There is a certain professor I know. He is the nicest, kindest man, and he is a great teacher. But he has a certain quirk which transforms him from a lamb to the beast: he is fastidious about time. Not only does he hold himself to strangely high expectation when it comes to time, he holds everyone to these standards. Brutality, at times. For example, if you are late (late being defined as the bell ringing or after), he will shout at you and publicly disgrace you. Even if you are literally a microsecond after the bell. Turn in your test after the strict 5:00 pm? You might as well not bother. He throws it away. If a guest speaker speaks over the allotted hour? He'll walk out.
This particular professor is most certainly a monochronic person. I'm not sure he would ever be able to function successfully in a polychronic culture. But why not? Is there really no way in which the two treatments of time can function together? E. T. Hall claims monochronics and polychronics are like oil and water in "Monochronic and Polychronic Time." While I get slightly upset and anxious when people are late or miss a meeting, I think it is possible to mix the two without frustrated. After all, it is possible to mix cultures without a civil war. You simply have to recognize what timetable others are running on and make adjustments from there. It comes down to not taking yourself too seriously and making allowances for the values of others.
I enjoyed this post; you certainly had a lot of good insights about the different organizations of time. I thought Hall's article provided a lot of good information and insight, but you should read my post if you want to find out what I REALLY thought of the article (:
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