A waiting room is where an institution lends its timetable to your body.

In a waiting room, your time stops being yours. You cannot leave, cannot plan, cannot do anything substantial, and the institution has effectively borrowed your afternoon without any accounting for it. The wait is treated as free because the cost falls entirely on the person waiting.

Where you have any control over other people’s waiting, tell them how long it will be. That single piece of information transforms the experience. And when you are the one waiting, it is worth remembering that your frustration is a reasonable response to an actual cost rather than impatience.