By Annebé Lugard
Exactly 2 months ago we started our internship abroad. 2 months in which we have seen so much, learned much and a lot has happened. There are many differences between the culture in which we grew up, the Dutch culture, and now living in Mexico with the Mexican culture.
Last weeks I was working at “The Restaurant,” a place in the hotel where guests can have breakfast. Apart from the fact that guests come here every morning to have breakfast, Eduardo, the manager of events & weddings, often comes here to have breakfast. He has negotiations with guests to set up different event.
I have now experienced a couple of times when Eduardo is perfectly on time at the appointed place; The Restaurant, but the guest does not arrive until 30/45 minutes later. In a conversation with Eduardo, he told me that it is nothing special to him anymore, in fact it happens at almost every appointment with Mexicans and not Americans. Eduardo himself does not mind waiting for guests, as it is typical of the Mexican culture, under which he also falls. He has taught himself to be on time for appointments because if a guest does arrive on time outside of Mexican culture, it is not proper. In several conversations with colleagues on the subject of “time,” they all laugh first and tell me, “appointments with Mexicans you have to assume Mexican time.
By Mexican time is meant, take your time widely and don’t expect a Mexican to be exactly on time.
So did I experienced this once here now. At the Nobu hotel there is another intern, Katina, who has become a good friend of ours! We had agreed with her to go, at 11am, to Todos Santos, a small town driving 1 hour from where we live, but in the end, we had only left at 2:30 p.m., so again Lara and I should have remembered the “Mexican time appointment.”
Looking at the differences between cultures, one can see within Hofstede’s theory that Mexico has a very high score on indulgence, 97%. With this, people in Mexican society generally have a willingness to fulfill their impulses and desires related to enjoying life and having fun. They are very optimistic and value leisure time; so, they do not take appointments and times very closely. The Netherlands makes a difference of more than 30% when it comes to indulgence. We take everything a more tightly.
As a Dutch girl here, it can sometimes be difficult to deal with Mexican time, if I look at myself. I am a person who likes to keep to the times I have agreed upon and if someone comes much too late, I can get a bit irritated and annoyed. What I learned from it is to take it nice and easy, no rushing, because they don’t do that either. Don’t take the time so tightly.