JEDDAH, 8 July 2007 — When women receive wedding invitation cards in Saudi Arabia, they often look at the starting time and balk: “12.00 a.m.? That means 2.00 or 3.00 a.m.!”
“Every time I’m invited to a wedding I have to stay there very late waiting for the bride to show up, especially if she’s a friend of mine,” says Amani Al-Harbi, a 20-year-old university student.
“Most wedding hosts exceed the time that they write on the invitations by three hours or more.”
Indeed, ask any Saudi and they’ll admit that members of the society place little importance on time, as if nobody is aware of how much can really be done with a well-managed hour of time.
Delays are considered harmless, even at official meetings and press conferences where reporters and other attendees end up waiting for the organizers and VIPs to show up.
“Only 15 percent of the press conferences start on time,” estimates Jameel Fallata, a reporter at Al-Riyadh newspaper, who blames the organizers of these events. “There’s usually a delay of at least 30 minutes to one hour. It’s really a bad habit that we should get rid of.”
Some people are trying to do just that. A bulletin board at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry occasionally advertises time-management courses for aspiring business executives.
Dania Al-Sabban, a reporter at Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication to Arab News, says that some event organizers often even fail to inform their guests when events are canceled.
“Many times I arrive at a press conferences only to find out that it was canceled without notice,” she said.
“This is disrespectful and I feel embarrassed in front of the photographer who comes with me, and I’ve wasted his time and effort for nothing.”
Al-Sabban says this disrespect is even more poignant for women because of the difficulties they have in arranging transportation with drivers, considering the ban on women transporting themselves.
“It is more difficult for us as women to bear the delay because we do not always have the transportation,” she said.
Her advice to event organizers is that they should pay as much attention to informing invitees of cancellations as they do in confirming attendance.
Suha Al-Ghamdi, a bank employee in Jeddah, said this disrespect for the values of time management is found in the educational system, too.
“Once I took a final exam at the university where the entire class was waiting for the professor to show up for the test, but she didn’t show up,” she said.
The teacher delayed the exam for five days, and when a student called to remind her, the teacher was at home and seemed to have forgotten the re-schedule of the exam.
“The teacher told the student: ‘Why didn’t you remind me this morning that we have the exam today?’,” said Al-Ghamdi.
Khalid Abdullah, a Saudi father of two children, admits that he has trouble with the unpleasant mixture of airports and early mornings. “I can’t help it when it comes to sleeping,” he said.
“I have missed a lot of early-morning flights. I’ve started taking evening and night flights only,” said Abdullah, adding that he hopes his two children grow up with better time-management skills.
