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Why Waiting Is Torture

nytimes.com

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#11
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.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#12
> 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.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#13
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.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#15
God says... flying 1 vigorous aim limbs absolute pluck initiated forget syllables embryo-life conceiving matrons Wheresoever notwithstanding children confuted eateth solstices sports deem whit Knows self-chosen doubled triumph upon intimate prosper heavy costs seize knottiness adding ran Saudi_Arabia lectured Nod approved heart's kick_back Highest FOR faithfully laxly against understandeth grave's befell oppression 501 myself enumeration dream future community announced supereminent Basilica fanned tells brighter Himself country sated vision hail doubtless holy-day unbeseemingly overclouded eight-and-twentieth beware Catiline declare had thats_laughable thickeneth length bewitched Begotten challenges unsung_hero infinitude obedient straighten_up clear I_love_you shines moderate Bible send conveying

----

God says...

C:\Text\DARWIN.TXT

palpi, or feelers.

MELANISM.--The opposite of albinism; an undue development of colouring material in the skin and its appendages.

METAMORPHIC ROCKS.--Sedimentary rocks which have undergone alteration, generally by the action of heat, subsequently to their deposition and consolidation.

MOLLUSCA.--One of the great divisions of the animal kingdom, including those animals which have a soft body, usually furnished with a shell, and in which the nervous ganglia, or centres, present no definite ge

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#16
post #3

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.

Absence of observed order and provable fairness due to sequential order will inevitably lead to many people suspecting injustice and developing all kinds of theories, from flawed randomness generators (in last 10 numbers only 4 were even, the system is clearly broken!) to conspiracy theories (they hate me so they gave me a special number that gets called an hour later!)

Best medicine for that is a linear observable order, which is easily controlled and obviously hard to subvert - if you see you're number 42 you know you're going after 41 and everybody knows that, and if somebody doubts it you can just show your number and prove it's fair.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#17

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 wors…

Second that. As long as I've got my trusty electronic device with me, any wait below 2 hours is nothing to me. With the charger and internet connection, make that 2 days ;)

Of course, if you don't have such an electronic device, some people say a thing where entertaining or illuminating texts are permanently fixed to a pieces of processed plants, also known as "book", often helps. I've used that remedy many times too, and can vouch for its effectiveness.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#18
post #3

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.

I've been to restaurants where you get a random word instead of a number, and it solves that problem nicely.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#19
post #17

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 wors…

Second that. As long as I've got my trusty electronic device with me, any wait below 2 hours is nothing to me. With the charger and internet connection, make that 2 days ;) Of course, if you don't have such an electronic device, some people say a thing where entertaining or illuminating texts are permanently fixed to a pieces of processed plants, also known as "book", often helps. I've used that remedy many times too…

I remember when the swine flu was a big deal, and there was a huge line for public vaccinations in my town. I was waiting in that line for at least an hour, but it didn't feel that way, because I wasn't waiting in a line. I was reading a paperback book that I had brought with me, in a line. It was only a peculiarity of circumstance that there were long lines of people on either side of me during this whole process, and that my reading session concluded with a needle in my arm.

Surprisingly pleasant! I just wish that books tended to be more trivially portable, so I could carry them with me all the time. Cell phones with books on them are nice, but the tiny, backlit screen is less than ideal.

Re: Why Waiting Is Torture

#20

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 wors…

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.

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