Under 'Kenyan Time,' You're Expected To Arrive, Oh, Whenever
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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.
Well if you need to watch it more, you apparently have a shortage of it.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_time
It's also noticeable in say check-out lines and even just walking. They simply do everything slower. (And that's not me being condescending - I grew up in Africa). I wonder if it's a factor in the overall economic progress of Africa.
Well enough I suppose.
It's only really noticeable from an outsider perspective. I never noticed that the cashiers are slow while growing up in Africa. Only after spending a couple years in Europe could I see the difference.
Anyway if this sort of thing interests you then check out the book below. Various interesting musings about West vs Africa - and written before a time when everything had to be so politically correct
Reading Affluence Without Abundance -- https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappear... -- about hunting and gathering cultures in southern Africa, whose cultures endured 200,000 years, changed my views on our views on time, law, agriculture, growth, eating meat, and other things.
From a western perspective, loose time-keeping seems a problem.
A thought-provoking question: can you imagine a culture where such a perspective on time worked? And worked for orders of magnitude longer than your culture has existed?
Incidentally, you may also wish to read "Industrial Society and Its Future" by former Berkeley mathematics professor Theodore Kaczynski.
Agriculture seems more aggressive and destructive. People seem to work harder and enjoy life less.
It seems what makes one culture defeat another isn't necessarily what makes the people in the culture happy. Or what keeps the air, land, and water clean, or plants and animals from going extinct.
That's the Unabomber, right? I'm probably supposed to read between the lines from your mentioning him that way, but I didn't get the meaning.
http://quillette.com/2017/12/16/romanticizing-hunter-gathere...
The occasionally annoying thing was that I, as a foreigner, was always expected to be on time, even when no one else was. I recall once, late in my time there, arriving to a major community meeting about half an hour after the appointed time. People who were already there complained about it while we waited, a good two more hours, for the local officials to arrive so we could start the meeting. As soon as they rolled in we got the meeting started and no one said a thing about their arrival time, hah.
When it comes to real life and you factor in transport delays and other life factors it's not realistic to expect people to be exactly on time all the time.
The attitude in the west seems to be that if you arrive late then it's disrespectful. I feel that expecting me to be exactly on time to non-work events is even more disrespectful because the stress of trying to make it on time makes my cortisol levels go up and probably shortens my life expectancy.
For example, I’ve been asked to join a meeting (online), I join, organizer is 10mins late, spends another 5mins trying to get the conferencing system working. At this point, I’m generally super annoyed. As a programmer, there’s not much of value I can do with that 15mins. I’ve also lost another 5mins because I’ve made sure to log in early so I don’t keep you waiting. I do find it very disrespectful.
It might be nice to live on "Kenyan time" but it's not economically or socially efficient. For me, waiting around for someone is wasted time that I would otherwise have spent doing something more productive or pleasurable.
EDIT: One of the skills I associate with being a fully functional adult is the ability to account for traffic problems, their personal life, and so on when they make plans. Obviously, unforeseen events can't be helped, so I'm not annoyed with someone who is late once or twice, but if they're persistently late I'll make a negative judgement about their ability to manage themselves properly.
I agree with the opinion that if you demand much punctuality for non work events, to the point that you get angry at people being late for evening beer or party, then you are high maintennance friend.
As for your other questions, if it is generally known that agreement to party at four means "sometime after four" then it means exactly that. All participants know people show up after, so they are not bothered.
I dunno. Why would making it to something on time stress you?
The answer to both is, it doesn't matter. You don't need a detailed understanding of someone's psychology to understand that doing X stresses them out and it would be kinder not to do it.
If you are doing something before it is time to leave you might need to rush it to be able to leave on time. Then, after you leave you might get stuck in traffic or come across another unpredictable thing in which case you get worried that you might not make it on time.
> understanding of someone's psychology
I think punctuality is more of a cultural construction thing than an individual one. When I am in my home country I don't think twice if someone is late by 15 minutes but if I am in one of those super punctual countries I start worrying that something might be wrong when that happens. There are also differenct expectations of punctuality depending on the context. If it is a work related meeting then it is very important to get on time but if it is for a social activity then less punctuality is expected.
But then, I'm Scandinavian. Nine o'clock means nine o'clock, not five - or anything - past.
The recommendation was to arrive by train. The event time was 13:00. On Sunday, the trains arrived at 12:32 and 13:02. Naturally, I chose the latter, and found everyone had left half an hour earlier since there was obviously noone else coming!
I've still not got the hang of what time to arrive in Denmark. I've made an effort not to be on "British time" for social events, which has made me 15-30 minutes earlier than the Danish guests as often as it's been the correct time.
The train part though: Definitely catch the early train. Two minutes late for something would generally prompt me to get hold of whoever might be expecting me: "Sorry, I'm running late".
You could always have the best of both worlds by aiming privately to get there half an hour early. If you do run late you won’t be as stressed because you have a half hour buffer and if you are on time you can just chill somewhere until the appointed time. No cortisol either way.
> Lt. Archie Hicox: [In English] Well, if this is it, old boy, I hope you don't mind if I go out speaking the King's.
> Major Dieter Hellstrom: [In English] By all means, Captain.
Riveting scene, wish I could find more like it.
It is also easier for native English speakers to learn than most European languages.
I hate it and start my calls sharp, even if there is nobody yet. People who join late are on their own to catch up and I make exactly zero efforts to bring them in.
After a few calls almost everyone is there when the call starts.
Some people complained that they cannot switch from one meeting to another instantly, to what I usually reply that they accepted my meeting and that they can arrange with the other one (which probably started late) to finish a few minutes early. I also accommodated them with 5 past the hour starts, which is probably the easiest solution.
This is to say that there is hope for time keeping.
She was born just outside Lesotho (Basutoland as was) and I think the concept of BMT was pretty widespread in Africa.
Now... if you flake out without telling people, that is something will get mad about.
(And I'm genuinely curious, what role does not being an American state have in your argument? Is punctuality a federal matter?)
True, but if they want to participate in global trade, don't you think that time would play an important role?
It's not unclear, it's because he isn't happy about them not keeping time properly, which is what the entire article is about!
> Punctuality is a sign of respect and goes a long way toward building trust and confidence. But must it be forced on the many Kenyans and other Africans who still believe in "African time"?
It doesn't need to be forced on anyone, but if they don't want to be respectful of others' time, or build trust and confidence, it's basically only themselves they're harming in the long run.
We have some of this in the UK as well. If people say a party starts at 7, they might actually mean "don't show up until 7.30". Personally I refuse to play such opaque games, and usually show up exactly at the time specified.
This is another question, this would be more of social cues than respect imo. You are free to dislike this kind of 'game', but we should not confuse the issues.
Arriving to a party early is nonetheless a very good idea. It almost always means you get to intimately socialize with the host, a chance you might not get when the party has already started, especially if you're on the shy side of the spectrum.
Arriving early to parties is one of the tips in Leil Lowndes' "How to talk to anyone"[1] that I read and can recommend.
1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships...
“haraka haraka haina baraka”
"hurry hurry has no blessing."
All in all, they’re pretty good people, welcoming to all, including racist Europeans who until today continue to plunder the natural resources of the whole region.