Your appointment was at 2:00. You arrived at 1:50, as instructed. It's now 2:35. You're still waiting. Someone who arrived after you just got called. The appointment time appears to have been a suggestion, not a commitment.

This happens everywhere: doctors' offices, service appointments, any situation where you're scheduled to show up. You're expected to be on time, but the other party rarely is. The asymmetry is consistent and infuriating.

You're not uniquely unlucky. Schedules have become unreliable by design.

The Problem People Keep Running Into

Appointments don't account for reality. The scheduled time assumes everything goes perfectly, nothing runs long, and no complications arise. This never happens, so delays cascade through the day.

The burden falls entirely on the customer. Your time is treated as free. The provider's time is protected. You wait because your waiting costs them nothing, while having you wait costs you everything.

Overbooking is standard practice. Expecting some people to cancel, many systems schedule more appointments than can actually be served. When everyone shows up, wait times explode.

How Modern Systems Created This

Chronically late appointments result from economic incentives:

Provider time is expensive. A doctor, technician, or specialist sitting idle loses money. Overbooking prevents gaps. If someone cancels, the next person is ready. The downside of long waits falls on customers.

Buffer time disappeared. Efficiency pressures compressed schedules. What once had fifteen-minute gaps between appointments now has none. Any delay compounds immediately.

Variability was ignored. Scheduling treats every appointment as average length. But medical conditions vary, questions take different amounts of time, and some situations require more attention. The schedule can't handle this variation.

Power asymmetry enables it. You can't easily walk out and go elsewhere. Once you're there, you're committed. The cost of leaving exceeds the cost of waiting, so you wait.

Why It Keeps Getting Worse

Shortages in certain services mean providers face no competition. When there aren't enough doctors or specialists, they don't need to compete on timeliness. You'll wait because you have no alternative.

Documentation requirements have grown. Electronic health records, consent forms, and compliance requirements add administrative time that wasn't in original scheduling models.

Expectations have lowered. Because waits are universal, people accept them as normal. No one expects their 2:00 appointment to start at 2:00. This acceptance removes pressure to improve.

And no-show rates remain high. Because schedules are unreliable, people feel less obligated to show up. This makes overbooking feel more necessary, creating a cycle of unreliability.

How People Cope Today

People plan for waits. They bring work, books, or phones, accepting that "appointment time" really means "start of an undefined waiting period." This adaptation enables the dysfunction to continue.

Some request first-morning or first-afternoon slots, hoping to catch the system before it falls behind. This works sometimes but creates competition for those slots.

Others learn which services are typically late and plan their days around expected delays. This personal knowledge substitutes for reliable scheduling.

Appointment delays reflect a system optimized for provider utilization at the expense of customer time. Your waiting is invisible in their metrics. Until someone starts measuring and valuing the time customers spend waiting, schedules will remain suggestions rather than commitments.