Being on time
Imagine you are in a polychronic part of the world, which according to Wikipedia is basically everywhere except the US. Picture yourself sitting in your apartment texting with a colleague who lives in your same village. You are under the impression that you'll leave (you and the colleague) at about 14:00 for an evening meeting. So you message at 13:42 asking if the colleague is ready for y'all's carpool. Your colleague responds "another half hour." What does that mean, in terms of actual minutes? Think about it.
On my end, my first thought was "he says a half hour, but really means an hour." So I settled myself down in the apartment for a little more puttering, time spent dressing and organizing myself, and reading.
About 45 minutes go by and I think, "ya know what, I'll just make myself available at the street level in case he's around and ready." So I pack my laptop and notepad into a backpack and head up to the local, family-run mini-market situated conveniently between my apartment and the colleague's home. Turns out the colleague was running around the market and his car taking care of a few last things, basically puttering and packing for our drive. We set out a few minutes later, at which time I learned that we were picking up one more person on the way out of town. And here's the kicker:
Upon picking up the third person for the carpool, my colleague mentioned to this new guy that "Ben is the reason we're five minutes late." Can you believe it!?! I'm smiling writing this because my colleague had said it mostly-jokingly, and whatever time we left town - and arrived at our meeting - was when it was supposed to me. My additional puttering time, the colleague's vagueness about when to get together, and the few minutes our third passenger spent waiting in front of his apartment - it all led basically to (a) not being late and (b) all being right on time (if that is actually what we were) :-)
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