Probably much of the world outside of the (Western?) European-zone and Japan.
For an almost elegaic look at “African time,” for instance:
The Ivory Coasters are a bit less sanguine:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/wpunctual109.xml
Definitely. I’m a lab rat of sorts in an academic setting (can’t be more specific, due to the fact that I have a rather unusual title + would like to remain annonymous). Official hours: 8:15-5:00 I never arrive before 9:30. I ocasionally work nights + weekends. I’m autonomous and always get my job done and then some, so no one bothers me about it.
Depends. If your work allows a certain flexibility, and nobody really needs you there, they just need you to get your work done within a certain time frame, then punctuality is not important. In the summer, when I’m writing research articles, all that matters is I get enough work done each day; it doesn’t matter when I do it. But if your unpunctuality forces other people to wait around for you, then you are saying their time isn’t worth much. I have had friends like this before. I got to the point where if we had made arrangements (i.e., to go to a movie), and they didn’t show up on time, I left without them. It’s assholish behavior on their part.
:smack: :smack: I quit.
No more posting today.
I’m a big fan of “Island Time” when I go to Hawaii.
I finally now have a job where I don’t have to punch a clock, yet I’m most often the first one in in the morning. I do have to keep tight time during shows, though (I’m a producer at live events).
My wife has a desk job but still has to punch a clock, but due to a bizarre time-rounding policy she has seven minutes of leeway from the expected time.
I do too. “Gauntlet” seems to be a hopelessly mixed metaphor. (or simile I can never tell…)
Of course it is selfish, but so is not taking a bullet for your boss if the situation arose…and it’s only “telling everyone else to F off, that their time is not important”
if your lateness actually affects them, apart from them just being annoyed that you are late.
I had a job once where everything was running smoothly and efficiently, until a new manager came in, and decided a military approach to time would somehow improve productivity. After I got a warning, I made sure to be on time (and improved my sneaking in unnoticed skills), because I couldn’t afford to be fired. The 3 best salesmen did not. They were fired, because they were chronicly 5 minutes late. They were great employees, and people. Their replacements were punctual, but ineffective. We went from the best to the worst performing division, and were all eventually terminated, including the manager, who claimed no regrets because his “principles were correct”.
I despise this “principle” approach, even though it’s considered by many the admirable, honorable way to do things. Thats probably why I freelance now.
I work in an office where we keep track of our time down to the 15 minute mark. We bill clients that way, and most of our day is spent on work for the clients. Granted, unless you have prior appointments, it doesn’t matter if you come in 15 minutes late and then stay an extra 15 at the end of the day, but during the day we have to be very conscientious about the time we spend. I wonder how those people that cannot understand time would do?
Try this one: Is punctuality a choice?
Those of us on the mainland who have to deal with Hawaiian operations are not such big fans. Even the banks are infected.
For someone who doesn’t work for a living, you have an astonishingly developed sense of what it means not to be on time for work.
For the vast majority of white collar workers, their colleagues are not dependent on their being present at some arbitrarily chosen spot-on-the-dot. So the notion that you are being “selfish” or telling everyone to “F off” is a message you’re reading into it, not from any practical outcome of not being spot on time.
Please tell me that everyone here is being either very obtuse or I am being whooshed big-time.
What our illustrious OP is referring to is commonly called Colored People’s Time or CPT. He is alluding (again) to stereotypes about African Americans, in this case that they are notoriously lazy and run on their own schedule. Once again, he gives a glimpse of the white hood he wears.
Point: From a purely practical POV, it doesn’t matter.
Counterpoint: From a command and control POV, it sure as hell does matter.
Part of the deal with working in any office is that someone has to be boss, and that boss is allowed to make demands on his employees over and above the purely practical, in the name of abstract goods like cohesion, discipline, and authority.
The boss also gets to decide what actions are selfish or “f off,” regardless of anyone’s actual intent.
Now that you mention it…
But your analysis should require the boss making a decision to acknowledge that this is, in fact, an arbitrary matter and not a practical one. For the purposes of most offices, if casual punctuality does not naturally send an “F off” message, it may very well advisable from a cohesion, discipline, or authority matter not to decide that it constitutes an “F off” message by application of authority.
Yes, a boss has the authority (generally speaking) to make such arbitrary decisions, but what’s the difference between a good boss and a bad boss? One of the differences is recognizing when not to implement such an arbitrary rule. It’s a decision that should be carefully attuned to the specific circumstances of a specific office. Blithely declaring as a general matter that “X = Y” with no real-life evidence on the table is a recipe for failure.
That’s part of what makes Commonsense’s statements surprising. C’sense doesn’t work in an office at all, but is very sure that “X = Y,” and would apparently be willing to enforce a rigid, authoritarian system regardless of what experience in any particular office might offer.
I’ve actually heard “Indian Standard Time” and other terms like it. They are generally used by people who are members of the named ethnic group. I’ve never heard “colored people’s time,” however.
Or perhaps Gromit, as in, “Do something, Gromit!”
No, that’s actually the one term I haven’t heard for it. Thanks for sharing, though.
I have two coworkers, one who is always five or ten minutes late, and another who is infrequently half an hour to an hour late. Guess which one bothers me?
Why you are late is not an issue. How often you are late is. Three times a year, and you don’t even need an excuse. Three times a week, and I don’t care if your aged mother was crawling up the driveway in the ice and snow, trying not to die of hypothermia. Throw the old hag a blanket, and get your ass to work.
If you don’t think you are being rude, selfish, and unreliable, then you have even deeper problems than punctuality.
Tris
That’s not going to happen. A good boss wouldn’t go so far as to be so arbitrary, and a bad boss would never acknowledge it.
Only as a general rule. There are successful bad bosses, and even those who fail often refuse to learn from it.
Unreasonable authority is always going to be with us, because it is so concerned with self-preservation and winning. It cannot always be dealt with or gotten around, except at a very high cost.