Ever made a date/meeting with any Thais? You agree on the times, but they seem to never be able to arive on time do they? I’m not saying that every Thais are like that. I’m just saying that most of them seem to never be punctual (hope I’m using the right word). I myself is Thai, but I like to be on time and do get annoy, p**s, or anyother word that isn’t so nice when people I’m waiting past the set time. I usually give people about 10-15 minutes give or take about waiting anymore than that well it just gets annoying. In the US I usually don’t have this kind of a problem, because most people seem to keep it a priority to be on time. Everything here seem to have a schedule.
Now in Thailand things that seem to have schedule… well… HMMMM I can’t think of one. Everything seem to be late in Thailand. OK plane taking flight seem to always be about 20-30 minutes late, but that is usual anywhere in the world. Destination buses at Mor Chit are some what OK with time, they take off when they were schedule to about 15 minutes later. In Bangkok everything to me seems chaotic anyway, ever seen buses pulling over at one bus stop and next two buses over is the same bus’s number as the first one. Hell you got three busses at the same bus stop that are going to the same place and same way, because they chatch up to eachother for some reason. Shops and Malls in Thailand are pretty much almost the same way. They open when they want and close when they want, but there is a sign up in front to tell people their hour of operation interesting isn’t it? I love it when I plan to go to a store knowing the time that they say they will be open and yep you guess it they haven’t open it up yet. So my time is wasted, because they told me that I could pick up what I have ordered at the set time. Makes me feels like some dumb s*** believing them.
Ok back to my point on being on time. Now I’m not saying that I’m on the dot every time I have a schedule meeting, but I’m not more than ten minutes late. The most I have ever been late was around thirty minutes and that wasn’t my fault (I’m not going to tell it now). Anyway I usually try to get to the meeting place early or as close on time as I could be. Now the problem is with the people I’m suppose to meet. They never get there on time. Most of them are Thais. I remember one time I’m suppose to meet up with an associate of my mothers’ to drop off thing she want me to drop off for this person. Truth be told, I told this lady that I can be at her store at 11am and that I have to leave as soon as I drop off my cargo. Time set and date set. She also said that her store open at 9am and I can be there anytime after nine. So ok good for me I can be there early and catch the bus from Bangkok to Phisanulok earlier then I thought. I got to the store around ten o’clock thinking I can catch an eleven o’clock bus up to my place in Phitsanulok and be there around 17:00. I was also thinking since she said that she open her place at nine o’clock in the morning and my being that at ten o’clock it should already be open. Lo to my surprise the place still have that freaking metal storm door down. No problem I thought she might be inside and don’t have the chance to open up yet. So I went about knocking on the door for about five minutes and another stunner nope she isn’t inside. The next thing I did was to call her and another surprise she was still sleeping (the bi**h). To sum it all up I end up having to wait for her till around 11:30am… No apologies from her either… I didn’t think much about it anyway… I also didn’t get to Phitsanulok untill 8pm. I just thought maybe when someone said they are going to be there at that time THEY’LL BE there at that time. Maybe I should be use to it by now know that Thais are generally are a late arrivers or just late for everything and anything. Well I’m not. What can I do right? Guess I’ll just have to let it go and complain about it. Such a waste of time. Who wouldn’t be mad if they have to wait when they don’t have to. Peace.
4 responses to “Being on time.”