Being late

This is my chance to make public how much I hate this Brazilian way of being late...in this sense I could be compared to an english or a dane because I believe it is a huge lack of respect with people to be late! Specially on the business setting.

Yesterday I faced one of these situations. I am on vacation in Jundiaí and agreed to meet with someone in São Paulo at 10:30. Considering the chaotic traffic one generally finds in São Paulo, I woke up at 07:30, got ready and left home by 09:00am. At 10:11 I was already parking my car ready to go to my meeting. Well, guess what??? The person who I was supposed to meet (no need to go down to names here!) arrived at 11:15 - if you consider that I was there at least 10 minutes before the agreed time, I had to wait no less than 55 minutes!!

I get so mad when people do that and I think this is an absolute lack of respect. And the bad thing is that being late is a habit for a lot of Brazilians...fifteen minutes is fine and one can blame the traffic or whatsover, but almost ONE HOUR!!!!!

Right, so the person finally comes in, greets me and acts completelly normal...I felt like saying "HEY, YOU JUST LEFT ME HERE WAITING FOR ONE HOUR AND DO NOT APOLOGIZE???". Actually all I heard was "When I was about to leave, someone asked me to do something, so I got "A LITTLE" late"...

Not that an excuse would change the fact that the person was late, but would at least show some care.

Anyway, I just believe that it is not a correct attitude to let people waiting, regardless of who you are meeting!