One of my favourite sayings is “Patience is a virtue… it just doesn’t happen to be one of MY virtues”.  Which isn’t ENTIRELY true. There are a great many things that I am patient about. Arguably, I am way too patient with people I care about who do not always show me the grace and compassion that I show them.  I learned a long time ago that expecting people to treat me the way that I treat them isn’t terribly realistic. Intellectually I know that setting oneself on fire to keep other people warm isn’t a good thing and honestly, isn’t even a particularly admirable thing, but that doesn’t stop me from doing so on the regular.

I am impatient with things like applications of any sort. Waiting days, sometimes weeks, to learn whether you’ve been approved or rejected has to be one my absolute biggest areas of impatience. Waiting in line? Not a fan.  Waiting for approval to move a project forward? Maddening.

When I lived in The Frozen Tundra it was typical for it to take up to 9 weeks for an apartment application to be approved.  This is problematic when you need to give 60 days notice but might have to wait longer than that for the approval to come through. What happens if you give notice where you live and then find out at the last minute that the place you had applied decided that they aren’t going to accept you?  You then have to begin the entire approval process over again which is potentially another 6+ weeks. Meanwhile, the place you have given notice to has likely filled your spot, so where do you go?

So, if I think about it, I am actually impatient primarily in situations where inefficiency is a key factor. I want people to have processes in place that actually work and work quickly.  Having worked in a couple of different jobs where pulling background checks and credit reports was part of the job, those things typically take 3 business days at most. There is no good reason to make someone wait 6 weeks for your decision.

And don’t et me started on applying for jobs and having it become a three month, five interview process. It’s ridiculous and shows that you have an inefficient process.

What makes you impatient?