No Time Attitude

The habit of saying "I dont have time for this" has become an alternative to say "I am lazy".  For some maybe they don't understand or don't know how to do it, or, simply refuse to take action.  And, there's only one country in the world where we can frequently hear this phrase.  Yes, you guessed it right.  Laziness is the the mother of convenience.  Everything they want is instant, no hassles.  Maybe for government procedures or processes it would be understandable because of obvious red-tape that could take hours, days, weeks or even months.

In some other countries, when people say "I don't have time for this", it's really because it will not matter to them whatever the outcome.  But in the country where many say that, they say it because they don't want to take action and everything served to them on a silver platter.  

One person would not be there or calling if he or she doesn't have the time, right?  There should be reasonable time given for something he or she wants.  There are factors that could delay or maybe even speed up the process.  A good example is you go to a tire dealer to have a flat vulcanized.  You know that it will not take more than 30 minutes.  However, your lug nuts were rusted so tight that it could not be loosened the normal way.  It takes more than an hour to do everything.  You did not have that much time for it, but is there anything you could do?  Yes, blame the shop for the delay!  Tell them they should have expected this kind of problems.  Tell them they are inefficient and useless and wasted your time.  Not only that, ask for a supervisor or manager and lash out how incompetent the entire establishment is.

The truth is, it's the dealer who does not have the time for people like you.  It is you who wasted their time.  You will be paying them for the same money for the more time they put in your damn tires.  They could have serviced two or more cars if YOU ONLY HAD THE TIME TO CHECK ON YOUR CAR AND TIRES!  We all want things done as soon as possible.  Out of laziness again, A.S.A.P. which they construe as "Now" or "Immediately" with top company honchos!  The phrase "as possible" is forgotten.  If time is short, they say, "I don't care how you do it - just do it".  That's the bottomline of "I or we don't have the time for this".  It's just like saying I want to have a baby but I don't have the time to work on it and wait for 9 months.   Their instant solution - adopt a child!  For those who get a "bad seed", they now say "I didn't want this".  Then they start thinking, if only I had the time, or better yet, if I only gave it the time then I would have had what I wanted. 

If you keep on saying you don't have the time, do you really think that others will put on more time with you than what they also want? It should be a give and take situation. Nobody wants to waste their time on your claim they are wasting your time!

I once had a caller who asked for directions and a walk-thru at a web site. Her PC and ISP connection was slow and she was not going to the right web site in spite of my careful directions. After 20 minutes of insisting on what she wanted to do, she finally followed my instructions and we started the walk-thru, waiting patiently for her next pages to load. During that time she kept on saying, "waste not, want not". When we got to the part where she could start the procedure, she started questioning each process on why she had to do it. At that point, we were already 40 minutes on the phone when it usually takes me 20 minutes max, to complete a similar procedure. She said she had the right to question each process that we were going through. I told her that I was no longer able to provide her assistance if she would do that. She insisted to question and I concluded the call on the 45th minute. If she only listened and followed instead of saying 'waste not want not' while I was explaining, she would have gotten what she wanted in 20 minutes.

We must remember that when we are in need of something, we must have the time for it. We have been so used to those instant things forgetting that there are those that can not be made instant. There are policies, rules and guidelines that go along with processes or procedures. I believe this hurts the economy more than anything else. Almost everybody wants instantaneous solutions for convenience (a.k.a. also known as LAZINESS) in the guise of not having the time. If we have the time, things will be more rewarding and results will be more satisfying. I am glad that I gave the time to write this and I have put that time here. Many, even before reading half of this, would have already said, "I don't have the time to read this crap!"