Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

Wow, I never knew GW was such a stickler for formal dress and punctuality. That kind of goes against his cowboy persona. Interesting though, I love reading about stories like this. All presidents have interesting quirks.

> "I’ll never forget going to work on a Saturday morning, getting called down to the Oval Office because there was something he was mad about," said Dan Bartlett, who was counselor to Mr. Bush. "I had on khakis and a buttoned-down shirt, and I had to stand by the door and get chewed out for about 15 minutes. He wouldn’t even let me cross the threshold."

> Under Mr. Bush, punctuality was a virtue. Meetings started early — the former president once locked Secretary of State Colin L. Powell out of the Cabinet Room when Mr. Powell showed up a few minutes late — and ended on time. In the Obama White House, meetings start on time and often finish late.

The "cowboy persona" is a myth, completely fabricated. He bought the ranch in the early stages of planning his presidency bid, following the advice (probably) of people such as Karl Rove. Now that the ranch has served its purpose, it's up for sale.

Being a stickler for formal dress and punctuality - I see that more as an indication of insecurity.

meetings start on time and often finish late

Er. This is an impossibility, right? I mean, if your meeting finishes late, that means your next meeting must start late too, right?

Sorry to be so picky. Just the logic of that sentence was worrisome. It would work with only one or two meetings a day, but as president that obviously couldn't be the case either. If your meetings are ending late, they're also starting late.

It's possible that meetings aren't scheduled back-to-back. If there's a 15+ minute gap between meetings it's possible to end one late and still start the next one on time.

I've seen a lot of different configurations just to address this issue.

In the end, in the real world, if your meetings run late, they start late. 15 minutes doesn't matter that much.

It's kind of like the guy who only smokes at certain times each day -- makes him feel better that he's doing something about his smoking, but it's just a mask and has face value only.

Reality is reality. Screwing around with artificial end-times for meetings rarely ever prevents late meeting people from continuing to run over into the next meeting.

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