JUST A MINUTE
1. How often we have heard a sentence” Just a minute”? I
have heard it so many times that now hearing it has become a habit with me and
it hardly registers itself. It is especially true when you have been waiting
long or when you are in a hurry. This just a minute is the smallest as well as
the longest minute depending upon the situation in which you are in but mostly
it just implies that the other person has absolutely no idea how much time he
is going to take. At the shortest end it is when you are waiting for the
traffic light to turn green and the person behind you starts blowing his horn
as soon as the traffic light turns green. At the other end of the spectrum it
is the longest one minute when after a long wait you finally have managed to
reach the service window and the person goes off by saying that ‘I will be back
in a minute” to start a long agonizing wait for him to come back god knows
when.
2. You come out of a shop and notice a car blocking your
exit and then starts an agonizing wait and search for the missing owner of the
car. After an eternity the person appears and without acknowledging you, enters
the car to drive away. When you recover from the shock to ask the person about
the reasons for blocking the exit his cool reply is always that “I was gone
only for a minute”.
3. You wait at the telephone booth to make an urgent call
and after an agonizing long wait you finally muster enough courage to tap on
the glass door to attract his attention only to find him leaning out of the
door to say ”Just a minute” and continues with his talk for another long period
. You then start wondering whether to tap again or go in search of another
phone booth.
4. You are in a meeting with a person on an important topic
to both of you and suddenly he picks up his phone to answer it and says it will
take a minute only. He may actually take a minute or more than that but that is
immaterial because his action has broken up the contact, the flow of discussion
and most important your chain of thoughts. He gets back and starts the
conversation with “so where were we”.
You wonder as to what you are doing there and if the talk is important
to you, you start your thought process and the dialogue all over again.
5. It is after such beautiful experiences with the minute
you start wondering that is your knowledge of a minute about being equal to 60
seconds is justifiable true or not. Does it needs modification to be equal to
the time taken by another person to finish his talk or work in a totally
unconcerned manner to his entire satisfaction without being held accountable
for the so called minute.
6. These are just a
few examples of the situation in which you might have heard the sentence and
many times you might have used it yourself without realizing it. But whatever
may be the situation or circumstances the end result is invariably the same, a
feeling of sheer helpless and frustration. Next time remember your feeling
when you use this with another person and have some pity on him.
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