Cornish Time

For those of you that don’t already know this, the southern-most part of England is known a Cornwall and the inhabitants of this very rural part of the country are a breed all their own.  To the Cornish, you see, time is relative to what they would rather be doing.  That is, if you ask a Cornish plumber what time he’s coming by to fix your emergency, he’ll likely respond in earnest, “directly, of course.”  “Directly”, in Cornish, essentially means, whenever I don’t have something better to do and the pub is closed.

To the Cornish, the hectic work schedule of Americans is proof that we can’t do anything in moderation.  To them, we work too much.  We earn too much money and spend far more even than we make.  As a visitor to Cornwall, it’s hard to argue with that logic.

I’ve never met a Cornish marketer, but I feel as though one would argue that American businesses focus too much on urgency and not enough on priority.  I can’t tell you the countless hours JDM spends on tangential work that somehow has been assigned unequivocal urgency.

To be clear, if your house is flooding, a Cornish plumber will be there in no time.  If the faucet is dripping a little, you’d be lucky if he’s there within the week.  That’s right; the service provider is dictating priority to the customer!

So before you call your lawyer, your accountant or your marketing firm to say the sky is falling, remember Cornish time and ask yourself, “Is this really a priority or just perceived urgency.”  If it’s the latter, perhaps it’s something we should get to “directly.”

Cornwall is an absolutely beautiful part of the UK.  See for yourself in Marea Downey Photography’s “Cornwall Collection.”