A little patience please

I am determined not to moan about my situation, and it is going well but there is something that gets my goat, and I think I am not alone in this. Whether you are able or not, how many of us have tried to rush to the knock at the front door only to get there and find there is no sign of the caller just a card telling you to collect your parcel from any time after either 6,12, or in my case today 24 hours later!

As you have probably worked out from my blog I am very much a tortoise not a hare at the moment, and this morning this happened. Despite me yelling at the post man to hold on I was on my way. So now I am left with the mission of getting some one to drive me to the local depot which has NO parking anywhere near, hopping the 1/4 mile walk to go and collect my parcel. The card says some one else can sign for it if they fill in the bit on the card (there is no bit on the card for them to fill in). Before any one says anything, yes I did phone them to be told nothing anyone can do as the depot wasn't answering the phone.

So I commandeered my mother come chauffeur to drive me to the depot, as suspected no where local to park so a major hop to the depot from car. By the way if you are a driver and you are faced with a person crossing the road on crutches don't yell hurry up at us, it does nothing to speed us up, but can cause us to fall over. I eventually got there only to be told they have no idea where it is, and I either have to come back probably Friday or request a re delivery for Friday. Now I paid for special delivery for something to arrive by 1pm today, not for it to do a tour of the borough and apparently I now found out sit in vans outside postman's houses overnight. Privatisation has done nothing for this countries postal service. Anyway after tears of frustration, they caved in and will deliver it between 1-3 tomorrow. But this whole days upset could have been stopped if the post man had waited 2 or 3 minutes for me to get to the door.

As I pointed out to everyone, I am young enough and lucky enough to have people to help me go through all this scenario, but if you are an older person or even frailer, how are you meant to sprint to the door to prevent this stupidity. That said I have seen and been subject to the same impatience via the bus service, the tube network even in shopping queues. The lack of patience and need for speed in this day and age is ridiculous. I am not saying you have to be frail or ill to be a victim of this either, it happens to the most able of us, and we are all quick to whine when it happens to us, but are we as patience the other way round. I know I have pulled husband into check this week when he moaned about someone walking slowly in front of us. I nearly fell about laughing to be honest as I am not race horse at the moment and we could never have done an overtake with me anyway. But he was frustrated because that option was removed from consideration. Whats with this need for speed, sure its fun on a track or similar but in day to day life, I tend to take it as it comes, jobs that don't get done one day can be done the next, the world won't cease to spin on is axis if the washing doesn't all get done.

I always remember being told patience is a virtue, to which I use to be reply and virtue is a saint which I am not, but as an adult it is maybe not a virtue by a well overlooked quality. I so wish it was a skill taught at schools and in driving lessons, because they are the worse culprits in my opinion. If there was more patience on the roads there would be less accidents, and the same with school children and crossing roads, if they slowed down a bit, they would be a lot safer. Patience can be used as a skill in most walks of life, and could lead to a lot less stress, even in the work place. I know that, having spent the last 10 years in contact centres. To be honest I used to ignore the constant demand of time constraints on call to actually listen to the caller, and guess what I never failed a target and spent a large proportion of my time being in the top 5 sellers, as by being patience I got to hear more and adjust accordingly. In fact I became know in one job as the biggest success on problem sales purely from that. Whats more I learnt that from some one who was the biggest seller in the company, and had the patience with me as a newbie to teach me the best techniques. So what goes around comes around, and that's my thought for the day. Next time you are getting impatient with some one in  your day, stop a minute and think, how would you like to be treated if you were them, and what would help them. All I am really saying is a little patience please.