Waiting for the Physician (or Someone Like Him)

The title character in Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddartha lists among his credentials, “I can wait.” (His other talents are thinking and fasting, which always makes me think of the irony of calling certain restaurant chains “fast food.” Wouldn’t fast food be nothing?)

Despite his rather thin resumé, Siddartha makes a good point. Waiting is indeed a lost art in this age of right turns (or anything else) on red lights, texting or emailing anyplace in the world in seconds, and nearly instant answers to any question that can be accompanied by clickable ads. Waiting is simply not something we do much of, and we don’t know how to do it properly.

Fortunately, there’s a treatment program at a certain prominent hospital in Boston that shall remain nameless. (Oh, all right … it’s Massachusetts General.) The program is called Having an Appointment. The way it works is simple. Just show up on time for your appointment. Within hours, you will be on your way to mastering the art of waiting.

Not to be outdone, nearby Lahey Hospital recently added a parking garage that allows only a single lane of traffic going in or out. If one person actually pulls into or out of a spot, the whole garage comes to a standstill.

Not to boast, but I have worked my way up to a very advanced stage. Today I was at the hospital for 6 hours, at least 4 of which were spent in waiting rooms and empty offices. You don’t have to be a mathematician to know that’s more than 50% and less than 100%. But any one of you could attain this advanced level.

Just wait.

Waiting

In Hermann Hesse's Siddartha (1922), the protagonist lists one of his skills as "waiting." This is clearly a lost art in our society. People run red lights, cut in line, and grow furious if their multi-gigabyte downloads take more than a couple of seconds. We insist on reading email and texting while having breakfast ... while driving. We use DVRs to skip commercials, and single cup coffee makers to get near instant caffeine doses. We upgrade our electronics every year or more.

My employer may have found a way to counter this tendency. They may have found the way to teach patience.

This is a privately held company that places a premium on employee satisfaction. They go to great lengths to provide every benefit and accommodation employees might require. Among these, they offer a continuous supply of a wide variety of beverages. I work in one of three buildings on the main campus, and on each floor of this building, there are roughly 200 employees. For each floor, the beverage choices include skim, low-fat and regular milk, decaf and regular coffee, four flavors of iced tea, three kinds of seltzer, apple, cranberry and orange juice, lemonade, six varieties of soda and technologically purified water. In all, 23 different beverages for the 200 employees on each floor.

And four bathrooms.