Fashionably Late

Time....it's always been something that people are obsessed with. We try to measure it, we are scared of it, it costs us money, we waste it, we save it..and it heals so many wounds..but what if you were thrown into a world where people had a completely different understanding of time? Would you try to adjust? Run away? Try and convert them to your concept of time?

When do you arrive at a party? On time? A few minutes early? Fashionably late? How do we even determine what fashionably late means? Is it 10 minutes or half an hour?

We realize that time is important --mostly because we have a limited time on this planet--. I mean, come on, would we have even been remotely concerned with time if we were eternal beings? What many of us don't realize is that the concept of time differs from culture to culture. This has been a topic of interest since the Ancient Greeks. In today's world, we have two terms that Mr. Edward Hall came up with in order to explain the different concepts: Polychronic Time and Monochronic Time.

In North America, and in majority of Northern European cultures, time is monochronic. This means that we like to organize time, we see it as something that can be saved or wasted, and we like being punctual. Monochronics love their planners and prefer doing tasks one at a time, in order of priority. They tend to be the people who show up to meetings right on time or early, and they hate interruptions. They are more concerned with privacy and confidentiality, and tend to be more individualistic.

Then there's the polychronic cultures..majority of these cultures are in the Mediterrenean, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Polychronics tend to do multiple things at the same time. It wouldn't be unusual to see a polychronic hold a meeting while taking phone calls and having an open door for visitors..yes, all at the same time! They are not so strict with their schedules either, so time commitments aren't all that important. Polychronics are more concerned with people who are important to them so they rather cancel their important business meeting to pick up a friend from the airport..

Now, I'm sure you can see that bringing these two groups together will result in some major conflict. Just imagine, the monochrone has spent hours preparing for a meeting with his manager, who happens to be a polychrone. Let's say the meeting doesn't get rescheduled at the last minute....the monochrone is in for some surprises..the manager's door is open and people constantly come in and out to talk with the manager..umm, what happened to privacy? Then the phone rings..but the manager does not let it go to voicemail..and before he knows, the manager has to rush out of the office--the call was from his cousin..apparently he just happened to be in the area and wanted to meet for a coffee, which is clearly way more important than this meeting that's so easy to reschedule!

I was raised in a very polychronic culture but spent my youth and adult years in Canada. Yes, I was the kid that showed up to class late every morning, missed half the sermon on Sundays and barely made it to birthday parties before all the food was gone..Why? Because to my parents, "party starts at 7" means "please arrive sometime on or after 8". Since I've spent majority of my life here, I have more monochronic tendencies, but I still see the polychrone in me come out every now and then, often to my friends' dismay.

Jokes aside, this is becoming a reality in our world due to globalization, immigration, and the rising numbers of expats..Take Canada for example, we have people from almost everywhere in the world that live, work and play together. It's amazing how everyone gets on so well...or at least until the monochrone has to wait at a restaurant for 30 minutes for his polychrone friends to show up. By the time they arrive, their reservation is cancelled and the monochrone has completely lost his cool.."But we were on time! 30 minutes late is not actually late!"

Yeah.....So where do we go from here? We can't change people's concept of time..and who is to say which way is better? I personally think they both have positives and negatives. Is it enough just to understand where these issues arise from? But that still doesn't mean the one polychrone isn't going to hold up an entire conference..

We need to learn about our differences and communicate with each other accordingly. It's the only way we can successfully communicate interculturally.

"We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone" -William Shakespeare

Regardless of all our efforts, we have no control over time; if anything, time has full control over our lives. As humans, we feel the need to control our environments and we all do it in our own way. Monochrones like to feel the control by making strict schedules whereas polychrones like the idea of having the power to change plans..at the end of the day, we're all trying to accomplish the same thing; control over how we use our time.

So my question is...if monochrones place such high value on being timely, how did the idea of being 'fashionably late' come about from monochronic cultures? How do we accept this concept when we hate having to wait for someone to show up for an appointment?

And lastly, I want to leave you with my original question; how do we even determine what fashionably late means? When are we no longer "fashionably late" but are truly late?

:)
SW