Punctuality is the last refuge of the utterly unremarkable; anyone can arrive on time when nothing they say is worth waiting for.

The line is for the person who treats turning up as a triumph. You are never late, never flustered, always the first to the meeting with your neat little notes and your careful questions, and you have quietly convinced yourself that this reliability is a form of excellence rather than a substitute for it. It is not. Arriving on time is the cheapest virtue on offer, available to anyone with a working clock and no competing demands on their attention, which is precisely why you cling to it so proudly. Notice how nobody thanks you for it. They have simply come to expect your punctuality the way one expects the furniture to remain in place. The sting sits in the phrase worth waiting for, because it names the thing you have never once provided. You have confused being present with being necessary, and ceremony with substance. It lands best when you announce your early arrival with that faintly martyred satisfaction, or when you imply that your timing is evidence of respect while your contribution remains entirely forgettable. The clock has done its job. You have not. Nobody was waiting for you to speak.