We have that interesting thread about time ( What is your relationship with Time? ) … that made me wonder about our countries/states and cultures and their relationship to time …
stuff like:
Siesta in spain (sleeping at noon as it too darn hot to do anything) or
punctuality (or a very relaxed way to handle it)
I am central european (think: German macro-culture, with punctuality baked into my DNA), living in LatAm, which is a region that is very relaxed about everything related to time. Santiago/Chile and business is pretty strict and central-european with this regard, I’d say … a 10.00h meeting will start around 10.05h or 10.10h at the latest, and if you are later than that, an excuse and asking for forgiveness is expected - but no sanctions should be expected.
But then you quite often have the first 10min or so talking about personal-stuff (did you see the football game y’day?) … It is - however - not as in other LatAm countries, which seem more disperse in terms of adherence to the schedule.
In the more private plane, there is a lot more leeway, e.g. if you get invited to a saturday BBQ at 2, (a social gathering with var. people, not just you) you can show up easily at 3 and not getting “the look” from the host…
I’m German, and yes, in the business world we expect punctuality. Better 10 minutes early than 1 minute late. In private life, it’s similar, if I agree to meet someone at place X at time Y, I’m at this place at that time, and every digression, notwithstanding involuntary delays by late trains or traffic jams of course, would be considered rude. As for an invite to a BBQ or most any other private parties though, the arrival time usually is just a suggestion, you can easily arrive one or two hours later without anyone batting an eye. For a dinner party though, be sure to arrive on time, or the cook will kill you.
When you invite someone over for dinner, do they come in and sit right down at the table, or do you invite them to come an hour or so before the meal for drinks and a chat? Because here in Israel, it’s “Dinner starts at 19:00, but feel free to come by at 18:00 or so,” so arriving at 18:00-18:30 is perfectly acceptable.
(And yes, we use military time here, but only in writing - 18:00 is pronounced “Six PM”).
Yeah, it’s the same in Germany as in Israel. You invite your guests for some time earlier than when the dinner is served, and you usually have some drinks before as an appetizer. But don’t come late!
In the US, people are generally on time, but subcultures definitely have different relationships with time.
For example, comedians make jokes about “black people time”, and most Hispanic communities follow the Latin American model. White people are much more in the European mold.
That said, socially if the party/dinner says “7 PM”, it’s not considered good form to show up promptly at 7. The general rule is to show up around 7:30, give or take fifteen minutes, and smart hosts will start the actual meal at 8.
I have been to two weddings in the last two months. One in Karachi, Pakistan, the other in the USA (Boston) area. Both in the same family (my extended family).
I was at the reception site in Karachi twenty minutes after the time on the invitation (8 pm) and I was the only person there besides the hosts. I turned around and cooled my heels at the hotel lobby for another half an hour or so when there were twenty or thirty people in the banquet hall. I did not what to obligate the immediate family if the bride and groom by having to attend to a guest from overseas. Compared with 40 years ago when I lived in Pakistan, most of the guests arriving in the window of 45 to 75 minutes was actually an improvement. The bride and groo. Did not make an entrance until 9:30. Dinner was not served until after 11am. The place was empty by 11:45. I was asked to stay with the family after the event for a relaxing after party that went until 2am.
The one in the US we walked in at 5:13 for a 5pm announced date and we joined a long queue for the cloakroom. I estimate 75% of the guests were there when we arrived and only a few people arrived after 5:30. This is pretty much the norm for weddings in the US, unless the family or most of the guests are recent immigrants from places with a more relaxed attitude toward timekeeping.
I’ve found German, Dutch and Scandinavian approach to timekeeping more strict than American. Even for social events, people seem to arrive pretty much on the dot, +/- 5 minutes.
For business meetings absolutely everyone is expected to be in their seats laptops, tablets or notepads ready at the appointed time and the agenda on the screen. At one meeting in Copenhagen, there was a five minute period ON THE AGENDA for “socializing/icebreakers” because the organizers realized the meeting would be a reunion of sorts for many attendees. And no matter that you are the CEO, the timekeeper will cut you off when you’ve overrun your allotted speaking or discussion time by two minutes. There is often an assigned timekeeper.
In the US, if the CEO (or highest paid among those present) is presenting or asking questions they can go 20, 30 or more minutes past the allotted time and the subsequent topics or speakers can just lump it. I am often scheduled to present something to the Corporate Executive Committee at their weekly Monday afternoon meeting. I might be scheduled for 3:30 and be waiting in the “holding area” outside the boardroom from 3:20 to 5:00 at which point be told that the agenda topic will be discussed at a future meeting or via email.
That’s a difference to Germany, If you invite people for 7 PM, expect people to be there at 7 PM. If people arrive some time later, that’s no big deal, but the time you have set as the invitee should be no hassle for the guests arriving at that time. Not much wiggle room there.
So the nice thing about people being “fashionably late” as they say is that if your party starts at 7 then between 7 and 8 guests tend to trickle in, allowing to greet them and catch up briefly until the next set of guests arrive. You then talk to them, and when the third group arrives the members of the first and second groups can start talking to each other while more guests trickle in.
How does it work if everyone is there promptly at 7? Or do people still trickle in, just starting at 6?
