Spanish punctuality.

Teaching the Spanish punctuality.

After you have lived in Spain a few years you will know that although they are hard working people they have no idea of punctuality.

Heres an example from just this week. Building me new house here i ordered 4 large cement mixers full of wet cement for 3pm. They turned up at 5.30. The 6 guys i had ready to move it were sitting around waiting and are paid till 6, so as the lorries were so late we were still working at 8.30pm and they need to be paid for overtime and that means more expense for me. Also i ordered 10 pallets of bricks for Monday morning at 9am. At 12am i called them and they told me they would now be with me on Thursday. Again more expense to me.

When i first moved to spain and set up my building business here i used a local spanish window company to install windows for me and gave this company a lot of work. At first they would always be late turning up at the clients house to fit the windows and with English this was a problem as the Brits like people to be on time.

Then on one job i told the fitters to install a door at the clients house for 2pm. I also told them that it was important to be on time as the client needed to go out. This was not true, i just wanted to make a point. At 3pm they did not show so i took the client for a coffee at the corner bar. At 4pm the window guys called and said that they were at the house. I told them as they did not turn up on time that the client had gone out as i said they would and the fitters needed to come back next day. They were not very happy as they had to take this door back to workshop and unload it and do it all again the next day.

The next day they were on time and all went well. I told them that working for me and my clients that they had to be there at the time they said or i would not give them any more work. They worked for me for several years after that and were always on time or called to let me know if they were running even a few mins late.

My spanish wifes best friend is also like this. We had arranged to meet her and her partner at a bar for tapas at 9pm but at 9.45 after we had our first drink she still had not arrived or called and my wife told me that this was normal for her. I paid the bill and we went to another bar about 10 mins away. just as we arrived at that bar my wifes friend called to say she could not find us. We told her we thought she was not coming so we moved on/ She later came to us and it was about 10.30 before she found us and my wife explained how if the English say a time it means that time not 45 mins later. she has always been on time since.

Have you experienced this with the Spanish?