Same. And it's not conditional memory like others have suggested. Other people literally waste 10 to 20 minutes of my time when I visit the post office and when I reach the counter it's done and done in less than 60 seconds.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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I swear, I had one couple asking the clerk where they should send the presents they were sending to a country on the other side of the world. The clerk was trying to tell them he had no idea where their family lived and couldn't help them. They tried half a dozen times to get him to give them an address, no fucking clue why.
I can't even.
They probably thought foreign countries are islands with 3 habitants each
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Conditional memory. You're pretty much hard wired to remember unusual things and forget unremarkable things, also things that have an emotional response are likelier to be remembered, such as being frustrated. Therefore, you remember the bad (and occasionally good) things better.
ETA: Pretty sure there's a proper psychological term for this, but I've forgotten it, could someone more knowledgeable chime in?
yes, but that doesn't explain why it takes people in front of me 5m to order a coffee and a pastry and it takes me 30seconds.
but i do know why, it's because they are weird and needy and need to interact and question and hem and haw rather than just know what they want and ask for it. same type of person who will then come back and complain to the person behind the counter how it wasn't good or they should get their money back or something equally stupid.
it's that i have respect for service workers, as I was one for years, and I want to make our interact quick and pleasant rather than miserable and drawn out.
I see what you're saying and I think that's called the Von Restorff effect, but I've deliberately focused on checking if this happens more often than not and it does. I haven't found an explanation yet, but you'd think it'd take about the same amount of time since the tasks are nearly identical in procedure (sending a package, using the ATM, using the hotel reception...). It's interesting.
Von Restorff effect
Hmm, a bit more specific than the observer bias but still not the exact thing. There's also the negativity bias but again...I feel like it's its own thing, hard to search for. Thanks though.
Me placing the box on the scale with the prepaid label facing the employee:
"I printed the label and sealed the box, it's all ready for you."
The other customer with an armful of loose items:
"How do I make these go different places?"
us: "The package contains no lithium batteries. Here's a list of the contents on the customs declaration and a receipt for the duties paid."
them: "I have to bring my own box?! Isn't it your job to give me one for free? Also, whaddayamean I can't send cigarettes to my nephew back in my home country?!"
A guy in front of me: what do you mean I can't send black pudding to my friend on the other side of the country? I promised him I would send it. It doesn't matter it's bank holiday weekend, who cares that blood based perishable product would be in transit for a week and stink to high heaven, I promised!
That went on for at least 20 minutes. I had queued for a few hours and lost my will to live
I actually know a way he could have shipped it, but he probably wouldn't want to pay that much.
Freeze the black pudding, flash freeze if you have access to a commercial flash freezer. I don't know what the shops would be called in the UK, but here in the US you'd go to an industrial supply company like Granger, grab a styrofoam cooler as the "box", grab some packing peanuts as filler, and purchase half a pound of dry ice. Seal that up and the food can be in transit for up to 1.5 weeks without worries.
This is going to make my blood shipping so much easier.
Everybody laughing at this comment needs to know that THIS DOES HAPPEN. Ex-employee had to return her laptop, so we send a UPS return label via e-mail. She shows up at the UPS store with the laptop in hand and is surprised when they tell her it needs to be in a box. We received the laptop inside the wildest combination of two boxes taped back-to-back and filled with garbage that didn't even form effective packing material.
Some people have literally never shipped anything in their life before, despite being 30 🤷
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At my work, you can always tell who works on the manufacturing floor and who has a desk job by how efficient they are in the cafeteria. The suits (desk people) take their time, stand in the middle of walk ways, have small talk when they should be moving on, etc. The operations folk get what they need and skedaddle because we are trained to be efficient or make things efficient.
Move Karen! I know you have a long day of sitting on your butt, so why dont you move so I can have lunch? /jk mostly
As a salaried desk employee, yes. I have no need to rush unless I have a meeting to get back to, sometimes I have no tasks remaining after lunch so I could easily take a second hour. For me it's not about being efficient at lunch, it's about clearing my mind so I can remain productive (if needed).
i feel this so hard. they are entirely unaware that they are occupying the thoroughfare and i cannot imagine how one can be so oblivious.
Isn't that just everybody? Well everybody except the 3 of us here?
the four of us. I have a desk job but 1/3 of my tasks require manual labor.
I don't look online in advance what there will be to eat in the cafetaria, but I know what I like and quickly decide on site, sometimes based on the shortest queue. Most of my fellow workers look at the menu in advance and then still need a lot of time at the cafetaria to actually decide for it. Maybe they enjoy the lunch break more? Idk.
