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In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

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Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogmas and ideologies of large organizations are almost as dangerous as their malice. Many of EU & IMF bureaucrats genuinely believed that they were helping the Greek economy recover while they were actually engaged in destroying it.

Yes, I agree with that, however, their dogma is reasonable. And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc.. The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan. One might argue that it is this assumptio…

The fact that the Greek state is incompetent or corrupt was not unknown before the crisis. The banks granted loans to Greece knowing that the Greek state was incapable of paying back because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans.

If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if things went bad.

A more rational thing to do would have been to force the banks to grant Greece a debt haircut, waiving off 50% of the loans, while helping Greece restructure its economy in a realistic manner.

Instead, many people especially at the EU saw the Greek economic problems as a moral failure of all the Greek people for which all of them, including pensioners, must be punished while safely bailing out the banks that originally lent. Somehow, it is unacceptable to blame the banks.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point #1. That happens still to today. It is a matter of education and resources. Unfortunately, both are low in Brazil. To point #2. Any guest in Brazil will be treated differently during their visit. https://jornalistaheitormenezes.blogspot.com/2015/11/o-carna... has some interesting historical context about Feynman's trips to Brazil.

It seems to me that #1 is a matter of lack of responsibility. In the US if you dig a hole and someone falls in it because there were no signs, I think you'd get sued to hell. The company, if it survices, would find who's responsible for the bad decision of not putting any signs, and punish that person accordingly for their lack of foresight. Next time that or another person, if they learned from the mistake, will be…

Sued to hell in a country with 1/10 the money of the western world doesn't mean a lot.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#203
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is a matter of education and resources" Education? Sure, but resources are in no way low in Brazil unless you mean very specific resource(s).

GDP per capita is $8600 compared to USA $57000. It's all relative.

It's relative all the way down: the resources to mark the hole are cheaper, too.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#205

Richard Feynman on Brazil: 1. “That evening I went for a walk in town, and came upon a small crowd of people standing around a great big rectangular hole in the road—it had been “dug for sewer pipes, or something—and there, sitting exactly in the hole, was a car. It was marvelous: it fitted absolutely perfectly, with its roof level with the road. The workmen hadn’t bothered to put up any signs at the end of the day,…

This is a funny and entertaining text snippet. I would however not have a problem (except maybe, that it wouldn't be written by a native speaker) to write a similar text about the US, from a German perspective. And think of what a swiss person could write. I could write about interstates that looked like tarred roads. About train stations in chicago that were closed and falling apart and locals explained that it was built with federal money so if they would tear them down they would have to repay that money, about light switches and other building features that remind me of socialism in Germany's east because they are so low-quality and not built to last. People spending overtime hours in the office, yet constantly surfing on facebook, while on the other hand not having time for a shared coffee break, etc, etc.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point #1. That happens still to today. It is a matter of education and resources. Unfortunately, both are low in Brazil. To point #2. Any guest in Brazil will be treated differently during their visit. https://jornalistaheitormenezes.blogspot.com/2015/11/o-carna... has some interesting historical context about Feynman's trips to Brazil.

It seems to me that #1 is a matter of lack of responsibility. In the US if you dig a hole and someone falls in it because there were no signs, I think you'd get sued to hell. The company, if it survices, would find who's responsible for the bad decision of not putting any signs, and punish that person accordingly for their lack of foresight. Next time that or another person, if they learned from the mistake, will be…

because it is your responsibility not to walk blindly into a hole.

Why the US is so blame happy, rather than personal responsibility, that is the question.

--------------------

Just different cultures

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#207

São Paulo is a city of over 12 million people, the largest city in the southern hemisphere of our planet, and is almost 10% of the Brazilian population. Almost everyone I meet with in SP is on time for work related meetings. I haven't noticed a difference between SP, the UK, the USA, or many of the other places I've worked. Generalizing about an entire country when that generalization is wrong for its biggest city ma…

I am born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, and am very punctual. For business meetings most people don't come up late, but for social gatherings they almost always do. It's frustrating because it seems like I will never learn my lesson and always arrive punctually even if I don't intend to

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#208

Brazil is a huge country and and saying Brazilians are always late is like saying all North Americans are ignorant of non-local history and cultures. I have a profound respect for other people's time and demand the same respect for mine. This is not uncommon in Sao Paulo city.

Same here, and I live in Rio.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#209

São Paulo is a city of over 12 million people, the largest city in the southern hemisphere of our planet, and is almost 10% of the Brazilian population. Almost everyone I meet with in SP is on time for work related meetings. I haven't noticed a difference between SP, the UK, the USA, or many of the other places I've worked. Generalizing about an entire country when that generalization is wrong for its biggest city ma…

also anecdotal claims are pretty irresponsible too: it's well documented that people are less punctual in warmer climates and in developing countries https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/67419

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#210
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic. punctuality doesn't necessarily means efficiency. Punctuality itself comes at a cost. Somewhat similar to low latency. Your argument reminds about those Scrum proponents who tout that decreasing the latency and increasing synchronicity - what…

Whilst there may not be a perfect correlation between punctuality and efficiency, I'd suggest that it seems likely punctuality in business is more likely to be efficient than not. For example if you have 10 people attending a meeting and all must wait till they are present before starting (a very common occurrance) having all 10 people turn up promptly is more efficient than having 1-9 people waiting for the remainde…

It's honestly blowing my mind that this point even needs to be argued. Of course being on time correlates with efficiency.

Have they ever looked up a store's hours before going there? Or gone to see a movie? Or met with someone else to do... anything? Or utilized public transit?

Of course it can be argued that, in a cosmic sense, maybe society is more "efficient" toward people relaxing and enjoying life if that train doesn't leave for another 45 minutes because the conductor felt like sleeping in this morning. But at that point, it's not a meaningful discussion.

Honestly it's difficult to imagine having the opposing view with any experience at all managing anything. Or even considering what it might be like to do so.

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