The importance of aiming to be 30 minutes early every time, rather than five minutes late!
It does not take anyone long in this industry to encounter an all too common scenario, where you arrive at a customer on-time only for them to denote on your paperwork you were late. We drivers all know that sometimes there are things beyond our control that will one time or another prevent us from getting to a pickup or delivery on time. Nothing stings more than a customer who marked you tardy because, you may have been in line on time for your appointment, but you did not get up to the front of that line to check-in at the security guard shack by your official appointment time!
Spending a lot of time in the Los Angeles area driving, I know firsthand the havoc that can be imposed by things like traffic, congestion and accidents, even when plenty of time is allowed for it in my daily planning. Dealing with all of these scenarios for many years is what has led me to always aim to be at the customer 30 minutes before my appointment time, rather than right at it. I have evolved into this mentality for almost everything I do, that being early is on time, being on time is late and being late is very, very bad!
Though I know not every scenario is preventable and certain acts of God can all but be helped, it’s important to allow yourself a time cushion for some of the slightly less-drastic unforeseen hiccups along your route. There is no way a 30-minute cushion is going to save you when I-70 closes due to an avalanche or I-80 closes due to hurricane-force winds, but for a common day-to-day practice of allowing a 30-minute cushion has saved me on more than a handful of occasions! Buffer your trip plan for success and it will pay dividends in the long run!