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You are intrinsically more likely to get stuck behind people who spend a long time there than people who spend a short time there, even if the effective people outnumber the ineffective people by roughly under the same factor of how many times longer the ineffective people take
Yup. Survivor bias, just like when people say modern online dating sucks, one of the contributing factors is it's rotating the same shitty people through the pool, because the good ones have already matched or left in frustration and gone permanently.
or they are just stuck dating the same crappy people over and over and don't win the lottery, so to speak.
what strikes me about people i meet from online dating is they all have the same sob story on every first date. it's like they are reading off a script. and if you try to take them off-script they get angry with you. it's been years since i met someone who seemed like a genuine human being.
and what's wild is these folks are often radically different jobs, backgrounds, etc. but they have the same 'my life is sad and i need a boyfriend to make me not sad' routine, despite how objectively amazing their life is.
also people have changed. social skills have atrophied, extremist thinking and echo chamber has massively increased, and folks are way more antagonistic over differences of political, preference, and activity. I used to meet folks who where not the same as me and we got along or even dated, now folks basically want you to be a carbon copy of them and dismiss you over what TV shows you watch, because it seems they just want endless validation of own choices, rather than trying to learn or try something different. I guess I blame social media? but I'm comparing dating in 2010s to 2020s mostly. and there was a huge shift post pandemic, even outside of dating, in how people socialize.
that's not to say some of these folks are probably perfectly good partners for someone, but the specificity of their preferences is certainly not doing them any favors. I don't recall my dates in 2015 demanding I be interested in love island or taylor swift whatever was popular back then... now they almost certainly do and they add an insult on top of it.
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That and every register will eventually fill up with long running processes.
If people usually take 1 minute, but only a few take 10-15 minutes, you'll be far more likely to see the 15 minute customers than the 1 minute ones. And they'll eventually fill up all the available register space as all the 1 minute customers finish up and move on.
I work in a call center. If I get 5 minutes calls 5 times for every hour call, then the majority of my time on the phone is spent on hour long calls.
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See also: banking and self-checkout lines.
Fast food ordering, too.
Wait until you’re first in line to think of what you want, fumble for your payment method, fill out any deposit slip, etc.
And also regular checkout lines when it’s time for them to pay
I rarely feel more righteous anger than when someone has a full cart in the ONLY OPEN 12 ITEMS OR LESS LANE.
A friend of mine made a game of this. At the grocery store, she labels people with "Oh Shit I Have To Pay?" Syndrome.
Her and her daughter text each other every time they encounter a person who somehow arrives at a cashier completely unprepared, who somehow managed to stand in line for several minutes and didn't realize that they had to actually do something when they reached the front of the line.
I am in my 40's and I have lupis caused arthritis. I'm not taking my card out of my wallet until I'm ready to swipe it, because I can barely fucking hold it. Some people have ADHD and get distracted. You never know what a person is struggling with. Your friend and her daughter sound like absolutely lovely people /s.
Omg, I'm a bus driver and this is my number one pet peeve.
This just reminded me of a funny story about a North Korean refuge who had escaped to South Korea. She was trying to figure out how buses worked and would stare at people getting on the bus to figure out how they paid.
She said that she noticed everyone would just kind of bump there butt on a sensor when they got on. Not knowing that something like contactless payment existed, she assumed that it must have just been some weird cultural thing that she didn't fully understand.
So she worked up the courage to board a bus and just bumped her butt against the sensor. Obviously it didn't do anything and the bus driver must have thought she was crazy.
Edit: Found the video! https://youtube.com/shorts/L8DeAqXzOtk
Lol at least she had a plan!
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Preparation.
Nah, last time I sent something I had several questions for the person at the counter and I still finished in a quarter of the time of the other people. There has to be something more.
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because we live in a simulation. same reason why if i look out my window the intersection by my house is calm. if i walk my dogs, seven assholes will drive by too fast and without stopping.
certain threads just .. idle. 😂
Some people slow down when people are behind them. This holds true no matter the location or circumstance. For some its the thought of having some control in their life. Even if that control consists of being a dick length.
If you drive long distances these people are everywhere. 100km/h zone, one lane, dude drives 95. Passing lane opens, you start passing, dude suddenly matches your speed. People like this should have their licences taken away, no leniency.
I only slow down if you ride right up on my tail, especially if you have those awful headlights. Now this is going to take awhile for both of us.
They only took two minutes too but there’s a time dilation field that increases the closer you get to the front of the line.
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