TICO BULL – Ha, (Ja in Spanish, not to be confused with Ya, which has totally different meaning) Tico Time!
If a party starts at 1. The first guest will arrive no earlier than 2. Or 3. Or 4. If you’re supposed to have your cable installed on Monday, just call it Wednesday for safe measure.
Ticos (Costa Ricans) are extremely relaxed and never in a hurry, which may well have to do with the fact that they live longer than most of the world as well.
If you are a type A personality in Costa Rica, you’ll go insane. Patience is a virtue when it comes to tico time. It’s a requirement!
So, how does anything get done? It just get’s done more slowly and maybe sometimes it doesn’t get done. lol .
Additional reading: The End Of Tico Time In Costa Rica
I’m not so sure that Tico time keeps Ticos relaxed or contributes to longevity. It’s actually quite frustrating to be jerked around by procrastinating others, and much of the tardiness is fairly transparently passive aggressive. I know many Ticos who positively hate Tico time and refuse to deal with their countrymen who subscribe to it. Five minutes late for an appointment, OK, 15-30 minutes late for a social engagement or when there’s a good excuse for tardiness, fine, but past a point tardiness is simply aggressive rudeness and everybody knows it.
Even the Court System in Costa Rica allows lawyers to appear up to fifteen minutes late for a Court appointment before a Judge. This would not be tolerated in the U.S., or Canada, with such a tardy lawyer being held in Contempt of Court and possibly given jail time by the Judge, depending on the circumstances.
I personally think that it is disrespectful to the person/people waiting for the Tico to show up, IF they do. We have waited several times for service people to show up for an appointment that they scheduled only to have them never show up and don’t even have the courtesy to call. Just plain rude in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I understand things crop up which may put you behind schedule, but for heaven sakes have the courtesy to call the person/people who are waiting and let them know. We ALL know that Ticos love to talk on their cell phones, so ? Puzzling.
Since I moved to Costa Rica, I have tried to relax and not live by a schedule that is based upon mere seconds, rather than minutes or hours. On the other hand, I value punctuality, and I always have. In my mind, if things happen on time, then I’ll have more free time, which is kind of why I moved to Costa Rica.
I’ve had my issues with “Tico Time”, For Sure! My solution, which may not work for everyone, but has worked quite well for me, requires about one or two months of frustration. After that, everything starts to run very smoothly. Here’s what I did:
Every time I had any kind of appointment, including guys showing up to fix the plumbing… even taxi drivers… I would give them 5 minutes, then I would disappear. When they called me, waiting outside of my home, 20 or 30 minutes later, I’d say, “No, I’m not at home any more. I’m a busy guy. We had an appointment for 2:00, and now it’s 2:30. I had to leave. I had other stuff to do. You could at least call me and tell me that you’re going to be late.” Of course, most of these guys would tell me, “You just need to understand that this is how it works in Costa Rica.”
I still wonder if they really do this to everyone, or just to Gringo expats like me. Sometimes, I’d give the guy a second chance. Sometimes, I’d call another guy. As soon as one guy showed up on time, I’d treat him like royalty and even slip an extra 5 or 10 mil in, depending on the overall cost of the job. Just like some of the “working girls” downtown, those guys soon adopted me as “Their Client”, actively shooing away any other guys who wanted to drive or do work around the house for me.
After that initial 2 months of banging my head against the wall, I now have a nice list of guys of all professions who usually show up 10 or 15 minutes early, just to make sure that they are not late.