Reflection 76 – Respecting Your Word & Time!

Sometime in the mid 2000s.
I used to work as an economic researcher for the Japan External Trade Organization during the period from 2004-2008. My main job was to conduct research on the Egyptian economy in general as well as on specific sectors. A second task was to arrange meetings with Egyptian officials in different ministries so that my Japanese boss and I can have a first-hand experience about the different laws, regulations, and economic changes taking place across the board. In addition, sometimes I had to arrange for workshops in different governorates (Ismailia, Damietta, etc.) when we had visitors from Japan keen to know and investigate specific sectors such as the furniture industry in Damietta. Of course, this required from me lots of telephone calls and arrangements with local officials to make sure everything is going smoothly. Probably, this was the first time for me in professional life that not everything goes smooth as one would hope!
I was raised to respect my word and in return expected that others would also do. I was so naive . When I used to call people to set meetings, they would many times tell me they would get back to me in so and so time. But they never would! Nor did they apologize for not getting back. Simply, NOTHING! This would in turn baffle me a lot. I came to know that for a decent percentage of those people, they are simply embarrassed to get back to me because their reply on a certain issue is supposedly negative. Rather than apologizing, a better way, simply ignore that person and they would eventually forget . But another large percentage of people probably don’t see anything wrong in simply going back on their words or not fulfilling their promises. Although I can (to some extent) understand the first type of people, I can never understand or even respect the second type. This also applies to the issue of time.
I believe we have a horrible attitude in our Egyptian (maybe Middle Eastern?) culture when it comes to TIME. Many people don’t respect it and see nothing wrong with that. People are two or three hours late for meetings (or even worse don’t show up), and it’s not seen as a big deal. There is always an EXTERNAL cause we can all revert to: TRAFFIC! Very rare do you find someone apologizing for being late or giving a heads up if they are going to be late, let alone showing up before an appointment . No need! It has become common practice to the extent no one really talks about it. Unfortunately, the issue is more than just being late because it basically shows carelessness on behalf of one’s time and at the same time disrespect for other’s times! What is really bedazzling to me that for Muslims in specific, the fundamentals of the religion (prayers, zakah, fasting, and hajj) are all governed by time. In fact, up to the second! If you break your fast a couple of seconds before sunset, it doesn’t count. And this applies somehow to all the other pillars. So, it’s a shame for Muslims to abuse time in such an absurd way.