Keeping your scheduled appointments

Did you schedule an appointment or meeting with someone? Keep that appointment, and show up for it. Of course things happen, but cancelling last minute or just ghosting is a problem. Here’s how to do this respectfully:

Is it a day or more in advance? It’s probably nbd, but gently apologize and offer to reschedule. “Sorry, something has come up and I need to move our meeting to ___, will that work for you?”

Is it the same day, or within like an hour or two? You are now probably inconveniencing someone, and you owe them both an apology and a brief explanation. You don’t need to confess anything personal or embarrassing of course, but “something came up” is not a respectful reason. If this is a professional-type situation, you need to show you understand that this can damage trust: clients remember this stuff. Do not lie or invent another more urgent client or claim “a meeting is running over”, those are irrelevant anyway. Apologize for wasting their time (yes, you really should say literally that), explain briefly what happened, and offer a couple of specific times to reschedule, and make them soon. Like tomorrow. Or send a bookable calendar link and suggest a specific time.

If you just ghosted them…I mean, it depends. There’s very few places on the friend-client spectrum where that doesn’t have a lasting impact but maybe you wanted things to end anyway?

#adulting