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Culturally On Time

Updated: Oct 25, 2018

Anyone have a family member who is constantly late and doesn't have any sense of time? Does it bother you? Because it drives me nuts!


I guess it might be because I'm German but to me planning ahead and sticking to a schedule shouldn't be that hard. With that said, my husband is half German too so shouldn't he be the same? Unfortunately, no, because what I'm leaving out is that he's also half Brazilian - clearly the Brazilian half is in control of his ability to tell time.


In Germany when you have an appointment it's expected that you be there at the time that was discussed. And not only should you be there at that time, you should really be there a few minutes early. Know that saying “if you're on time, you're late”? To me, part of the motivation of being on time is because you don't want to make the person you're meeting wait. Why? Because you wouldn't want them to waste your time either. In my opinion, being on time is a respect thing - acknowledgement that their time is just as valuable as yours.


On the flip side, in Brazil, showing up late is customary. If a concert starts at 8pm, the party really won’t get started until 10-11pm meaning if you show up at 8pm you’ll be standing around alone for a while. But a party is one thing, what about in the work space when you have a meeting? Or when you’re meeting someone for a date? Nope, even then being late is acceptable though you are expected to be there somewhat around the actual start time.


With two opposite cultural extremes, you can image the arguments around time that go on in our house haha. In typical fashion, I probably care too much and he probably cares too little which I guess you could say balances itself out. Seeing as we are currently living in the US and its generally expected for you to be on time (not early, but actually on time) - unless you’re trying to be fashionably late - we try to find a happy medium. With that said, I am definitely guilty of telling my husband that he needs to be ready a good 30 minutes ahead of the time we actually need to leave in order for me to stay sane. Unfortunately sometime even that backfires when he self calculates when we need to leave, because why wouldn't you want to leave at the last possible minute.

 
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