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No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

gregsavage.com.au

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#41
post #19

I get a php error when I visit this page. I guess the server isn't running low on resources, it is rude & selfish. Or maybe just misconfigured :) Error 403: Forbidden Your PHP settings have been disabled by an H-Sphere administrator. Your current PHP configuration: --> This configuration was changed: Please bring your PHP configuration in compliance with admin settings or request your administrator to re-enable suppo…

http://viewtext.org/?url=http%3a%2f%2fgregsavage.com.au%2f20...

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#43
post #21

Interestingly, this is mostly an American (and a also a Western) problem. In most of the world (South America, Middle East, Africa, East Asia, etc), "on time" ranges anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours later. We grade our personal productivity level much more than other cultures. Other cultures value other things such as community and relationships at a higher level than we do. A story: I was invited to an Indian…

Being Indian, I have to take a little offense at the generalization. It isn't all of us. I'm never casually late for an appointment, and am always annoyed if the other party is, beyond the reasonable 10 minutes. And this is not because of any incipient effect of Western culture. Please stop with the generalizing about pan-cultural differences in the perceived value of productivity, community, etc. Neither does an ane…

Hmm.. being Indian, I actually thought that he was praising us, rather than trying to offend.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A party might be a different thing, but when you are meeting one or two people, the expectation is that they will not leave you standing around on your own for any length of time. This is a sign of bad time management on top of rudeness. I have known people who were continually late, so I would always tell them 30 minutes before I get there. Effective technique. Things were worse before mobiles of course, I would wai…

I dunno, in much of southern Europe it's certainly not expected that people will be there to the minute even for one-on-one meetings. Probably not an hour late in that case, but I don't think anybody would bat an eye if you had planned to meet at a coffee shop at 2:00 and someone showed up at 2:15. You'd just get a coffee and read a book or the paper or something. (Being exactly on time, and being angry if someone's…

Yes, I found that working with people from Italy, Spain, and Greece. They also use a similar flexibility for delivery dates of programming work, schedules etc...

It is considered rude in Germany, Sweden and the UK. Taking a book when going to meet someone, is also considered a little rude, but understandable.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#46
post #19

I get a php error when I visit this page. I guess the server isn't running low on resources, it is rude & selfish. Or maybe just misconfigured :) Error 403: Forbidden Your PHP settings have been disabled by an H-Sphere administrator. Your current PHP configuration: --> This configuration was changed: Please bring your PHP configuration in compliance with admin settings or request your administrator to re-enable suppo…

Despite the sarcasm I think this is a great response on a serious level. Most people are not late by intention just as this site wasn't intended to crash.

If someone is late, that is no problem, stuff happens.

When someone is always late, that is rude and inconsiderate.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#47
post #21

Interestingly, this is mostly an American (and a also a Western) problem. In most of the world (South America, Middle East, Africa, East Asia, etc), "on time" ranges anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours later. We grade our personal productivity level much more than other cultures. Other cultures value other things such as community and relationships at a higher level than we do. A story: I was invited to an Indian…

Being Indian, I have to take a little offense at the generalization. It isn't all of us. I'm never casually late for an appointment, and am always annoyed if the other party is, beyond the reasonable 10 minutes. And this is not because of any incipient effect of Western culture. Please stop with the generalizing about pan-cultural differences in the perceived value of productivity, community, etc. Neither does an ane…

No comment on Indians in business situations. But my non-Indian mother learned very quickly when she and my Indian father threw a dinner party for some of his relatives. The start time was 6p, and nobody rolled in until 8p.

She'll now tell my dad's relatives to show up at 4p because they operate on "Indian Standard Time".

And funnily enough, my father is always 5 minutes early for everything...

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#48

I don't know why, but at some point I just stopped sweating this sort of thing. When others are late to a meeting, it doesn't really bother me. When someone cuts me off in traffic, whateva. These are all small things that just aren't worth the effort of getting upset. I told her I have been coming to you for 15 years but don’t take me for granted. ... Me? Am I ever late? Sure, sometimes. That’s inevitable even with t…

Dentists and doctors are always running late, if you go in the afternoons. They don't like sitting around idly, not earning money, so they set up the system this way.

Most patients are in and out, but a few take extra time, and they rarely know which ones, so they just assume they are all quick cases.

Always schedule meetings like this as early as you can.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#49
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being Indian, I have to take a little offense at the generalization. It isn't all of us. I'm never casually late for an appointment, and am always annoyed if the other party is, beyond the reasonable 10 minutes. And this is not because of any incipient effect of Western culture. Please stop with the generalizing about pan-cultural differences in the perceived value of productivity, community, etc. Neither does an ane…

Hmm.. being Indian, I actually thought that he was praising us, rather than trying to offend.

I didn't see the praise.

What I really objected to was the stereotyping. I know I'm not the only Indian who cares about punctuality.

Re: No, you are not "running late", you are rude & selfish

#50

I also find doctors to be late in perpetuity, ive never in my life waited less than 10 minutes PAST the actual appointment time. This is both an easily identifiable problem and easy to fix, the receptionists could easily structure appointments more appropriately.

This is a byproduct of their time generally being worth so much more than yours. You would not complain if you had to visibly pay for any time a doctor is waiting with no patients.

As for structuring appointments more appropriately, it's quite easy to think of reasons an appointment could take more time than anticipated, and if you had to buffer for that time, you would have to pay for the buffer.

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