The art of time-keeping :-)

Maniana Maniana .....One of the coolest things which I love about my job is the opportunity to travel and see different exotic destinations and interact with people of various cultures, races and religions. Of course, one of the key elements of enjoying the experience is to have a very open mind... and although for the most part it is great - well sometimes you feel like pulling your hair apart. This brings me to the topic of this missive - that of establishing a time frame to meet. When I grew up in India my folks made me follow a pretty regimental schedule but we used to always refer Indian Standard Time (IST) as Indian Stretchable Time. If you would ask someone to meet you would always get the reply 'sure.... we meet later'.... which said ... well - nothing. No wonder until the time India got onto the IT bandwagon and began aping the west - we were always stuck in a quagmire of expecting to do stuff at an 'unknown' future point in time. But if I thought that this was restricted to India.... well I was badly mistaken.In Latin America they have the saying 'maniana, maniana' when queried on when a particular job will be done. This literally translates to somewhere in the future. If you ever try to be more specific more than often you will get a wry smile in return. I was given to understand that this was such a problem in Peru that the government instructed the mayors of towns to install clocks in every village since it was totally ruining order required for businesses to operate and prosper..... In the Caribbean, especially due to its laid back attitude this takes gargantuan proportions. To be sure, it a gorgeous place to be - like no other. If you want to go there, just leave your watch behind and operate on your own internal clock. Unfortunately for me, I visited the place on work - which seemed to contradict the 'chilled - easy going attitude' that people were accustomed to. Interestingly enough, I did get to query one of the locals about this whole affair - wasn't it adversely affecting the 'efficiency' at which the country was operating at? All it needed was a bit of discipline to get things in shape. However - the answer I got was unexpected - and have to admit, thought-provoking. In the typical lazy style he smiled at me and replied, 'people come to the Caribbean to have a good time, to unwind, to relax and rejuvenate themselves. We encourage them to do so - and for that its best you operate 'a la naturale' rather than by clockwork. That's the best way to recover from the stresses of your '1st world existence'...... I have to admit, a very strong argument there ;-).In the middle East it takes more of the Arabic flavor and if you want to meet the next day you would most likely get the response.. 'tomorrow, Inshallah' - literally translated to 'tomorrow - God willing'!!! This was so apparent that in one case when a individual (who obviously had not been sensitized to the cultural aspects of the region) was given an appointment the next day he turned back and said - 'does tomorrow mean - tomorrow or "tomorrow Inshallah"' :-)In someways I think this concept is different from country to country... culture to culture. While states like Germany, Switzerland love the safety of regimental time-keeping to keep their systems running, on the other extreme you have the cultures like the Caribbean where a laisse-faire attitude seems to reign supreme. Maybe the business minded would prefer the clockwork time-schedule, but if you are up for it - there certainly is a bit of charm going to a country and operating in a totally different 'time environment'.... Happy Traveling!!!