But hours lost on a freeway are hours lost forever, and that realization is tough to stomach if you re focusing as hard as you can on realizing a specific future. It s not just on freeways, either, that time rage and time confusion and time angst boil over. After that, they move from real time to fantasy time, and the perceived waiting time begins to grow exponentially, however long the clock says they have been in line. Airlines get people who are standing in line to return to reality by sending attendants out to ask what flight people are waiting for. But, even then, after about 10 minutes the pressure of lost time sets in and perceptions of waiting time mushroom out of control.
Workers live in the pressure tense.
They often are assigned more work than they can reasonably handle in a given period, so, caught in the present while preoccupied with a seemingly untenable future, they engage in a sort of fantasy time. The perception of the time requirement will grow exponentially in a worker s mind and convert inevitably into frustration. As a manager, you can distract workers briefly by walking the line and engaging employees in diversionary conversation, but even that won t end the problem. The meeting better be worth that. But, in the pressure tense, time is more than money.