我的最大优点 或许是我总是早到

I was sitting in Heathrow Terminal 2 last Wednesday, having arrived a couple of hours early for a short flight to Dublin. I had installed myself in Eat, where I was enjoying a bowl of porridge and doing my emails, when I came upon a link to the latest ad for the Clinton campaign.

上个月，我坐在希思罗机场(Heathrow) 2号航站楼，早到了两小时，准备搭乘短途航班到都柏林。我走进Eat餐厅，点了一碗粥，顺便收发邮件，这时我看到有一个链接指向希拉里竞选活动的最新广告。

Normally I would have ignored it: the US election has become so ugly that the only rational response is to pretend it isn’t happening. But as I had time to kill I clicked on the link and there was Barack Obama, his handsome face alert and amused, speaking to camera. “My greatest strength? Probably that I’m always early.”

我通常不会去理睬这种东西：今年的美国大选变得非常丑陋，唯一理性的回应是假装它没发生。但由于我在消磨时间，我点开了那个链接，出现的是巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)那张英俊的脸，机智且有趣，他对着镜头说：“我的最大优点？或许是我总是早到。”

The president went on to explain that he likes to turn up early for every meeting, speech and press conference. “My commitment to being early isn’t just good for me. It’s good for the nation. It’s good for the world.” At this I started nodding so violently that the man next to me looked up to see what was going on.

奥巴马继续解释道，他喜欢提前到达所有的会议、演讲和记者会现场。“我事事提前的做法不仅对我有好处，对国家也有好处。对世界也是有利的。”看到这儿，我开始狂点头，以至于坐在我身边的男子不禁抬头看我出了什么事。

Earliness has almost everything going for it. Being early makes you feel in control — or makes others think you are in control, which is the next best thing. It gives you the moral high ground. If you arrive first at a meeting, not only do you choose where to sit, you are also in a position to lord it over those arriving later.

提前的好处太多了。它让你感觉自己掌控局面，或者让其他人认为你在掌控局面，这是第二好的事情。它让你占据道德高地。如果你第一个到达会场，你不仅可以选择坐在哪里，还处于一种凌驾于晚到者的地位。

The only time when it is not entirely good to be super-punctual is when arriving for a meal at a private house. But in that case, all you need do is walk round the block a few times, by which time you will have built up an appetite for the meal ahead.

超级准时并不完全是好事的唯一场合是去私人家中吃饭。但在那种情况下，你所需要的是在大楼外面多转悠几圈，把它当作餐前开胃。

Earliness is the defining characteristic of my entire family. Both my parents were wildly early for everything. All three of their children and all 10 grandchildren — even when in the throes of assorted teenage phases — could always be relied upon to pitch up with bags of time to spare for any given occasion.

提前是我们家的鲜明特点。我的父母总是什么事都提前。他们的3个孩子以及所有10个孙辈（甚至包括几个不同年龄的青少年）无论参加什么场合的活动都会留出大把时间。

To my knowledge, none of my blood relations has ever missed a plane. This means, according to George Stigler, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, we are managing our time poorly and spend far too much time in airports. I have seen the maths that supposedly proves this, but I am unmoved.

就我所知，我们家的人甚至从未错过航班。按照诺贝尔奖(Nobel Prize)得主、经济学家乔治.斯蒂格勒(George Stigler)的理论，这意味着我们的时间管理很糟糕，在机场停留了太长时间。我看到过据称证明这一点的计算，但我一点也不在乎。

Time spent waiting is not wasted. It is time that you have chosen to set aside and is a peaceful period that can be used for reading, making phone calls and emailing. Moreover, the stress saved by knowing that you will never have to run down a moving conveyor belt with heavy bags just as flights close has too great a value to be captured by any equation.

等待的时间并没有浪费。这是你选择留出的时间，是一段安静的时光，可以用来读书、打电话和收发电邮。另外，如果你知道自己不必在登机门即将关闭时拖着沉重的箱子在传送带上狂奔，那么这为你省去的压力价值之大，不是任何方程式可以捕捉到的。

To see how the famous and successful feel about turning up before the appointed time, I have been leafing through the archives of Lunch with the FT. My impression was that our most self-important guests were routinely late — their time, after all, being more important than the time of journalists.

为了考察知名和成功人士对于比预定时间早到的看法，我翻阅了《与FT共进午餐》剪报。之前我的印象是，我们邀请的最高傲的嘉宾经常迟到，毕竟他们的时间要比记者更重要。

I was wrong. Most of our interviewees arrive on the dot — or are neither early nor late enough to warrant the recording of it. Among the rest, the early outstrip the late by about five to one. The only two examples of lateness in recent interviews were Edward Snowden and Russell Brand — both of whom have upset so many people in the course of what they do, it makes no odds if they upset them a bit more by virtue of showing up late.

我错了。我们的多数被采访者都是准点到达（或者说没有早到或姗姗来迟到值得记录的程度）。在其他被采访者中，早到的人数与晚到的人数之比大约是5：1。在近期的采访中，仅有的两个晚到者是爱德华.斯诺登(Edward Snowden)和罗素.布朗德(Russell Brand)，这二人所做的事情让很多人失望，因此他们晚到让人们更失望一点并不奇怪。

The early crowd were more of a mixed bunch. Adair Turner, former head of the Financial Services Authority, was predictably early. So was Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini and, more surprisingly, Sean Penn, the former Hollywood hell raiser turned political activist. People on the back foot seem to make a point of arriving super-promptly, possibly in the hope of reclaiming a few brownie points. Sepp Blatter got there early for his lunch. So did Jeremy Clarkson.

早到的人士形形色色。英国金融服务管理局(Financial Services Authority)前局长阿代尔.特纳(Adair Turner)不出所料地早到。保罗.克鲁格曼(Paul Krugman)和鲁里埃尔.鲁比尼(Nouriel Roubini)以及（这比较让人意外）由好莱坞硬汉变成政治活动人士的西恩.潘(Sean Penn)也都提前到达。处于较不利境地的人似乎刻意超级准时，可能是希望赢得几个印象分。塞普.布拉特(Sepp Blatter)提前到达了午餐地点。杰里米.克拉克森(Jeremy Clarkson)也是。

But my favourite lesson from Lunch with the FT cuttings comes from Stephen Green, then head of HSBC. He turned up three minutes early for the meeting and apologised for being late.

但我最喜欢的是与FT共进午餐系列中的汇丰(HSBC)董事长葛霖(Stephen Green)。他早到了3分钟，但道歉说自己迟到了。

This is a stroke of genius. It forces the other person, who had been occupying the moral high ground by dint of getting there even earlier, to pull out his watch and protest that, on the contrary, the new arrival is early too.

这一招真了不起。它迫使本来因为更早到而占据道德高地的对方拿出手表辩驳说，葛霖也早到了。

Thank you, Mr Green. I will remember this trick if I ever find myself in the unusual position of arriving at anything after anyone else.

谢谢你，葛霖。如果我发现自己处于比别人晚到的不同寻常的处境时，我会记得这种做法。