Time warped

Michael and I were on our way to London, Ontario from Montreal.  For those of you who’ve made that trip you know that once you’re on the 401 you just want it to be over.  It’s like you’re in a long and endless slip stream of traffic going 120 km/hour.  We stop in Kingston for lunch.  And as always at our favourite spot the food doesn’t come fast enough.  10 minutes – “Don’t they know we’re on the road?”  15-minutes – “Will it never come?”  20-minutes.  “Oh yeah now I remember they make the burgers from scratch.”  It’s what we love about the place.  Delicious.

And today, I went to Birk’s Jewelers to see about having a sterling spoon repaired – you can’t drip bleach on silver.  Who knew?  The poor woman behind the counter was apologizing before we even started.  “It will take a really long time just to see if the silversmith can do anything.” I know a long time.  I once took a gift my mother-in-law had given me – a small leather agenda cover – back to Hermés for repair.  It took nearly a year and came back like new.  “That’s OK,” I said, “How long?” “Three weeks.” she said.  “But even then if they can do something it will take another 4 to 6 weeks.”

Four to six weeks to have a master craftsman repair something with value beyond silver.  Why’s she apologizing.  Why aren’t we celebrating the mastery.

These stories I think say a lot about our relationship to time.  We’re running.  Heck we’re sprinting – at home and at work.  We’re piling more and more into our days.  And we’re forget that mastery takes time and it’s worth the wait.

More on this later.

Tags: Behaviour change, Creating, Cultural norms, Innovation, Mastery, Work