Yesterday marks the final day of moving. The movers came on Monday as promised, albeit like... an hour and a half late. I'd recognized on the phone that they had an accent, but figured I was talking to a Hispanic guy or something... turns out these folks were actually of African descent, and possibly immigrated within the generation, at that.
I can't decide if I'm being racist when I immediately calmed down and assumed they were using "African time." See, at my church, there's a basic English service that caters to immigrants and refugees. While the main service starts within minutes of the scheduled start time, this basic English service starts 15-30 minutes after the scheduled start time, because some people are late and everyone likes to be friendly and concerned about each other.
This is actually indicative of a larger cultural phenomenon. US culture, and especially the Dutch heritage culture around here, is very persnickety about being on time and not wasting others' time. But elsewhere in the world, people don't live and die by the clock. Life happens, you get there when you get there, and nobody takes things too seriously. It's a bit overspecific to call it "African time" but that's what they called it, so that's what I learned it as.
In truth, though, I didn't inquire into the movers' heritage (nor was it my business, really). I think the textbook answer to the question of "am I being racist?" is "if you're worried about it, it's probably fine." But I'd feel better if someone who had a better understanding of the issues would tell me one way or the other. Anyway, the movers did a fine job once they actually made it to us, and appreciated our helpfulness as we opened doors and had already emptied out the furniture they moved. Apparently not everyone takes their stuff out of furniture they're having moved? That flabbergasted me. Furniture is heavy enough without keeping your stuff in it...
When all was said and done, our furniture arrived with no apparent damage, the head guy gave us a hefty discount by way of apology for being so late (which took our moving costs for that under $200- nice!), and now all that's left to do is clean the apartment up and turn in our keys.
I'm not looking forward to the cleaning, but what can you do... well, besides forfeit hundreds of dollars for spite, I guess. I already did the lung-killing section of the work, which was to clean out the oven. Last time we moved, I'd bought a can of cancer-causing death chemicals for use in removing all the grease from the oven, and we still had that, so I used it again on this oven. (The can doesn't say it causes cancer, but really, something that lifts baked on grease that easily? You just know it's going to turn up 20 years from now as a hazard.) I don't think I cared enough to make this oven as clean as the last one, but it's quite clean, and suitable for use by new residents now.
In other news, I'm going back to my college for a few hours this week to help some students with a study on autistic people and humor. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, which makes me wonder A) if I'm going to mess up their study by knowing too much about what they're doing, and B) what they're actually studying, because a hallmark of psychology studies is that they're not necessarily studying what they say they're studying.
There's reasons for that, they're not just lying through their teeth because it's fun. The problem with testing sentient creatures that can second-guess themselves (which is to say, humans) is that they will do exactly that, rather than simply reacting like most creatures. There's also the problem of people trying to guess what the researchers want to see, and then acting accordingly (or oppositely) rather than how they'd normally act... which again, if you're serious about doing science, is a problem.
The ruling body of psychology, the APA, thusly allows researchers to lie to their research participants/subjects... but only as long as necessary for the study to be finished. As soon as that's done, they're required to explain what was really being tested and why. There're some really interesting (and sometimes flatly horrifying) studies that have been done over the years, prior to modern standards of ethics for psychology, but that's probably a post for another day...
I can't decide if I'm being racist when I immediately calmed down and assumed they were using "African time." See, at my church, there's a basic English service that caters to immigrants and refugees. While the main service starts within minutes of the scheduled start time, this basic English service starts 15-30 minutes after the scheduled start time, because some people are late and everyone likes to be friendly and concerned about each other.
This is actually indicative of a larger cultural phenomenon. US culture, and especially the Dutch heritage culture around here, is very persnickety about being on time and not wasting others' time. But elsewhere in the world, people don't live and die by the clock. Life happens, you get there when you get there, and nobody takes things too seriously. It's a bit overspecific to call it "African time" but that's what they called it, so that's what I learned it as.
In truth, though, I didn't inquire into the movers' heritage (nor was it my business, really). I think the textbook answer to the question of "am I being racist?" is "if you're worried about it, it's probably fine." But I'd feel better if someone who had a better understanding of the issues would tell me one way or the other. Anyway, the movers did a fine job once they actually made it to us, and appreciated our helpfulness as we opened doors and had already emptied out the furniture they moved. Apparently not everyone takes their stuff out of furniture they're having moved? That flabbergasted me. Furniture is heavy enough without keeping your stuff in it...
When all was said and done, our furniture arrived with no apparent damage, the head guy gave us a hefty discount by way of apology for being so late (which took our moving costs for that under $200- nice!), and now all that's left to do is clean the apartment up and turn in our keys.
I'm not looking forward to the cleaning, but what can you do... well, besides forfeit hundreds of dollars for spite, I guess. I already did the lung-killing section of the work, which was to clean out the oven. Last time we moved, I'd bought a can of cancer-causing death chemicals for use in removing all the grease from the oven, and we still had that, so I used it again on this oven. (The can doesn't say it causes cancer, but really, something that lifts baked on grease that easily? You just know it's going to turn up 20 years from now as a hazard.) I don't think I cared enough to make this oven as clean as the last one, but it's quite clean, and suitable for use by new residents now.
In other news, I'm going back to my college for a few hours this week to help some students with a study on autistic people and humor. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, which makes me wonder A) if I'm going to mess up their study by knowing too much about what they're doing, and B) what they're actually studying, because a hallmark of psychology studies is that they're not necessarily studying what they say they're studying.
There's reasons for that, they're not just lying through their teeth because it's fun. The problem with testing sentient creatures that can second-guess themselves (which is to say, humans) is that they will do exactly that, rather than simply reacting like most creatures. There's also the problem of people trying to guess what the researchers want to see, and then acting accordingly (or oppositely) rather than how they'd normally act... which again, if you're serious about doing science, is a problem.
The ruling body of psychology, the APA, thusly allows researchers to lie to their research participants/subjects... but only as long as necessary for the study to be finished. As soon as that's done, they're required to explain what was really being tested and why. There're some really interesting (and sometimes flatly horrifying) studies that have been done over the years, prior to modern standards of ethics for psychology, but that's probably a post for another day...
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