The clock that lies

Original non-fiction-style practice text.

The café owner tells customers that his clock runs ten minutes slow to encourage them to relax. He calls it a charming rebellion against hurry. I call it a reason to check my phone twice while drinking an otherwise excellent cup of coffee.

People arrive with commitments which the owner cannot see. A bus still leaves at its printed time, however comfortable the chair. Someone who spends the whole visit worrying about the clock has not been released from the timetable; they have been given an extra uncertainty inside it.

If the café wants to offer an unhurried afternoon, it can provide comfortable seats and avoid clearing cups before people finish. There are many ways to be hospitable. Quietly making the room less reliable is an unnecessarily elaborate imitation of one.

Assess the writer’s attitude towards the café’s deliberately slow clock. Use three details from the text to support your answer.