Thought Picnic: Time

Time is not a property

Time is a gift we usually do not use properly or cherish its utility. The time we should make for ourselves, for others, or for things. Using time judiciously without wasting it, for ourselves or for others.

The reckoning accounted for in the scheduling and keeping of appointments, giving little room to tardiness out of consideration, courtesy, and respect. We get away too often with not being punctual and having excuses for why we have failed on our part.

There are many facets of time and timekeeping, having an agreed datum for a time reference, that time is not just ticking away, but correct on every timepiece in whatever location, so no one is confused about what the time is. If any time is askew, it should only be in a reasonable margin of error of the magnitude of a few seconds and never more.

Time is a generous gift

Beyond the exactitude of time, the most critical use of time is finding the time and making the time to cultivate relationships, to create wholesome and life-enhancing connections with ideas, people, and events.

After the fact, we find ourselves regretting not seizing the opportunities that time has afforded us, but we are allowed to pass until it is too late. We give time to the negative in holding grudges and offence when should be constructively changing the paradigm for the beauty of fellowship.

Certain things are irredeemable, yet until we have tried our best at redeeming them, we let things lapse and ruefully review in the dreamy unreality of a parallel universe that could have been the universe we inhabited if we made better use of time.

Time is a gift; it is a present we need to be more grateful for and be profusely thankful that we are given a measure of it to make the best of life and living.

Watching the second hand tick away

I hate being late

“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late”, said the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland [1] and dear me, do I hate being late?

I like the concept of time, it brings order, responsibility and purpose to any activity; old-fashioned as it might seem, keeping time is the measure of man and the inability to keep to time makes one less of who that person might aim to be.

The concept of African time [2] where people cannot seem to adjust their activities to the regimen of a watch and the promise to be at a place for a particular time is as annoying as it gets for me – it works in Africa but the Western idea of time is radically different – I live in the West and have been schooled in the Western ideal of time {Read the link for a idea of those concepts of time.}.

I am always beside myself in befuddlement when I cannot get a person to be precise about time, I like arrangements that say, "I would be there at 6 o’ clock" rather than "I would be there around 6". Is that before, after, fashionably late or hours later?

If I cannot make it on time, I always endeavour as a matter of both courtesy and integrity to inform and provide an estimated time of arrival.

I have had people call from home about being late at the time when they are supposed to have arrived – I usually have the good mind of cancelling at that time – what if I was cooking?

I thought I had my time

Not even a year ago on holiday, I walked into a horologe retailer and thought I had the watch I wanted, I had moved on from digital watches though I was still fixated on dual time for the sake of travel and differing time zones.

I was weaned off that idea, but after I left the shop with a Swiss-made [3] watch which had the time, date, day and hours, I found that the watch was a bit crowded with 6 hands moving at different speeds for seconds, minutes, hours, hour of day, date and day – then I could not see the time at night because someone had economised on the fluorescent material.

I have to extricate myself from the snobbish idea that watches made in the Switzerland are the best watches, if they are really genuinely made in that country just as the best wines are not necessarily French.

I had a new watch and within 24-hours it was in its death throes, but I used it and it gave me the time and every month shorter than 31 days meant I needed to do the dainty pinching of dials to adjust the day, not a problem with digital watches.

The aquatic force of batteries

However, by the time you have a watch that is water resistant to 10 atmospheres or 100 metres replacing the battery becomes a feat of engineering to maintain the water resistant integrity and there are very few horology shops that would give that service for watches not on their shelves – by which time you are shopping for another watch.

My watch graveyard just had a new burial; I just counted 6 watches that have lost my love for their running out of juice or looks.

It was not a birthday treat bit the proximity to that day could have made it all the more significant, being the last Saturday before my holiday and Christmas, I was up and out by 10:00 AM rather than feeling like a Saturday morning.

Little netbook, large ability

I had to get a bag for my new ultra-portable Toshiba NB100 [4] netbook which does not have the best of reviews from the aficionados but everyone who has had a play with my netbook is already half-way to the shops to get one of theirs – experts cannot all be right – I like my new toy and I do quite a bit on it now.

It has the Intel Atom processor, it was upgraded to 2GB of RAM at no extra charge from 1GB, possibly because of my charm, it has a 120 GB hard disk, an 8.9” screen and weighs in at 1.05 kilograms.

Though it comes installed with Microsoft Windows XP Home, since I have Microsoft TechNet [5] subscription, I upgraded it to Microsoft Windows XP Professional, installed Microsoft Office 2007 and many other things that make this small netbook an amazing tool.

Move to wind up working

I got the bag and further up the road, I stumbled into this friendly Seiko shop where the staff were friendly, knowledgeable and quick clued-in about their wares – Judith was just fantastic.

I wanted a kinetic watch with date and day that I could view in the dark – if I needed the dates to automatically adjust I had to get one that had a 15 year battery built in going for about EUR 1,000 – just must be kidding me.

Now, I have seen all those Rolex [6] and Audemars Piquet [7] advertisements on television and they are to give that aspirational feeling of becoming some successful sports person – that is fine for those who take all that tripe, the wearers are paid to wear those watches in order to persuade us to pay silly prices to pay others to persuade more to buy into this seemingly exclusive club.

