

Why Waiting Is Torture - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting-in-line-is-torture.html?hp

======
btipling
My smartphone has changed the way I feel about waiting. Instead of dismay I
now can look forward to a lengthy pause. It never really feels like waiting
for me anymore.

Unless it's in my car and I can't use my smartphone. Another exception is when
I am with people and it is socially unacceptable for me to focus on my phone.
If we have nothing interesting to talk about, the wait is as painful as ever,
perhaps even worse if I am jonesing for my phone.

Standing up a long time can cause physical pain, so that part doesn't go away
even if I have a phone.

Also I wonder if smartphones have decreased impulse buys of candy and that
other stuff in supermarket lines.

~~~
yason
Personally, to the contrary. With a smart device you'll end up going and doing
_something all the time_ , and you get used to that keeping you going and
going through the day. And this means you never stop doing and start being.

I don't have a smartphone and I probably won't get one until I need some of
its functions desperately enough. I like waiting and doing nothing: it's the
time to be, it's time for myself. I never run for the bus or tram or train,
instead I walk as if it was waiting for me forever. If it leaves before I hop
in, I just consider it some time for not-doing.

Actually, this removes the meaning of "waiting" and "pause". If the "pause"
doesn't actually break anything in your day then you're not "waiting" either.
It's just your day, sometimes going forward, something stalling, sometimes
going backwards, like a little toy boat whirling along in a stream. There's
nothing to pause from and nothing to wait because everything _just is_.

~~~
btipling
> "it's the time to be, it's time for myself"

This seems like a weird and arbitrary use of the word _be_ that is not defined
in the dictionary that I have. So I do not understand what it is you are
saying.

When it's time for myself I like to use my smartphone. Because it's
interesting to me. I can read interesting articles, I can distract myself with
books, catch up on emails and online discussions. I like these things. I can
also choose to not use my smartphone if I'm not interested in what my phone
has to offer. Owning a smartphone does not mean I am required to use it, but
not owning a smartphone makes it impossible to use one if you wanted to.

~~~
yason
_This seems like a weird and arbitrary use of the word be that is not defined
in the dictionary that I have. So I do not understand what it is you are
saying._

Thanks for pointing it out! I meant "being" as opposed to "doing". Some people
use "not-doing" instead but that sounds even weirder.

Being means... well, just that. You just are, you don't have anything to work
on or focus on. You just be and see later what came out (if anything). It
might sound like zen stuff but most people do that naturally if only they
occasionally stop themselves from _doing something_.

If I'm sitting in a bus I'm likely to just be: I don't think anything in
particular, I just watch and observe without analyzing, I might think about
something but then I gleefully forget about it. An internet connection or a
smartphone in general would just distract me. The moments of just being are
worth a lot of gold in my life and I'm enough aware of them that I actively
try not prevent them. Thus my smartphone policy.

~~~
gbog
Your not doing it just being state is very well known in the East, you might
want to check the Zhuangzi. But your explanation is not very accurate. You'd
go to this state more easily if you do something you don't need to think
about, like housework, hiking, or even coding - but when you're in the zone.
The main thing ifs to be without intention, without internal mental
supervision. Then you are your real self, and you are happy, like fishes in
the river.

