As a matter of interest: are there any countries that are reasonably wealthy by their people’s industry (as opposed to natural resource windfalls) and where these ‘relaxed’ standards of punctuality apply? It seems to me that productivity must suffer significantly when at any one time a notable part of the workforce is waiting for someone to turn up.
Oddly enough, where I work, we don’t assign schedules to randomly chosen times. :rolleyes:
I only notice other people’s schedules when the things they are supposed to do don’t happen. It’s not always relieving me, although that one will get my attention right away. Services and events do have to happen with more than one participant. This often requires that two people to be present at the same time. In order to avoid depending on “magical” coincidence, some bright person invented a thing called a schedule. You should read up on that.
How late my habitual coworker stays is something I will never know, since I am at home when that happens. The general thing I have noticed is that people who are habitually late are not unaware of time, as they often claim, they know very well that they are late, and they know very well that others are inconvenienced by their thoughtless selfishness. They just don’t care.
Tris
One of the many reasons I love my job. As long as I’m at work by 9:00 or so, I’m good, as long as I get my hours in. My ‘workday’ is officially declared as 8:00 to 6:00 with a one hour lunch (M-T, with a 4 hour Friday!). My boss knows I usually get to work between 8:00 and 8:15, and I usually leave around 5:30-5:45, as I only take a half hour for lunch most of the time. Sometimes I’m early…sometimes I’m late. If I’m going to be later than 8:30, I just call and let them know. The only time I need to be there at a very specific time is if I’m meeting with a client, which makes sense. If I need to take off in the afternoon to do errands…no problem, as long as I get my work done. Need to take 2 hours for my wife’s ultrasound (first baby on the way)? Ok…make the 2 hours up on Saturday or later tomorrow, or sometime this week.
It’s VERY nice. Of course, if you are just lazy and don’t show up, or don’t make up your missed time, THAT is not tolerated.
I am always between 30 to 10 minutes early for work. I have a 50 mile commute and I make the effort to leave early enough that any traffic issues will not keep me past 8 am.
Last feb I broke a bone in my left foot, keeping me out of work for about a week, then I discovered that one of my parathyroids had kissed off, necessitating about 10 or so days where I was out of work for assorted doctor visits and testing. Then in october I was out for the well notified 2 weeks to get the parathyroid yoiked out. I ended up with an FMLA issue of pseudo gout that flared in november and in december. As far as I am concerned, since I had valid medical reasons for every absence, and FMLA letters for the major ones [parathyroid and pseudogout] I was covered.
I get hauled in and reamed out for my absence problems, and the fact I am not a team player [since I am diabetic and on a meal/med schedule and live 50 miles away AND commute with another person] I do not do random instant notification overtime.
Yet we have people who wander in up to half an hour late, take 8 or 9 cigarette breaks, and overlong lunches … but because they can work OT at the drop of a hat, they are team players. They invariably have a stack of paperwork on their desk - my paperwork is pretty much finished within a day or 2 instead of weeks, if I am out, I arrange with a couple of my co workers to cover specific issues that I know are cropping up, and leave my passwords with my trusted co workers so they can check my voicemail and email in case something pops up while I am out. I do this because of the pseudogout - I can never tell when it is going to flare.
I have asked to be transferred to a department where I can telecommute and have been refused because I have an absentee issue. Idiots - if I could telecommute, I would be out for the half day or so it takes me to get driven to my doctor, then I can commute from bed to computer desk in my wheelchair…
How can you be so inconsiderate as to get sick and mess up your boss’s numbers? Any serious illness is just evidence of a lack of character and commitment to the Five-Year Plan.
Some people really think like that.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
I have similar experience with my (non-Mexican) wife.
Did VC03 change his username or did somebody slip me a mickey?
I think this is a point worth emphasizing.
I’m wondering whether this is directed at me.
In any case, what do you think you are explaining? That bosses have authority to make decisions? Or are you explaining that a boss’s decisions are always correct and unarguable? Sometimes a boss’s decision is wrong and inappropriate and sometimes it is appropriate to argue with such a decision. And it’s never inappropriate to complain about an arbitrarily dictatorial boss on an anonymous message board.
I will agree with you on the first point, but it is a trivial point. On the second, I will disagree with you.
Why, because I am disagreeing with you, do you think it appropriate to imply that I lack some quality of being “adult”?
Er. . . both. Just wait till you see the photos! 
Serious answer: Yes.