No, I do not aspire to be a golfer, a motor car racer, a sailor, a tennis player or some Utopian Adonis posing like Michelangelo’s David, I just like something that tells the time without having to make my heart stop every time the second hand moves.

Expensive handcuffs of time

Sure, I’ll wear a EUR 5,000 watch that has all the specifications I want if I can become an advertising object else, forget it.

I have never been given to ostentation or the hedonism of having expensive handcuffs telling time masquerading as watches for the world of crime to contemplate hacking off your hand to get at your stupendously expensive time wear if I am to use the parlance of those in the market of making watches hip.

In fact, I find many young people use their mobile phones for time keeping, I am always aghast to find a man is not wearing a watch – but then I am probably just too old-fashioned to recognise this trendy trend.

In the end I settled for something not too expensive a Seiko [8] timepiece that tells the time and requires I move my arms a few times in the day with a reserve of about 6 months of energy before I have to swing it violently again to get it to start up.

If I am still wearing it, I hope they would allow it to go 6-feet under with me to keep time for 6 months before what is left is the miracle of bones being given breath to rise again sometime in the future.

Sources

[1] Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- Chapter I

[2] The Western versus the African Time Concept

[3] The Swiss Watch Industry - Swiss Made

[4] Toshiba NB100

[5] Microsoft TechNet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Rolex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] Audemars Piguet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[8] Seiko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timekeeping by bean counting ...

One, twee, trois, cuatro, funf ...

Imagine you had to keep time in seconds by counting beans out of a large sack with regular monotony. By the time, you have counted 3,600 beans an hour would have passed.

At 86,400 that would be a whole day and a leap year, one, which we are leaping into in 2004, would total 31,622,400. Multiply that, by the number of your years and you could be in the Guinness Book of Records for bean counting.

Well, I spent the whole morning bean counting each hour of work I had done for 49 weeks. The context of my emails in the Inbox and Sent Items is more or less a picture of my year at work.

Archive for review

I used to archive my emails every month until I realised that the world out there amongst the employees of the same firm is a fierce and vicious charade of people whose published ability is to stitch you up, you will have to be a multi-Houdini to come out unscathed.

The morale of being caught in that kind of setting is to document every concern you have no matter how trivial and call on it 4 months after when some smart chap tries to point evil fingers at you for what they should have done properly in the first place. Luckily, we have no limits on our mailboxes.

So, I bean-counted my 49 weeks and presented the results to the pen pushers who were going to extract the nutrients of my timesheets for the PowerPoint - the final PowerPoint of the year - see my previous blog about PowerPoints.

Toiling without reward

As for the nutrients, I know that in the summer months I averaged 6 weeks of work for each month and most especially in August when I was away for 2 weeks on holiday, I still ended up doing 4 weeks work. Therefore, accounting for all the time I had off sick and my leave, my extra hours has given me a balance of no time off this year.

Now one would think there is some compensatory value for all those extra hours of toil, and there is - my boss was not particularly interested in the number of hours I booked, rather, he was interested in the number of hours he could cross charge to other departments.

Obviously, creating opportunities for cross charging is a great benefit for the department but why recognise the dramatis personae involved in creating value, we are paid a salary, we should be grateful to the point of pouring in goodwill for more abuse. Masochism per excellence is supposed to be our core skill.

I might be able to count beans faster in Mandarin...

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A major crisis averted

When your mobile is not handy you realise you can think fast.

Just afternoon, I noticed my phone clip did not have my mobile phone attached, so I went round the office enquiring about my phone and everyone suggested I call the phone and that would signal where it is.

Being the considerate citizen I am, I usually have my phone on vibrate mode, being discreet and responsible on the trains belies the fact that I expect others to behave likewise, but the Dutch society is built on everyone exercising their individual rights without recognition of the fact that it is everyone considering the other that makes society work.

What if we all littered the streets with our rubbish, deigned to clean up after using public facilities, let our mobile phones belch out those unfortunate tunes which should have the bearers certified, rushed at everything without order and so on?

We would have chaos beyond comprehension, but there is always someone who knows his or her rights but nothing about their responsibilities.

Where is that phone?

Therefore, every smart person at work suggested I call my mobile phone - Que! - It would have to be on some empty barrel to make enough noise for me to notice it.

Thinking, worry, desperation, panic sets in - if I have lost the phone, all those numbers are not stored anywhere else, I have to take out a new contract for the phone is not insured, the service provider would want to sign declarations with more gravitas than the UN Charter to retain my old number.

The police would offer to take a statement in 3 days (after the lucky pilferer has run up a mammoth bill calling Jupiter and holding a conference call with the aliens of the Andromeda galaxy) they might help more if your have the IMEI number [A unique manufacturer's code on your phone] with which they can flood the phone with messages as to make it unusable for anyone who perchance picks it up.

Calm down! Man ... you were charging up the phone at home last night and you might have put on the clip without picking up the phone. More so, you have not taken any calls today, so it might as well be at home. A life crisis might just be averted for me to get on with work.

Five hours later, the phone is fully charged - bliss!