It is good to you to be able to be yourself in the lines, and shows you will
be able to handle the "distractions" of a smartphone easily.

~~~
btipling
I think I actually achieve this state playing Temple Run, which is an utterly
mindless game that involves no thought at all, just doing.

------
clemensm
The statements in the article are not universal. In fact they are heavily
biased towards the US culture. If you ever think of traveling to Asia or
Europe, here are some thoughts -

I remember a cartoon showing the difference between waiting lines in the US
vs. China: an orderly serial line here, an amorphic mass of dots all aiming
for the one entrance there. Europe is somewhere in between. Queues are like
little war zones where everyone aims to achieve their goal the first. I
remember when I was in a ski club (in Germany) how we were exchanging
techniques on how to get on the lift first: take the outer part of the curve.
Even better, pair up so that one can slowly move inwards so that your mate who
follows you can overtake you and continue in the same manner (this works only
with skis, however, which are used as barriers). I remember queuing at a
certain nightclub which didn't have a serial queuing line. The best strategy
there was to stand sideways which allowed you to better fill the little gaps
that sometimes appear as people move in the bulk. In general, as an American
traveling to Europe, I would recommend to do as the Romans do and regard
queuing as sport. Don't call out to people who are cutting the line, they will
usually not do it either if you try - but be smart enough to appear as it was
just by accident.

But there are signs of change. The single-queue system has only appeared about
20 years ago and is called the "American queue". Post offices and airports
have switched to this system. It's definitely an improvement.

I was amazed when I first stayed in the US how patient people were standing in
line, but even more, how many lines there were. I would say you're waiting
about twice as much in lines in the US than in Europe. The queuing experience
here is just so unpleasant that people try to avoid them overall. A grocery
store chain has big signs for the employees to open up a new cash desk should
more than 2 customers wait in line. In most cases machines have taken over
jobs for which you would usually stand in line, and then they put up enough
machines so that you don't have to wait. I have hardly ever waited to get into
a movie theater (seats are bought online and are numbered) or to get train
tickets (lots of ticket machines). At Schloss Neuschwanstein (the original
"Disney Castle") you order a ticket for a certain time and can spend the
waiting time in a restaurant or hiking the surrounding mountains. The list
could go on. To me it is quite unbelievable that Disney doesn't do it this way
in its parks. And it very odd to me to go skiing in the US where they rather
hire workers to organize the queues instead of increasing lift capacity.

These days however after having read a lot about meditation I see queues as a
great opportunity to switch off thinking. When was the last time you spend a
while listening to your breathing? Marvel at the colors of your surroundings?
Watch yourselves as your mind desparetely tries to find something to think
about? I'm trying to do this now whenever I have to wait. Unless I'm
distracted by my smart phone, of course...

------
tjmc
There's a crucial social aspect of queuing that the article doesn't discuss -
it makes you feel like a punter. It puts you in your place. And it's far worse
when you're in a tiered situation - such as having to board a flight after
business passengers, or being kept waiting outside a nightclub whilst some
beautiful people are waived past the velvet rope. Perhaps the thing about
walking through the airport isn't so much that it's less boring, it's that
your social status is more anonymous. But as soon as you reach the carousel
your true caste is revealed. Non-priority baggage. Economy traveller. Punter.

~~~
michaelochurch
What most people fail to ever figure out is that this social-status hack
(velvet-roped queues) has a lifespan.

In the nightclub industry, people understand this. They create artificial
barriers to entry so that, when people get in, they spend loads of money "on
the experience" because they feel lucky and perhaps a bit superstitious. It
works for a few months and makes an enormous amount of money.

Two years later, some other club is hot and that one is a non-concern, full of
"B&T" (bridge and tunnel, i.e. non-New Yorkers) and college kids on spring
break. There's actually a lot of truth in the Yogi Berra quote: "That place is
so crowded, no one goes there anymore." Once "the crowd" can get in, no one
important wants to be there, and the $10,000-per-night people have moved on. A
nightclubs has a lifespan. The owners and promoters put it into maintenance
mode and start another one. This works extremely well for that industry. If
you can sell a $30 bottle of vodka for $700, you've figured something out.
Having to start a new club every 18 months isn't a major burden for the owners
and promoters. It's the Hollywood model of starting a new project every year.

This works poorly for the airlines, which have infrastructural needs that
require them to focus on the long term. The airlines play similar status
games. There's economy which is deliberately uncomfortable, and first/business
(first in domestic flight, business) which ought to be 1.5x the price (50%
more space) but is between 1x and 5x depending on a bunch of weird variables,
some of which are deliberately indexed to the person's socioeconomic status.
You never get a good sense of what a ticket "should" cost because they
deliberately keep it vague.

In the long run, this leads to abandon. Truly high-status people don't use
commercial airlines anymore, not even international first. The rest will fly
commercial but hate the experience, and would probably ditch the planes in a
second if we had decent (250+ mph, 5-8 cents per mile) train service like they
have in Europe. Morale in the industry is at an all-time low. As soon as
credible alternatives to the mainline commercial airlines exist, they're done
for.

------
jacobolus
There’s actually a large additional benefit to making people walk around
before getting their bags. Sitting down for long periods of time (such as on
an airplane) causes people’s muscles and joints to settle into weakened forced
positions. Afterward needing to lift and carry heavy bags is a frequent cause
of back injuries. Even just being forced to walk for 5 or 10 minutes causes
those tissues to mostly reset, and radically reduces the injury risk.

------
AncientPC
To relate this to tech, there was an earlier study done that showed progress
bars that updated in smaller increments (~1% steps) felt faster to end users
than larger increments (20% steps) even though the time for the smaller
increment progress bar to finish the task was the same or longer.

In other words it's reinforcing the primary argument of the article, the
perception of waiting is more important than actual wait time.

------
rdudekul
"Occupied time (walking to baggage claim) feels shorter than unoccupied time
(standing at the carousel)".

That is true, since say a 5 minutes traffic jam seems like eternity compared
to say 25 minutes of driving. Wonder if we can apply this principle to any
situation. For example customer perception of progress in a consulting project
is much better when you are hitting all kinds of milestones while developing a
feature such as design, prototyping, development, testing, deployment.
Ironically if we say we are doing all of those in parallel, it doesn't work
very well.

