As I’m writing this, it’s raining so hard outside. I woke up this morning and I couldn’t even tell it was morning, because the sky was so black. And it was just coming down in sheets. It had the effect of keeping me glued to my bed, the no sunlight, the soothing sounds of rain. I feel like I’m falling asleep as I write this, trying to pound a few cups of coffee and write a whole blog post before I have to get to work.

I always commute by bike, seeing as how I live three miles away from the restaurant where I work. And so I have my morning planned out down to the minute. I know exactly when I have to leave the house. And I’m still hoping that the rain is going to clear up. I have like half an hour, so, you know, it can’t rain forever. All I do is wrap a few garbage bags around my waist and I won’t get any of that splashback, as the back tire sprays water up my back.

But I don’t know, this is getting heavier and heavier. The problem lies in the fact that it only takes me about fifteen minutes to get to work by bike. If I don’t ride my bike though, I have to walk seven blocks to the subway, wait for a train, and then walk another seven blocks from the subway to the restaurant. Who knows how long that takes? Half an hour? And it’s never consistent, because the trains are never really consistent.

So I could sit here and wait for the rain to clear up which, as I’m writing this sentence, I think it actually is clearing up, not all the way, but the sun looks like it’s trying to break through the thick clouds above. So maybe I can wait here, follow my regular schedule. The problem is, if I take the subway, I have to leave earlier than usual, to allow myself all of that extra time for walking and waiting. Right now it looks like I’m going to bike. But what happens if, right as I’m out the door with my bike, it starts coming down hard again? I’ll be so screwed, because there’s no way I can make it to work in fifteen minutes via public transportation.

And I just started at this restaurant like two months ago. So far, I haven’t had to take the subway, not even once. I’m just picturing everybody standing around, getting ready to get to work, and my boss is like, “Where’s that new guy?” and then ten or fifteen minutes later I run in and I’m all soaked and out of breath, “Listen! I can explain!” but all I can see is my boss just arms folded across his chest, shaking his head back and forth in disappointment.

So I guess, what, if it really got that bad, if it really started to rain right as I left, I’d just have to go for it. If I show up to work drenched, but on time, isn’t that a lot better than showing up ten minutes late, but significantly less soaked? If I were the boss, personally, I would prefer that my employees take their time, especially on days with inclement weather. I’m putting myself at significant jeopardy, riding my bike as fast as I can, in the pouring rain. Is it really that important to be exactly on time?

I never really understood punctuality. Like, I get it in terms of if you’re meeting up with somebody outside of work. Nobody likes to stand around waiting. But at a job? At a restaurant? Lunch doesn’t start until noon. I have to be at work at eleven-fifteen. Why forty-five minutes? Shouldn’t there be, built into those forty-five minutes, ten or fifteen minutes to be late? Do you know how stressful it is to try and get up at the same exact minute every morning, to leave the house at the very same second, regardless of how much you’d just like another five minutes with your cup of coffee, or another ten minutes just laying in bed listening to the rain outside?

Of course you do. Everybody has to get up for work. Everybody has to make it into the office by eleven-fifteen. It’s called being an adult. And I get it. Responsibility. Money. Time. I just think that we all should chill out a little bit. Everything’s by the minute, by the very second. Don’t we all just want to relax a little bit more? Do we really have to be racing to work everyday?