So, you hear about “New Orleans time,” and at first, I just thought, okay, it’s Central Time. Simple. An hour different from me, no big deal. Man, I had a lot to learn, and it wasn’t just about what the clock said.
I was trying to get this little project going. Nothing massive, just trying to line up a few local artists down there for an online thing we were doing. My plan was, you know, send a few emails, make a couple of calls. I figured, give it a week, maybe two, and we’d be all set. That was my plan, anyway. My very neat, very organized plan.
Right off the bat, the emails were a thing. I’d shoot one off, say, Monday morning, feeling all productive. And then… silence. Sometimes I’d get a reply Wednesday. Sometimes it’d be Friday afternoon, with a super casual, “Hey, just saw this!” And I’m thinking, “Saw this? It’s been half a week!” But, okay, deep breaths.
Then came the phone calls. We’d agree on a time. “Yep, Tuesday, 2 PM your time sounds great!” I’d be there, phone ready, all prepped. And often, nothing. Twenty minutes would go by, then I might get a text: “So sorry, something totally unexpected came up! Tomorrow, same-ish time?” And “same-ish time” could mean an hour early or two hours late. It was like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.
And here’s the kicker: no one was ever rude about it. Not once. Everyone was so friendly, so enthusiastic. “Oh yeah, man, that sounds awesome, let’s do it!” But getting them to actually do it on a schedule that matched mine? That was the tough part. It felt like I was moving at one speed, and everything else was on this entirely different, more relaxed wavelength. It was frustrating, I won’t lie.
You gotta understand, I had my own pressures. My boss at the time was all about deadlines and spreadsheets. Every other day it was, “What’s the status? Why is this taking so long?” And I’m trying to explain, “Look, I think it’s just… a different vibe down there. Things move at their own pace.” But try telling that to someone who lives and dies by their digital calendar alerts. They just didn’t get it.
I even decided to fly down there for a few days. I thought, okay, face-to-face, that’ll lock things in. And it was great, in a way. People were incredibly welcoming. We’d arrange to meet for a quick coffee to discuss the project, and that coffee would somehow turn into a two-hour conversation about music, food, local history, everything but the actual checkboxes I needed to tick. Or we’d say “let’s do lunch,” and lunch would start at 3 PM and roll on ’til it was practically dinnertime. Productive by my old standards? Not really. Enjoyable? Absolutely.
But here’s the crazy part: the project did get done. The online showcase happened. The artists delivered. It all came together. Just not on my tight, East Coast schedule. It happened on New Orleans time. Slowly, organically, and with a whole lot more “let’s see how it flows” than I was used to.
What I really learned, my big takeaway from that whole experience, was that you can’t just barge in and expect a place to change its rhythm for you. New Orleans has its own beat, a strong one. You either learn to listen to it and move with it, or you’re just gonna be frustrated. It’s not about being inefficient or lazy, not at all. It’s more about life having a different texture there, a different set of priorities. It’s not just about getting from A to B as fast as possible. There’s a whole lot of living that happens in between, and they seem to understand that a lot better than I did back then.
