veep is also your boss... even if this veep is in a different branch from your Director.

Anyway, the Vice President in question made a very strong and favorable impression upon me the first time we met. He had just taken over our group when *his* boss left the company (and whose position also remains unfilled), and he had a directness that I found to be a breath of fresh air.

There's just one little problem.

For the life of me, I can not manage to be on time for any meeting between us. I somehow manage to make *most* of his team meetings on time, but anytime it's a small group or just the two of us, *something* always happens. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's embarrassing.

And, it's starting to become almost funny. Funny, ha-ha. I mean, what else is there to do? I hate being late. I really want to do well by this guy. I make every effort to be on time. Early, even. Something always happens. Today, it finally reached the point of silliness.

We were prepping for a big presentation to the company's Star Chamber -- did I say Star Chamber? I mean the President's happy fun advisory council -- where projects are being evaluated before being sentenced to death. We had a pre-meeting meeting to go over our presentation so that our project could be shown in the best light before being condemned to die. I have a major role in this project, and I had an hour of no scheduled meetings before this pre-meeting meeting. I was all set to be there, be prepared, and wow everyone with how well I would be able to handle any technical question regarding the project.

Chalk this one up to my own dumb fault. While tracking down a particularly thorny question about how part of the project would be handled, I got lost in the details. I looked up from my screen at one point, and noticed that, well, I was ten minutes late for the pre-meeting.

I booked over to his office where my compatriots were just finishing up going over the presentation (it was a short one). And, then, I made a well-intentioned comment about how we should head over to the building where the master project meeting was being held so that we could be certain of being there "on time". Oh, the irony.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I want to do a good job. I want to do right by those I work with. And yet, lately I've been in a big muffing-it-all-up loop. In this one case -- timeliness and this particular Vice President -- I'm beginning to recognize that I'm doomed. I guess it's funny because it's true.