Annoying

six or eight people sitting around the desk, presumably also there to get seeds or transact some other business.

Altman describes what transpired this way:

Altman: “Good morning, Mr. Kahn, could I get some tomato seeds, please?”

Kahn: “Good morning, Volunteer sahib, won’t you join us for some tea?”

This anecdote is in Robert V. Levine’s book A Geography of Time, and Altman describes it as follows:

So I would have no choice but to sit down, and wait while some servant ran out to get me tea. Then Mr. Kahn would inquire about my wife, etc., and all the assembled people would have a million questions about my life, America, etc., etc., etc. It would be hard to know how to ask for my tomato seeds again. Eventually, after an hour or two, I would decide to risk being rude anyway. I would get my seeds and be on my way, noting that none of the people sitting around the desk had gotten their business taken care of.^{41}

Levine finds that there are great differences around the world in the way people view time, and this has a profound effect on the social structures of a country. Until you learn to adjust to the local “clock speed,” as it were, life can be quite annoying.

For an American, everything is hurry, hurry, hurry, so tasks get done on time. In America, lunch can be delayed or even skipped to finish a project, and airlines brag about their on-time performance. By contrast, a country where breaks are sacrosanct and on time is a relative term can take some getting used to for an American Peace Corps volunteer. Levine found this out for himself when he visited India as well.

He had gone to the train station in New Delhi, because that was the only place in the city to buy a ticket for the train he was hoping to catch later in the week. He really needed to take that train, and he really needed to get his ticket as soon as possible. He joined a long line of potential travelers, all heading for a single ticket window. He inched forward, and after an hour he reached the window. He recounts,

The cashier greeted me with the familiar Namaste and immediately flipped up a sign that said “Closed for Lunch” (in English, I might add). With my blood pressure headed for Kashmir, I turned around to gather support for my case. But all my compatriots were already sitting on the floor, with their blankets spread out, eating picnic lunches. “ What can I do?” I asked a couple next to me. “You can join us for lunch,” they answered.^{42}

Levine and his students have gone around the world, measuring the speed at which life progresses. Some of the observations are qualitative, but a few are quite concrete. For example, Levine has come up with an estimate for what he calls “the pace of life” by looking at how accurate clocks in public places are, how long it takes for a letter to be delivered, and how fast people walk.

Levine’s table shows the results of his assessment comparing thirty-one countries. The numbers in the columns represent the ranking on each of the variables measured. The “faster” countries were primarily European, whereas the “slower” countries tended to be closer to the equator. The United States was in the middle.

One consequence of living life at a slower pace is that the scheduled starting times for appointments aren’t carved in stone. Levine talks about hora Mexicana—the unspoken but universally understood fact that in Mexico, a meeting scheduled for 11 a.m. is really expected to start at 11:15. Or maybe 11:30. Or perhaps noon.

Ranking of Pace of Life Variables

Another country where life is on the slow side is Brazil. According to Levine, people in Brazil are prepared to delay starting a birthday party for 129 minutes while waiting for a tardy guest to arrive. Contrast that with an American child’s birthday party. In this country, after two hours the hosts are glancing at the door hoping the parents will arrive soon to retrieve their offspring rather than expecting new guests to start arriving.

Although there are some obvious annoyances with nations that take it slow, countries that rigidly adhere to rules about time can be just as annoying. A country famous for its clocks, Switzerland is also known for its adherence to rules. America is not without rules, but the inflexibility of Swiss rules can prove too much for some people.

Take the case of Wendy and Sidney Harris. They really do live in Switzerland, but they asked that we change their personal details since their story might offend people in their new country of residence.

Wendy and her husband are both lawyers. They moved to Zurich so that Sidney could take a job at an international law firm. They’ve worked in countries all over the world and faced every kind of bureaucratic hurdle imaginable. Yet their experiences in Zurich have convinced them that despite Switzerland’s gorgeous scenery, wonderful chocolate, and clean cities, the country is the most annoying place they’ve ever lived.

Sidney tells the story of trying to arrange for private piano lessons for his daughter. He found a teacher and went to his studio to schedule the classes. The teacher had space in his calendar for weekly lessons, but there was a problem. The teacher always started his lessons to coincide with the school year. Alas, it was now October, a month after school had begun. Sidney’s daughter would have to wait another year to start learning to play the piano. “But these are private lessons, what difference does it make?” Sidney protested. The teacher shook his head, as if he were dealing with some sort of imbecile, and explained once again that lessons began in September, and it was now October. Ultimately, Sidney found a teacher born in nearby France who was a bit more flexible.

Wendy has had similar experiences—like the time she tried to get the tires changed on their car. She had an 8 a.m. appointment, but traffic delayed her arrival. She wrote Sidney the following note about her experience:

Unbelievable, it takes me 35 min to get to the car dealership, so I get there at 8:15, and [dealer] says they can’t do it in an hour or even 2. He carefully explains to me that the 10:00 coffee break and the lunch hour are sacred, you can’t even pick up a car during the lunch break. Now that I’m 15 min late I can return on Dec. 5 [a few days later] for the next available 8 a.m. appointment. So, they kindly handed me a bus pass and I’ll have to hoof it back here between 1:15 and 6:00. This shit drives me insane. No way am I ever having tires put on again. We’ll do it ourselves. I find this stuff annoying beyond belief. Sorry, there’s nothing you can do, I just have to vent.

If there’s a saving grace about the persnicketyness of the Swiss way of doing things, it’s that at least in Switzerland the rules can be articulated, and in some cases, they are even explicitly codified. That’s rarely the case for social norms.

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall has made a study of social norms, beginning in World War II, when he spent time in Europe and the Philippines, and later when he was involved in training people for foreign service. In his 1966 book The Hidden Dimension, Hall describes his theory of “proxemics.”^{43} As Levine argues for time, Hall argues that culture shapes our perception of physical space—and who belongs in it. In every culture, only the closest friends and associates are allowed into our intimate space. There’s a different comfort boundary for people we deal with in a social setting and yet another for people we interact with in a public setting. People who cross those boundaries are annoying. Yet so, too, is figuring out where those boundaries are in an unfamiliar country.

“A very good example is that a lot of Middle Easterners like to stand closer to people than we do in our Western culture,” says Phoebe Ellsworth. “So, if you’re at a party with someone who has a different sense of what the right distance to stand away is when you’re talking to somebody, and he is too close, he can seem to us overbearing.”

The consequences of these space violations can be amusing. “You frequently see an American take a step back,” says Ellsworth, “and the Middle Easterner will take a step forward so he can get closer to his comfortable