Programmed Impatience

Programmed impatience takes place at home, with people we live with but don’t like, and co-workers.

You can’t stand the new staff member who came with degrees from Harvard and Princeton, so you get irritated the minute he raises his hand in staff meetings.

Public places are a different matter. Weekends mean eating out, especially if the sun obliges. We go to popular places as in ‘see and be seen.’ Unfortunately, they come with frustration of finding a table. These are not restaurants, when the head waiter escorts you to a table once it’s available.

They are open areas like The Forks in Winnipeg. We are well-behaved while waiting for tables. We don’t exhibit the same impatience we demonstrate at home or at work.

There’s a good reason. We don’t know strangers at eating places. We don’t have any preconceived ideas about them, not like at home, where we stopped loving partners because they cannot, anymore.

We patiently wait for that table. We guess as we wait. We think that man might own a successful tech company because he has red-rimmed spectacles. Those teens whose faces are covered by hoodies might be hackers. That couple in matching jackets look like candidates for divorce.

People we live with feel programmed impatience. That’s why they wish they are those strangers who are not in a hurry to get up, and free tables.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.