Or: why it might be a good idea to not trust time tables and check again when your classes actually start.
Just before your first semester at university starts, it is common to get invited to events to get to know your fellow first-year students. When an invitation for such a first-semester reunion popped up on my phone, I was excited to meet so many new people, but also nervous to make a good impression. Many doubts crossed my mind, with the most harrowing being if I should really arrive at the stated time.
In my native culture, lateness is always assumed when meeting up. Being invited to a friend’s house at a certain hour entails an unspoken agreement to arrive at least half an hour later than agreed. Arriving at a party at the specified time will earn you bad looks—and probably get you uninvited to the next one. Common stereotypes about German people define them as the contrary: they take punctuality very seriously. However, stereotypes tend to be oversimplifying, faulty, and generalizing. This fact, added to a general inexperience with intercultural communication, led me to act just like I would back home. To cause the best impression possible, I decided to arrive with an elegant delay of about 40 minutes. As soon as I arrived, I immediately remarked that something was off—there was nobody there. They had met ten minutes before the set time and departed for a walk around the university campus. It was hopeless to try and catch them—I just turned around and went home.
After the failure at the park, I doubted: maybe there was some truth behind this stereotype. For my first university lecture, I took another approach: I decided to arrive fifteen minutes earlier—better safe than sorry. The room was still empty, as I had expected, so I picked a seat and unpacked my stuff. As the clock ticked on, nobody arrived. Cockily, I even thought that perhaps I was more punctual than the Germans. Oh, the naivety! Nine o’clock—the stated time for the lecture—came and went, and still nobody showed up. My anxiety kicked in: I started shuffling in my seat, constantly checking my phone for confirmation that I was in the correct room. Just to be sure, I decided to wait a bit longer; maybe some unexpected event had prevented everyone but me from being on time. At 9:13, I was pretty much ready to leave.
Suddenly, a stream of people entered the room. In the span of two minutes, the room filled to the brim, the professor arrived and set up his podium, and the lecture was underway.
I did not understand what had just happened. The hypothesis of an exceptional event delaying everyone didn’t hold much water: did everyone but me take a malfunctioning U-Bahn and agree not to ever discuss their delay? No, all of this sounded a bit fantastical. I also hadn’t gotten confused with the start time—9:00 was indeed stated as the start time for the lecture. However, when rechecking the timetable, I noticed a detail I had previously ignored: two initials—either c.t. or s.t.—appeared next to the stated hour for every lecture.
Google to the rescue: if your lecture starts at 9:00 s.t. (sine tempore), it actually starts at 9:00 sharp. If it starts at 9:00 c.t. (cum tempore), it actually starts at 9:15. I looked up from the computer, flabbergasted, and thought: well, they do arrive on time—even when they have to be late!
Why are things the way they are? In the Middle Ages, the only way of knowing the time available to the public was the ringing of the church bell, precisely at every hour. From the time the bell rang, students had fifteen minutes to get to the lecture. The system is still in place for tradition’s sake, causing many inexperienced students (Am I in the wrong room? Have I got the wrong time?) to sit in terror for a while during their first week of university.
After some time in Germany, punctuality has seeped into me. When I meet up with other Latin American friends here in Munich, we normally specify whether the agreed time is in German time—that is, punctual—or Latino time—at least thirty minutes later. But when meeting Germans, always choose the first!