Describe a time you were late for something

I'm going to talk about a time I was late for my first day of internship. It was last July, and I got a summer internship at an architecture firm in Bengaluru. Of course I wanted to make a good impression, so I planned to arrive early.

Unfortunately July is the monsoon season. That morning it was raining very heavy. I booked a cab but the driver cancelled two times, so finally I took an auto rickshaw. Then on the main road there was an underpass which was totally flooded, and all the traffic was not moving for nearly one hour. I was sitting there and watching the time, and I felt my heart was beating very fast.

I called the manager to explain, and she was very kind about it. When I finally reached, I was fifty minutes late and completely wet. The orientation meeting already started, so when I opened the door everybody turned and looked at me. It was so embarrassing. But one lady from HR gave me a towel, and at lunch my new colleagues told me their own stories about rain and traffic, so I felt better.

At that moment I felt very ashamed, because first impressions are important. But now I can laugh about it. And since that day I always leave home one hour early in rainy season.

I'd like to talk about the time I turned up late on the very first day of my internship, which is pretty much the worst time to be late. It was last July, and I'd landed a summer placement at an architecture firm in Bengaluru, so I was desperate to make a good impression and had planned to get there half an hour early.

The problem was the monsoon. It had been pouring all night, and that morning two different cab drivers cancelled on me, so I ended up in an auto rickshaw. Then, about halfway there, we hit an underpass that had completely flooded, and the traffic around it simply ground to a halt. We sat there for almost an hour, and I just watched the minutes tick by on my phone.

I rang my manager from the rickshaw, and to her credit she was very understanding. By the time I finally arrived, I was fifty minutes late and absolutely drenched, and the orientation session had already started, so I had to squelch into a room full of strangers who all turned round to stare on me. Luckily one of the HR team handed me a towel, and at lunch everyone started swapping their own monsoon horror stories, which broke the ice.

At the time I was mortified, because I'm normally very punctual. Now, though, I find it quite funny, and it taught me a lesson: during the rainy season, I always leave at least an hour earlier than I think I need to.

The time that springs to mind is my first day as an intern, which, as luck would have it, is exactly the day you can least afford to be late. Last July I'd secured a summer placement with a small architecture practice in Bengaluru, and I'd been so anxious to come across well that I'd laid out my clothes the night before and planned to arrive with half an hour to spare.

What I hadn't factored in was the monsoon. It had rained relentlessly overnight, two cab drivers cancelled on me within ten minutes, and by the time I'd flagged down an auto rickshaw, my margin had more or less evaporated. Then we reached an underpass that was waist-deep in water, and the whole junction seized up. For the best part of an hour we didn't move an inch.

I phoned my manager to warn her, and she couldn't have been more gracious about it. Even so, I walked in fifty minutes late, soaked to the skin, with my shoes squelching, right in the middle of the orientation talk, and every head in the room turned. Thankfully, someone from HR quietly passed me a towel, and over lunch my new colleagues traded stories about their own monsoon disasters, which took the sting out of it.

In the moment, I wanted the floor to swallow me up. In hindsight, though, it was a fairly harmless lesson, and a useful one: these days, from June to September, I leave a full hour earlier than any map app tells me to, and I keep a spare shirt at work.