多数美国人是按照活动日程表所制定的时间段来生活的。为了节省时间，无数电子通讯装置calendars. These calendars may be divided intervals as short as fifteen minutes. We often give a person two or three (or more) segments of our calendar, but in the business world we almost always have other appointments following hard on the heels of whatever we are doing. Time is therefore always ticking in our inner ear.
As a result we work hard at the task of saving time. We produce a steady flow of labor-saving devices; we communicate rapidly through telexes, phone calls or memos rather than through personal contacts, which though pleasant, take longer --- especially given our traffic-filled streets. We therefore save most personal visiting for after work hours or for social weekend gatherings.
To us the impersonality of electronic communication has little no relation to the importance of the matter at hand. In some countries no major business is carried out without eye contact, requiring face-to-face conversation. In America, too, a final agreement will normally be signed in person. However, people are meeting increasingly on television screens, conducting “teleconferences” to settle problems not only in this country but also --- by satellite --- internationally. An increasingly high percentage of normal business is being done these days by voice or electronic device. Mail is slow and uncertain and is growing ever more expensive.
The U.S. is definitely a telephone country. Almost everyone uses the telephone to conduct business, to chat with friends, to make or break engagements, to say their "Thank you's," to shop and to obtain all kinds of information. Telephones save your feet and endless amounts of time. This is due partly to the fact that the telephone service is good here, whereas the postal service is less efficient. Furthermore, the costs of secretarial labor, printing, and stamps are all soaring. The telephone is quick. We like it. We can do our business and get an answer in a matter of moments. Furthermore, several people can confer together without moving from their desks, even in widely scattered locations. In a big country that, too, is important.
Some new arrivals will come from cultures where it is considered impolite to work too quickly. Unless a certain amount of time is allowed to elapse, it seems in their eyes as if the task being considered were insignificant, not worthy of proper respect. Assignments are thus felt to be given added weight by the passage of time. In the U.S., however, it is taken as a sign of competence to solve a problem, or fulfill a job successfully, with rapidity. Usually, the more important a task is, the more capital, energy, and attention will be poured into it in order to "get it moving."
