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Comment by Dewie3 | Hacker News Reader

> And I don’t care if I sound old-fashioned, because actually it’s nothing to do with ‘fashion’ or ‘generation’. It’s got everything to do with basic good manners and respect for other people.

Everyone thinks there is some fundamental and universal truth to some of their own cultural practices.

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I think the universal truth is that people have their own lives going on, and you need a way to sync up in order to accomplish goals with other people. That's why we set times for meetings.

If you are late for a bus, it leaves. The plane will take off. The walking tour will have walked away.

But I'm supposed to make my wife handle dinner with the kids because 4:00pm really meant 4:25pm and now we'll all be stuck in traffic heading home?

Normally I just listen to audible or finish some work when the other party is late. But when it starts to impact family life I get mad.

Yeah that's the biggest issue for me. When you schedule something for a specific time and the other person is late, without letting you know they're going to be late, it's them essentially saying "My time is more important than yours; fuck you, deal."

When is a 4:00pm meeting ever a good idea for an office that closes at 5:00?

I agree :) We don't really open and close though. Some people get there near 8 and leave near 5. Others 9-6. Very flexible, but one of the downsides of flexibility is concrete scheduling I suppose.

> I think the universal truth is that people have their own lives going on, and you need a way to sync up in order to accomplish goals with other people. That's why we set times for meetings.

What is not universal is how much value people put in a schedule. And how lax these schedules are. If there even is a schedule.

Some people's cultural practices do a better job at facilitating effective interaction among large groups of people, especially when not everyone knows each other very well, or when the specific people involved may vary from week to week. These cultural practices basically boil down to communicating about the thing that you're planning to do, and describing it accurately, instead of distorting it based on a certain convention (e.g. if you say that we start at 9 but everyone shows up at 10:30 instead).

Timeliness and running businesses effectively go hand in hand. (A contributing reason to why the Anglosphere and its close friends are the prosperous cultures in this world.)

boil down to communicating about the thing that you're planning to do, and describing accurately

Yes, effective communication is very important.

instead of distorting it based on a certain convention (e.g. if you say that we start at 9 but everyone shows up at 10:30 instead

This is a funny example to use directly after emphasizing clear communication, considering how ambiguous "start at" can be.

We "start at" 9, but that's very common language with a flexible schedule. If I went home last night with my earliest accepted meeting at 10:30, nobody bats an eye when I roll in at 10:25.

Perhaps the words you're looking for are "we don't have flexible hours" or "without discussing it with me first, you must be in the office by X and not leave before Y."

You're conflating the start times of meetings with the start of your personal work day. Sure, no one cares if you come in at 10:25 because you're still going to make the 10:30 meeting. You're not making anyone wait for you... That's the whole point of this article.

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