Not much wiggle room implies they aren’t showing up early, so maybe this is exaggerated but I’m imagining opening the door to find that all your guests have arrived at once
I have seen a birthday party in Amsterdam where all the guests were in the lobby of the apartment building five minutes before the appointed time. And this was a child’s birthday where the guests were mostly the aunts, uncles, cousins of the birthday child. If I might take @EinsteinsHund on a bit of a tangent, is this still the norm in Germany, that birthday parties for children do not really involve the child’s classmates or teammates.
I have seen this with a Finnish-Swedish family in the US as well. Except everyone was waiting in their cars. On the dot, everyone gets out of their cars and there is a procession to the door.
Professional appointments such as work? They expect you to be on time, but most meetings are held for 1-5 minutes to allow stragglers to arrive. After that, you need to at least apologize.
Social engagements in Texas are a bit like described above. Most folks don’t have a problem with showing up an hour or so after the appointed time for most events, few actually show up on the dot.
But I do have one friend that is very punctual. If you agree to meet at a certain time, he’s going to be there at least fifteen minutes early. The thing that really kind of drives me bananas, but is kind of endearing at the same time is when there’s not a firm appointed time. He asked everyone by for a lunchtime Christmas party recently, and the time we were asked to arrive is “around lunchtime”. He starts texting me to ask when I’m going to be there around 11AM. I haven’t eaten lunch at 11AM in decades. I actually arrive around noon, and several guests arrived an hour or more after I did. I don’t know if he was texting all the invitees, it seems an exhausting way to live if he was, but I guess it shows he values my presence.
So, yeah. Depends on who you’ve made the appointment with. Some worry, some don’t.
Incidentally, I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but the one Israeli “social event” that always starts exactly on time and nobody is ever late to, is funerals. You can show up an hour late to a wedding, easy, but if the funeral is scheduled for 13:00, by 13:01 the eulogies have started and you will get looks for arriving late.
Yes, in the UK, I might invite dinner guests with the time stated as ‘7.00pm for 8’ (8 being the suggested actual dinner time), and I would expect people to arrive some time between 7 and 7.30. Certainly not early though, as that would also upset the hosts. I would also expect them to bring a bottle of wine as a bare minimum* - flowers and/or chocolates are not expected but gratefully received.
Business meetings are punctual, but you can expect social chat for the first 5 mins at least.
(*Family rule: bring what you expect to drink. The hosts have already forked out hard cash and effort on the food, you can at least provide your share of the alcohol).
In the UK, you would turn up early for anything with a ceremony that starts at a specific time - eg wedding, funeral, christening. So if the wedding or funeral is at 1pm, you are at the church and seated by 12.45 at the very latest. Likely much earlier, as it’s polite for guests to be there to greet the wedding or funeral party/immediate family.
For German birthdays there are roughly five stages (excluding ethnicities in Germany other than Germans - I don’t know enough about these for an attempt at krautsplaining):
Small children: Party organised by parents, attended solely by the family (nuclear or extended) according to the usages of the family and how many relatives live locally.
older children, with the beginnings of their own social circle: Party organised by parents, attended by the child’s invitees. Often a separate gathering of family at another time.
Teenagers, from some point there when they badly need to assert their autonomy: Party organised by the birthday child; parents often used for logistics.
Adult: Party strictly organised by the birthday child; friends and family according to choice.
Old and infirm people: Party organised by family with input from birthday child. You know you are not long for this world when others begins organising your birthday party.
There is one exception for this type of event in Germany: if the event is billed as an Empfang (reception) and this time is noted as “ab 19 Uhr” instead of “um 19 Uhr”, guests understand that they are not to arrive on the dot but a bit afterwards, ideally so they arrive staggered to be greeted by the hosts without a line forming, and the host to come up for air between guests arriving. Some hosts do not understand this nowadays; I was phoned by an invitee of an older generation when he’s best arrive as I had inadvertently invited to my birthday barty for “ab 20 Uhr” as opposed to “um 20 Uhr” as I had intended (my wife had laid on dinner) - it seems strict manners have gone before the dogs since (and including) my generation.
I for one have often met other guests at the door of the house/apartment and trooped in with them. And, looking back, seen the next group already approaching.
At least that is straightforward to understand. What if I am in Brazil and somebody invites me for 7 pm? Is it OK to show up at ten? That’s not too early, right?
Ceremonial occasions are on-time in the US. Nobody shows up late to a funeral or wedding if they can help it. It’s the Christmas parties, backyard barbecues, and so forth that the host might list 6 pm for, and that’s the earliest time they want anyone showing up. Maybe that’s the best way to think of purely social events- the listed time is the earliest acceptable time to show up?
Business meetings are genearally right on time, although there’s also some slop for the first five minutes or so during most meetings because people can and do get booked up for hours on end, and don’t always have time between meetings to go use the bathroom, etc. Where it is much more loosey-goosey is on the ending times; some higher-ups have a tendency to exert their position and run long.
As someone with executive function issues who it also a parent and full time employee, I have observed what seems to me to be a mismatch between American expectations for punctuality and productivity and the demands of the culture we actually live in.
There’s not enough time to do everything that has to be done. Period. So many of us live our lives constantly feeling like we are behind, that we’re missing something, that we’re overwhelmed, and that whatever the end result of that is, we’re going to get judged for it.
But for many of us, we’re just in an impossible to master situation. We literally do not have time to do everything that has to be done.
There’s a very interesting book that goes into this by Oliver Burkeman: 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.
