MY secretary informed me that there are a lot of people waiting for me both in the waiting room and on the available seats in front of the secretary's office. I was surprised because I had imposed a system according to which everyone should set an appointment in advance in the interest of their time and mine, and so that those who come without an appointment do not aggrieve the ones who have committed and came upon a prescheduled appointment. I knew, later on, that the reason for the gathering of this number of waiting people was postponing many appointments to this day because I was busy before in attending emergency meetings outside the bank. This forced my secretary to postpone the appointments to a later date. In order not to be embarrassed before those whose appointments were postponed, she set today's schedule so that it will take in the previously postponed appointments and the new ones that were set for the same day. And to arrange that, she made the time between each appointment and the one that follows very short resulting in this large number of people waiting outside. To carefully handle the situation, I requested a list of the names of the people who were waiting, and I rearranged it so that I see first the largest possible number of those appointments that I hope will not take a long time. I actually succeeded in finishing four appointments in less than half an hour, then I turned to the other appointments, which I also finished in a suitable time. By doing that, my secretary and I were relieved and the anger of the people who were waiting, which resulted from waiting for a long time, was lessened. In fact, the culture of waiting and what it requires as to setting an appointment in advance, what it disapproves as to coming without a prescheduled appointment, what it requires as to not getting angry when not given an appointment within a short time, and also not feeling bored or weary of waiting in the waiting room till the current appointment is finished. In fact, I say, we do not understand yet the culture of waiting and its sequences. Many of us believe that it is our right to come without an appointment, while, at the same time, we disapprove that someone visits us without an appointment. My secretary had often found difficulty in convincing the people who requested a visit of the necessity of setting an appointment in advance. Many times I had to go out to the secretary office because of a heated argument, which repercussions I heard, between her and one of the people insisting on visitation without a prescheduled appointment. I used to see them in my secretary's office trying to know the reason for their visit and to end it in the shortest time possible, as a response to the persistence of the narrow minded and impatient person requesting the visit who is not used yet to time and its value, and what the culture of waiting imposes as to respecting appointments and their time. The culture of waiting has other sister cultures like the culture of standing in lines to get a particular service, and the culture of collecting a waiting ticket to book a turn to get a particular service from a machine designed for that purpose called QMATIC. By this machine, the person requesting the service gets a number that is written and called upon automatically. It also determines the window that will serve him/her right after finishing the service of the previous number. It seems that all cultures are connected to how civilised are the nations. The more you see organised, quiet, patient and contented lines the more you judge the nation as being wise and civilised. I remember standing for two whole hours in the rain seeking shelter under my umbrella and talking to those who stood beside me to book a ticket to the Louvre Museum in Paris. I also remember that one day. I stood in London for a long time with my family and my children, who were young, to book a ticket to the Wax Museum (Madame Tussauds). And when I also was waiting for my turn to go up La Tour Eiffel in the heart of Paris, the pleasure of seeing Paris from up the tower made me forget the sufferings of enduring the culture of waiting.
From a bank manager's diary (LXV) [email protected]. Mahdi is a veteran Egyptian banking expert.
