Do minutes matter?

Do minutes matter? (Written in a distant past)

I am sitting at a hospital around 9 in the evening because of a stomach problem. It is a Saturday evening. Health care facilities are generally thinly staffed on Sundays, so better to find a solution before Sunday comes and so I am at one of the cities renowned hospitals to receive treatment. Been sitting here waiting for the laboratory technician for the last 30 minutes now. He/she is out for dinner, I was told. The receptionist and the emergency clinic nurse has already tried to make contact and have assured me that the person will be there "momentarily". How long is a reasonable time to wait in such instances? How long is too long? How much more is too much? How much is acceptable? What is the difference between getting the service that the institution has entailed for immediately versus receiving the service 30, 60, 90 minutes later? After all it is an emergency room. 

This is a large private hospital with at least 50 plus beds. I am not sure how many of the hospital beds are occupied at this time. But even if there is one person who requires a laboratory service, they won't get it as soon as needed. The emergency clinic is open, so anyone with any condition: elderly, children, infants, pregnant women with any sort of complications might walk in...at any time. But the service will not be made available instantly. Anyone who understands the science of medicine knows that, although we do not want to admit it, even the slightest delay or stall - increase or decrease of time may mean the difference between life and death. But we don't like to generally take responsibility for such things. So we don't connect our behaviours and actions to potential consequences.  

A few days ago a car broke down on the road with colleagues travelling out of town. They were stranded roughly 30 km from the city centre. Multiple alternatives existed for us to make the experience a lot less irritating/frustrating for the passengers. Unfortunately it took 4 hours to get the replacement vehicle arrive and the team arrived at their destination well into the night. The recommendation I gave as a solution would have reduced their wait time by at least two hours if not by three. But decision makers determined that wait time was OK. Do these minutes matter in the same way when you are the one sitting stranded & losing these minutes? When you are the one affected by them? 

Will the lab technician who clearly left their post unmanned be OK if it was his/her child that came in with fever induced convulsions? Or will that be even unthinkable to abandon post if it was any other laboratory technician? Will the fleet/vehicle operator still be OK when a decision is made that will keep them stranded on the side of the road for 4 hours? Or is it only bearable when it happens to others? 

Do these minutes matter to those that steal them blindly form others if these were taken out of their life? With consequences that are unbearable?

As a leader over the years I have seen undeserved minutes being taken away from employers. Unauthorised leaders giving away company owned minutes with no accountability whatsoever. What was given to us as leaders to manage and account for isn't something we choose to give away for free. Each minute has a value.

 It is worth something and that is precisely why it is paid for, accounted for, and recorded on a time sheet or payroll. How do we give away something that doesn't belong to us? How do we make sure that there is an objective oversight to the authority stewarded to any form of leadership?

A group of individuals that are used to covering up for each other when the entire hierarchy was expending time that was not earned and was unaccounted for feel any corrective measure/question is an invasion into their circle of influence and authority. It becomes easy to spend minutes you don't own when you get into the habit of it. It even feels like it is earned as we are creatures of habit. Our habits shape our behaviour and in turn our characters.

The habit of industriousness isn't inherent in many fellow citizens that I have encountered at the work place. A little result gives us so much joy. And we keep the bar for accomplishments too low that we break the cealing with little or no effort; tapping our backs proudly & frequently. In all honesty this might have given us the satisfaction to lead life in mediocrity. We are satisfied with little to none or keeping statusquo- especially when we are in a place of influence. We have created a generation of professionals that think and behave in the same way; affecting our collective ability to push the limits.

Do minutes matter to you?