Why do people think there is prestige in making other people wait? It must rank as the worst manners to give an appointment and then make the person who has come to meet you cool his heels in some dreary anteroom while you flip through some magazine or doodle or simply chat with a friend while giving out the impression that you are very busy.
The amount of time that is squandered in making people hang around because it makes the ego feel good is prodigious. And yet, it has become a corporate symbol to keep people on hold and far too many of us who are usually reasonable people become mini despots when we sit behind our desks.
Like commanders of tanks, we feel protected enough to become insufferable. The need to project ourselves as important people in this fashion is mystifying in that truly important people would respect the value of time, be it theirs or someone else’s.
It is the pretenders who are the worst offenders and the equation they establish between power, its misuse and impact on the visitor would be only ridiculous if it was not for the high aggravation factor that comes with it. That makes it criminal.
One such manager told me that the cooling period he insists on puts the relationship into perspective. By waiting, the visitor is made to acknowledge his subordinate position in the scheme of things and he is, thereby, chastened and loses his edge in the argument that may ensue.
What a load of rubbish.
Never let them in fresh and immediately, they will lose respect for you and assume the leading edge in the discussion. It comes off less as a strategy and more as a confession of profound insecurity and the fact is that most people who behave high-handedly do it because they are meanspirited and need to compensate for their limited intelligence. Being bullies is what they are. It is such a petty bureaucratic approach to things.
Some people hide inside their rooms and ask other staff to do their dirty work. Sorry, he is in a meeting, it will be at least one hour, he is very busy, you’ll have to wait. So you wait. And he is probably playing Candy Crush.
Often, this can be a three to four hour freeze out and there is that sixth sense that tells you the guy inside is doing nothing important, simply enjoying the fact that he can keep other members of the human race on a short string that he controls.
Just for a moment consider the fallout if you subscribe to the delay syndrome as a tactic. Do you really think that people respect you more or are in greater awe because they have been marking time? It may have been par for the principal’s study in school, where you had to sweat it out but surely we have grown out of this nonsense by now.
You ask me, fifteen minutes is tops…then I am out of there.
