Wait Loss

Some things in my life are predictable. On a flight, the passenger next to me will always be a wailing kid. When I am waiting in line for anything, the line slows down. It is like watching me in a movie playing in slow-motion. I have also discovered through years of research that if there are two lines to choose from, I inevitably pick the line that will move slower. I have even tried changing lines when I notice the other line moving faster. That does not help.  Whichever line I stand in seems to come to a screeching crawl. People hate waiting. It is not about how long they are waiting for. And it is not as if they are about to complete something very important. They just crib about waiting.Ever watched the people when they have to wait for elevators in hotels? It is not like they need to wait for a long time. I have often tried to time the elevators. The time varies from a few seconds to a minute or two in most cases. People will crib, complain and dig their shoes into carpets like race horses rearing to go. Before you say it, let me jump in and add, when I did this study, I had your regular hotels in mind. Don't tell me about how long you had to wait to get into the elevator at the Empire State Building. That one does not count.What is it about waiting that drives them crazy? It is the period of inactivity. This is a classic proof of the aphorism - an empty mind is the devil's workshop. It seems that the devil's workshop can become fully functional within a few seconds. The trick lies in figuring out how to keep the folks occupied – not in making the elevators go any faster. Hotels stick mirrors near the elevators and even fix mirrors inside the lifts just to keep the passengers busy. It is amazing what the presence of a mirror can do to people. People immediately become busy trying to admire themselves. They will re-comb their hair, open and shut buttons and remove imaginary creases from their jacket. They will then shift their focus to co-passengers. Some will start envying the other person's sartorial sense while others will start ridiculing it. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the lift appears and the fellow passengers move from being competitors to fellow travelers.I dread flying. It is not fear of heights but the fear of waiting that I dread. Just when I am getting ready to board the flight they will announce that the flight is delayed "due to technical reasons". What kind of technology causes delays? Isn't the technical stuff supposed to speed up things? And what I really hate is when the airline does this in a sneaky way. They’ll first announce that the flight will be delayed by half an hour. I do a mental recalibration, drink some more coffee, window shop some more and come back only to realize that this entire effort of mine has taken only three minutes. So I repeat the same cycle a few more time. This time I am luckier. There are only five more minutes to go before the flight leaves. And then... just then, they will announce that the flight has been FURTHER delayed by an hour. That’s what kills me.The airlines could make the waiting more pleasurable by giving us one of those contraptions where we could watch movies as we wait. They could even make a virtue out of the flight delay. Imagine the joy they can cause.Airlines: “In order to let you watch the latest Bollywood film, we are delaying your flight by three hours.”Passengers: “Can we please delay the flight by another hour? The hero still has not proposed to the leading lady.”My suggestion to the airlines: Stop showing us in-flight movies. Why do they show us movies when we are already inside the craft and the plane is in the air? Where do they think the passenger will be able to escape to? Maybe they could actually make us happy by announcing a three hour delay, show us a shorter film instead and actually let us squeal in delight at the flight reaching “ahead of schedule”.Keep the people busy and tell them that the flight is running ahead of “schedule” everyday.------------------First published on my blog with Times of India <click here>