:eek: Please tell me no farm animals were involved. I hate it when that happens…
Hmm. Some of the “Latin” European countries are doing all right (though some would argue that in the case of Spain and Portugal, that’s a very recent development and that it’s spurred by EU subsidies). I still remember my bemusement when I thought I’d figured out the siesta system and went back to the shop whose sign said it was closed from 11:30-2:30, at 2:40. The proprietors ambled back in at 2:51.
Japan is fairly fanatical about punctuality (I have acquaintances whose company requires them to call their supervisor to explain where they are, no joke, if they are walking across the lobby into the elevator as the clock hand clicks to 8:01 a.m.). Anyone know about customs in the rest of developed Asia? My limited data points come from a few Chinese-American weddings, where someone has always taken me aside to warn me in classic whatever-PT style that the times on the invitation were largely notional and the gwai los should not rely too literally on them, but no one’s denied Chinese productivity.
Indians are also traditionally casual about exact times. There is also a sense of demonstration of personal power, such as when the clerk at a government office stops for his tea-and-buscuits break while all the people waiting for his service have to sit there and watch him.
It appears that VC03 is no longer VC03.
Actually, it’s not quite clear from your linked articles that this is the case.
It’s true that the first article discusses the health benefits of an afternoon nap.
But, in Spain, the siesta is also accompanied by a longer overall work day (in terms of time from start to finish), and less sleep at night. From the second article:
So, while an afternoon siesta has health benefits, those benefits could be negated by the Spanish practice of working later and staying out later at night.
Plus, of course, neither of the articles are discussing punctuality, but are discussing a different work schedule.
When I was first hired by the company that I work for, it was a seasonal job in Shipping. There were two parts of Shipping, on opposite sides of the campus: North Dock, which mostly dealt with truckloads of Parcel Post boxes, and South Dock, which handled smaller loads of FedEx, Priority Mail, etc.
I started out at South Dock, where the crew was about ten people. We worked fast, but didn’t worry about punctuality.
After two years, I was transferred to North Dock. A few days later, the boss confronted me about being late all the time. I rationally explained that because of the way the buses were scheduled, I had to be either 5 minutes late or 25 minutes early. I was shocked when he insisted that I be 25 minutes early.
I have a desk job now (and a car), and my chronic lateness isn’t remarked upon. My boss even occasionally (unofficially) encourages me to come in late to compensate for my low salary, so although I officially work 8-5, I shoot for 9:00 three days a week (and 8:00 the other two). Sometimes I’m later than that. However, my lateness habit includes leaving work late, so it evens out.
My boss would like to change her own lateness habit, so she charges herself a dollar when she’s more than five minutes late to a meeting. It goes into the same fund as her swearing fines. (The rest of us don’t participate in these programs, except the enforcement.)
When I was in Hawaii this year, I bought myself a t-shirt that said:
I NOT LATE
I STAY ON HAWAIIAN TIME
For the record, I hadn’t heard of CPT.
When i was living back in Australia, i worked one job where my colleagues were a small group of Maori, or native New Zealanders.
They sometimes used the term “Maori time” to refer to lack of punctuality, and also to a general lack of concern about doing things on time.
It’s worth noting, though, that this was NOT a term that any non-Maori would or should use around them. Saying it about yourself is one thing; saying it about another ethnic group is something quite different.
Similarly, i have a Philippino friend in Baltimore who sometimes uses the term “Philippino time,” but i can’t see myself ever using the term.
Another vote for Spain and Portugal.
VCO3 was never VC03, guys.
Either add a smilie or take your droll pedantry to the pit.
Hostile Dialect’s post was interesting. I’ve collectively lived (on two separate occasions, in different parts of the country) over two years in Mexico, and it never, ever occurred to me that there were really people that adhered to “siesta.” From the linked article, it looks like professional people that work in an office and don’t go home for lunch. I mention that because in many parts of Mexico, it is common to have two hours or more for “lunch,” in conjunction with a longer working day. During “lunch” (what they’d call dinner, and is a dinner-like meal to us), you go home and eat with your family, including the kids who come home from school. Then you go back to work, and leave at 7 pm or so. (Personally, I prefer taking lunch when I can and not having to go to work twice a day.)
I’m assuming, then, that the people in the article just don’t go home for lunch, which would not be feasible anyway in places with lots of congestion (like Mexico City).
Of course I always work there in American-owned facilities, and as such the Mexican employees invariably adapt the American system. Heck, we provide free lunch (as part of the benefits, that is) to every one of the employees. They’re production-related plants, and because we also provide the transportation for the hourly folks (yeah, free, company-owned bussing), it’s just not cost-effective to let people go for two hours and hope they make it back okay. And since management has to be there (and also gets free lunch), they can’t take off for two hours, either.