The Rise Of Impatience: Vacant Jobs And Generation Me

Patience is a virtue… and it seems to be in shorter and shorter supply.

This isn’t anything new. Research has been done repeatedly and the results are the same: Technology has made our society more impatient. The pandemic hasn’t helped either. Generally, this is what we think of when we see people losing their shit at a restaurant or store when they don’t get what they want immediately.

However, when we think about the rising tensions and shorter fuses, we don’t often think about the current problem of entry-level retail and service jobs left vacant and how an impatient society may be a big reason why no one wants to work those jobs. This is not just about the impatient customers that can’t handle having to wait, but also the impatience of the people who are serving them.

Could impatience going both ways help explain why so many entry-level jobs remain unfilled?

While many Americans point to government stimulus packages, the stress of the pandemic, low wages and poor treatment by management as the reason why these jobs are not being filled, which is true, some suggest these may not be the only reasons.

In several studies there seems to be this subtle connection between two factors that keeps popping up. First, we have the findings that impatience has increased because we’ve become fully accustomed to this fast-moving world powered by technology and, second, the folks most susceptible to this impatience are the ones most likely to work these vacant entry-level, retail and service jobs.

Most of these jobs are staffed by younger folks. These are people who have never known a world without high-speed everything. What we end up with is overtly impatient, rude, sometimes violent, customers interacting with equally as impatient young employees working for low wages in a tough situation. It may be creating a perfect storm driving folks away from working these types of jobs.

In November 2021, a Pennsylvania gas station shut down when the last lone employee quit during his shift after a verbal beating by a customer. According to news reports, the employee locked up the gas station and left a note in the window.

“Closed because the people of Moon Township treat our employees horribly!!! And ran off the staff.”

In early October of 2021, a McDonald’s employee in Nashville, TN, was repeatedly hit with a fry scoop by a customer who felt they had waited too long for their order. How long the person waited is unclear, however, social media posts from folks who witnessed it expressed their shock at the level of violence over a minor inconvenience, describing the person’s behavior as “disgusting” and “entitled.”

And the cyclical nature of the problem may be making things even worse. Angry impatient customers lash out at impatient employees who quit because they quickly tire of the behavior, which under-staffs the business. Staff shortage makes the service even slower, resulting in impatient people getting even angrier, thus causing even more people quitting. Things get so bad that the jobs themselves are viewed by the folks most likely to take them as simply not worth it, partly due to their own lack of patience for tough situations.

No one has the patience to handle the folks who do not have any patience.

There is some real research behind this idea.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, which was conducted nearly ten years ago, found that folks under the age of 35 are at high risk for the negative effects of a hyperconnected existence. The study reads like a warning that would be found on the bottle of hardcore prescription narcotics: “Negative effects include a need for instant gratification and loss of patience.’’

This was ten years ago when folks in their 30s still remembered a world where three television stations, radio, a daily newspaper and landline phones were the only way to get information or a hold of anyone.

Imagine how much worse it is today with younger folks never even knowing a world where you had to wait for a 56k modem to make grinding noises for five minutes before you could access the Internet.

Zoomers and Millennials have grown up not having to wait for much of anything.

For the record, I know it’s not just young folks. More impatience these days is evident regardless of age, from anyone who grinds their teeth in frustration stuck on hold during a phone call to waiting for an app to load up on their phone. The study just finds that this is worse and more common among the younger generations who have been wired to the Internet since the day they were born.

In one study conducted by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the Internet viewing habit of 6.7 million folks were recorded to measure time willing to spend waiting for a specific outcome (be it a page or app to load or for a video to start). How long were people willing to wait? No more than two seconds on average.

According to the study, disconnection started after two seconds, it jumped to 25% after five seconds and over 50% within 10 seconds. This may provide a look into our future as speeds get faster and faster. The result is likely to be patience becoming thinner and thinner, not just online, but offline in the real world where life cannot possibly move as fast.

The need for instant gratification may be why people are bashing heads when their fries don’t arrive in 10 seconds.

It also may be the reason why workers subjected to these attitudes do not have the patience to deal with them or the skills that require patience to deescalate the situation and calm these irritated and entitled pricks down.