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Time is a fickle mistress. The more you watch it, the less of it you seem to have. I work with people from many different cultures. The more 'punctual' ones a

Time is a fickle mistress. The more you watch it, the less of it you seem to have. I work with people from many different cultures. The more 'punctual' ones always seem to ignore the present, and, without seeming to realize the contradiction, experience it as something that inhibits faster progress in some planned future realization. People live in a constant mental anguish that they are 'wasting time' at nearly every moment. By contrast the more 'time-relaxed' cultures seem less prone to discount the present for the future. If no-one is 'wasting' their own time, then you can not 'waste' someone else's by being 'late'. Now I know there are pros and cons to both extremes, but all to often, in business, I have observed that we try to abuse 'time-controls' in the idle hope of solving trust issues. It almost never works, even when it seems to.

lucb1e 9y ago
> The more you watch it, the less of it you seem to have. Well if you need to watch it more, you apparently have a shortage of it.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> we try to abuse 'time-controls' in the idle hope of solving trust issues Trust involves character and competence. Being able to show up on time demonstrates a competence that is necessary in some industries and some cultures. I agree that there are people who permanently stress over self-imposed schedules.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  The people runming self-imposed scheduals are the ones that get things done. They dont need the same level of supervision. They are the ones to trust with open-ended or unknowable tasks.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  Being on time shows that you are part of a culture with easy access to accurate and consistent time tracking devices, and have access to reliable and predictable methods of transportation, and while not being completely dependent on it it also greatly benefits from having access to reliable real time or near real time communication methods. Punctuality has grately changed over the years as we progressed technologically. In the 9th century being on time was quite different than it is today; within your village on time was within usually an hour or two based on the daytime cycle if you have a church with a bell you were lucky, to you nearest city it usually was within a day or a week if you had to visit a someone far far away being on time might have meant arriving within the same year. So from my point of view anytime where I was in a place that time seem to not matter if you looked carefully you would notice why, People didn’t had watches, those who did often wore them as jewelry / trinkets often they didn’t work or were not set to the correct time. With mobile phones this has changes and likely within a decade you’ll also see cultural changes happening to the perception of time and punctuality.
  - solarkraft 9y ago
    Within a decade? You mean we just got time tracking devices? Even in Kenya I think they had watches for a while.

lucb1e 9y ago

> The more you watch it, the less of it you seem to have. Well if you need to watch it more, you apparently have a shortage of it.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> we try to abuse 'time-controls' in the idle hope of solving trust issues Trust involves character and competence. Being able to show up on time demonstrates a competence that is necessary in some industries and some cultures. I agree that there are people who permanently stress over self-imposed schedules.

sandworm101 9y ago
The people runming self-imposed scheduals are the ones that get things done. They dont need the same level of supervision. They are the ones to trust with open-ended or unknowable tasks.
dogma1138 9y ago
Being on time shows that you are part of a culture with easy access to accurate and consistent time tracking devices, and have access to reliable and predictable methods of transportation, and while not being completely dependent on it it also greatly benefits from having access to reliable real time or near real time communication methods. Punctuality has grately changed over the years as we progressed technologically. In the 9th century being on time was quite different than it is today; within your village on time was within usually an hour or two based on the daytime cycle if you have a church with a bell you were lucky, to you nearest city it usually was within a day or a week if you had to visit a someone far far away being on time might have meant arriving within the same year. So from my point of view anytime where I was in a place that time seem to not matter if you looked carefully you would notice why, People didn’t had watches, those who did often wore them as jewelry / trinkets often they didn’t work or were not set to the correct time. With mobile phones this has changes and likely within a decade you’ll also see cultural changes happening to the perception of time and punctuality.
- solarkraft 9y ago
  Within a decade? You mean we just got time tracking devices? Even in Kenya I think they had watches for a while.