Americans are quite possibly the most impatient people on the planet. The Associated Press did some kind of a poll that found that Americans can't wait even 5 minutes for what they want. When we're forced to wait, we get "antsy", the poll states.
Yeah, now tell me something I don't already know! Not only do we, as a culture, want everything supersized and larger than life, we want it, like, YESTERDAY. The concept of "delayed gratification" is completely lost on the average American these days.
I've always known that I personally have issues with delayed gratification. One reason I don't eat as healthily as I should is that I don't like cooking for myself -- it takes too long, and I want to be able to just eat when I'm hungry and not have to "waste time" food shopping or planning or preparing meals. If there is healthy food available to me, I will always choose it -- for instance when I went to a Club Med some years ago, the food was all buffet style and totally fresh and delicious; I had no trouble making healthy food choices while on that vacation and came home 5 pounds THINNER. When someone else is doing the cooking, I will eat in a healthy way... but if I have to do all the work, I'm too impatient to want to deal with it, so I tend to lapse into eating on the run, whatever's quick and fast. It's a very bad habit, one I have not managed to break in 45 years.
My impatience extends to other areas of my life... like weight management. When I make efforts to lose weight and create lifestyle changes, if the weight doesn't come off quickly and regularly, I get impatience and quit trying. I don't seem to be able to visualize long-term results when the short-term results aren't happening and happening FAST.
As far as waiting for other things goes... it's a mix for me. On the one hand, I CAN wait in a line more than 5 minutes -- if I must -- as long as the line appears to be moving or there's some good reason for a long line, like at Christmas when there are just more people out shopping and there's nothing I can do about it, so why be impatient. I don't LIKE waiting, but I can do it without giving the cashier a hard time about it. If I'm waiting in a line and I can see that the cashier is doing his or her best to get customers through the line as quickly as possible, then there's nothing more I would ask or expect, even if the line is long.
But waiting because of laziness, incompetence, and downright poor customer service, on the other hand, are things I have ZERO tolerance for. Whenever I am forced to wait for something because of those things, that's when I'm most likely to be a bit snippy.
Recently I lost one of my ATM cards. I phoned the bank (Wachovia) and reported it lost. Two days later I found out the bank cancelled the WRONG ATM card, the one for my other checking account. Let me make this long story shorter: over the 7-10 days from the date I first reported the card lost, I made no fewer than SEVEN phone calls to the bank because of one screw-up (on the bank's part) after another. Every time I called, I waited over 5 minutes to speak to a live person. Twice I had to talk to them about overnighting me a new card because they didn't do it the FIRST time they said they would. They even once charged me fees for talking on the phone to a live person, even though I had to make that call because they messed something up previously. They also sent me two totally different ATM cards I didn't ask for (with different numbers than the originals) and I have no idea why, but of course I had to make a phone call to fix THAT.
At the end of it all, I got a personal card from some bank manager with a gift pen from the bank -- with my name engraved on it as well as the stupid bank's logo -- apologizing for all the inconvenience. Like that was going to make up for the HOURS of accumulated lost time I had to spend waiting on the phone for them to clean up the mess they made, when all it should have taken me was that first phone call to report the ATM card lost.
I hate that freaking pen. It's just a reminder of how frustrating I find it to deal with my bank. And how there's really little point in switching banks because none of the others in my area are any better. It's like these businesses just don't give a crap as long as the stockholders are happy.
Are we Americans impatient at waiting because we are now pre-conditioned to expect "instant" results due to technology advances and our "fast-food-drive-thru" mentalities? Partly. But maybe part of our collective impatience stems from the fact that customer service in this country is degrading steadily. It's bad enough that we often have to wait for things simply because, well, that's just the way life is sometimes - you have to wait your turn. But when the wait is caused by or exacerbated by someone's total incompetence or lack of caring about quality service... well, is it any wonder people get impatient?
I don't think there is any solution for helping Americans become more patient. You can't change an entire culture, at least not overnight. That's one thing I won't be holding my breath waiting for.
But the impatience factor is actually one reason I'm attracted to living in a foreign country, in this case in France. I like how the French will take time to sit in a café once in while. I know the French have their own impatience triggers, but there is something to that Latin/European trait of being able to take time out to just BE, and it really appeals to me.
Until I can make that move to Paris so I can begin my new life of café-sitting, I will have to cope with being a symbol of America's problem with impatience.
And damn it... I just can't wait to get there.