------
nostromo
I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at
fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger
number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However,
most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it
would reduce wait time complaints substantially.

~~~
wheels
I'd say that goes directly against one of the theses of the article -- that
"uncertainty magnifies the stress of waiting".

The most excruciating waits that I've had to deal with in the last many years
are at the _Ausländerbehörde_ here in Germany -- the "foreigners' office".
It's the place that you have to go to get a work permit if you're not German.

They use a randomized system. You don't have any idea if you're going to be
waiting 10 minutes, 3 hours or even if you'll make it through the line at all
before they close for the day. Combined with the stress of the possibility of
rejection or missing some critical piece of paperwork, the uncertainty adds a
huge amount of cognitive load. Need to go to the bathroom after you've been
waiting for an hour? What if they call your number while you're away for 5
minutes? I would _love_ for them to switch to a linear system so that I could
produce a ballpark estimate of where I am in the queue.

~~~
agumonkey
I like the balance between the pain of total uncertainty and the overwhelming
knowledge of being stuck

------
ubershmekel
My instinct is to immediately close paginated articles upon finding their
"next page" button.

Might be related to the topic at hand.

------
five18pm
> And beating expectations buoys our mood. All else being equal, people who
> wait less than they anticipated leave happier than those who wait longer
> than expected.

The same philosophy which underlies the familiar "under promise and over
deliver". Guess this also explains the enormous amount of outrage that comes
out of schedule slips, even in cases where schedule is of little consequence.

------
dgallagher
I don't mind waiting in line so far as things in front are progressing
efficiently.

In my current culture (MA, USA), there's little punishment available for
inefficiency, such as taking a long time to pay, or deciding on an order for
food. You can give someone a dirty stare, but that's about it.

Some cultures do punish explicitly. For example, if you hold up a line in NYC
mid-day ordering lunch, staff yells at you to hurry up, and may even kick you
out. A harsh but effective message. Their other queued customers are being
inconvenienced by your inefficiency. They'll walk out and go get lunch next
door. Fire one and keep many.

Other cultures are different. In Costa Rica, an extremely laid back
environment, customer service takes 2-3 times as long. It might take you 60-90
minutes to pickup a rental car at the airport even if you're the only person
in line. People don't mind waiting. Slow is the norm.

Waiting is torture, welcome, whatever, if you let it. Your environment
influences your decision, but it still remains your decision to choose.

------
infinite8s
One point in the article, that "uncertainty magnifies the stress of waiting,
while feedback in the form of expected wait times and explanations for delays
improves the tenor of the experience", is definitely true for anyone waiting
for mass transit. For example, NYC has recently been installing train arrival
signs on some of their subway lines (and also some bus routes). I can say from
first hand experience that waiting is much more tolerable when I know roughly
when the next train will arrive.

------
SpectralShards
Very interesting read. This reminds me back when sometimes loading up a flash
video or anything that required a loading sequence sometimes the author would
include a quickly loadable little mini-game or activity of sorts to keep the
audience occupied as they wait for the full video to finish loading. Seems
like a pretty useful concept that can still be applied in today's websites to
keep users more engaged.

------
jtheory
I wrote a response to this article last night -- not addressing the problems
causing the delays in the first place, but ways to free yourself from the
stressful feeling that you're wasting your life:
[http://blog.robwhelan.com/2012/08/20/waiting-is-horrible-
so-...](http://blog.robwhelan.com/2012/08/20/waiting-is-horrible-so-dont-do-
it/)

------
dsirijus
I'm a smoker. I only complain about waiting if I've waited in the place where
smoking is not allowed.

------
novaleaf
maybe all these portable entertainment devices will be the doom of GDP growth.

Lower complaints means longer waits (less efficiency) and everyone's happy
because it lets them get that final star on level X.

------
michaelochurch
I think that the fight-or-flight instinct has a lot to do with this. When you
wait in line, you're in an architectural non-place so your guard is up, and
you have someone right behind you at your back.

One thing almost every office plan gets wrong (unless intimidation is part of
the design) is open-back visibility. It makes people stressed and unhappy and
less productive than they could otherwise be, but a lot of offices use this
style of plan because it's cheapest.

------
peacebeuntoyou
For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which
went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he
had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his
vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle
in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and
whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went
out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh
hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why
stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired
us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right,
that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith
unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from
the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh
hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed
that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a
penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the
house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them
equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he
answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou
agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give
unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will
with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be
first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

— Matthew 20:1–16, King James Version

~~~
jtheory
...I suppose that's an example of a business owner with unhappy employees
because he's technically "correct" but completely ignorant of human
psychology?

