Just a little bit of patience

As I think about our society, especially where the masses congregate in a rat race with zero sum outcomes, we do not tolerate waiting very well.  A couple of great innovations that prove this point are the microwave oven and drive through windows at fast food restaurants.  Quick, efficient and it satisfies our need for immediacy.  ATMs have popped up everywhere to eliminate the middle person (bank teller) for simple transactions.  All you need is a bank card, a PIN number and money to either deposit or withdraw.  Simple, efficient, and quick. 

As a Type A card carrying person, I hate to wait.  I am continuously competing with the clock.  I am rarely late and seldom too early.  My wife loves that about me – NOT.  I move swiftly with determination to my destination.  Chit chat beyond obligatory respectful greetings can wait for another time.  I work hard to arrive where I need to be just in time.  And so it goes, if I am on time at a defined event, so should everyone else be. 

Often that is not the case.  We wait for “key” people at work to arrive before we can start the meeting.  We sit in an overbooked doctor’s office for extended periods of time, hoping there is a gender oriented magazine there to flip through as we wait.  We are inconvenienced by people who arrive at the movie theater after the movie has begun and they just have to sit on the row you have comfortably sat yourself in.  We are endangered by people who are late out of the gate and are driving their vehicle at unsafe speeds and weaving from lane to lane in an attempt to get ahead of the next car in front of them during rush hour.  In the city, if we are not waiting, we are rushing.

There are times when I demonstrate considerable patience.  Those times include coaching, teaching, listening, learning and helping others.  There are other times, where impatience rules and tolerance wanes.  Those include:  red lights, conscious incompetence, slow drivers in the fast lane, automated phone directives or being put on hold, people who are habitually late, etc.

I typically take in a new flick every weekend.  Last weekend I went to the cinema to watch the new Batman movie.  For occasions like this I tend to arrive earlier than just in time.  At this location there are generally two lines of ticket buyers and then there is this “secret” self-service station that very few people know about because it is hidden so well.  I found it and use this wonderful time saver which allows me to readjust my time of arrival to enter the screening room just as the trailers for the upcoming movies begin. 

 
On this day, someone else found my haven of expediency and was there before me.  As luck would have it, this person was older than me, visually challenged, physically and cognitively slow and not so keen on using technology.  Twice this person had to select the “do you need more time” option.  I offered to help the person through the process, but my offer was spurned.  People were zipping through the ticket lines while this individual wondered how to get from screen to screen.  The word “CONTINUE” must have a different meaning for people other than me. 

For people who know me, you can imagine how frustrated I was as I observed this person struggling and stumbling through something that was designed to be user friendly and simply efficient.  My body language certainly exhibited this frustration.  After this person got their ticket I zipped through the process and passed this slow poke on my way to the show, stopping long enough to shoot a look of disgust at this person.  Even though I found a choice seat before the trailers started, I still inconveniently had to wait because of another person’s conscious incompetence…”all good things come to he who waits.”