A *heh* Timely Poll

[packbat]

Naming no names, of course.

Edit: And greetings to all the peeps from the_zaniak chiming in!

Edit #2: And thequestionclub! (Wow, that's a lot of people.)

[Poll #1166935]

Comments

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Any commonalities to suggest whence the difference?

[andalusi.livejournal.com]

I hate to perpetuate a stereotype, but my family is mostly from Mexico or else second and third generation Mexican-American. It's primarily when we're in Mexico that we operate under a looser sense of time.

With my friends, though, no real commonalities that I can think of.

[just-whelmed.livejournal.com]

I have also noticed a cultural difference in people's perspective on time. Mexican and Indian (not Native American) cultures specifically don't have as strict a sense of time as White American culture.

[andalusi.livejournal.com]

I noticed in Egypt and when I hung out with Lebanese students in college, there was also a looser sense of time.

The thing is that there isn't just one default position here. To some people, a time is a specific point and cannot be any other point; to others, a time is more of a cluster of possibilities around a center, any of which counts as that time.

[just-whelmed.livejournal.com]

For sure- it can depend on culture other than ethnicity as well. Like other people have said, in a professional culture, being late is a bigger deal, while in a more informal setting, you get maybe a half hour leeway.