If you appreciate things happening when you expect, and as you expect .. something that rarely, if ever, occurs in North America (think about that), you must read this. 

We in North America have no concept of service… none.  I will debate that with examples with anyone.  I wrote about hits before, but Jan’s post here does real justice to the precision that occurs in Japan, and that will make anyone else in the world simply cringe.  Consider … a late subway is not an acceptable excuse … you need a late note, or they won’t believe you. 

I recommend Jan’s post … incidentally, his day job is designing next generation phones for Nokia (Swedish) and look where he is based.

If a train is more than a couple of minutes late Japan Rail issues an apology and on arrival at the destination a queue may form at the station-master’s office to pick up an official late-note. Blaming public transport is not a viable excuse in Tokyo.

Source: Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect: Predictability, Margins of Error, Quality of Life

PS.. here is his talk at LIFT07.