Bedtime stories can be an exercise in patience. My boys are like most other children. They love repitition and familiar patterns. They can listen to the same books or watch the same movies multiple times and find them endlessly fascinating. At times, it is difficult to approach the hundredth reading of the same book with the same passion and enthusiasm as the first.
I imagine it must be that way in many service industries. At our recent visit to theme parks, you see the attendants having to go through the same safety routines for the rides over and over again. It must be challenging to hide the hint of boredom that inevitably sets in.
There are times at work when we have done a task so many times that we almost seem to know how a situation will turn out well ahead of its actual conclusion. It must be tempting to wish we could press a magic "fast forward" button to get through the preliminaries. I suppose that is the curse of an age where we expect all of our experiences can be like a digital video recorder (where we can simply bypass the "boring" parts).
Once in a while, I smile when I see that experience paying off. Yesterday, I was in a meeting where we were discussing training and adult learning. One of the persons in our group was highly experienced--having run the training department for many years. As we struggled through a live demonstration, he observed the moderators walking around the room helping people troubleshoot their issues on their computers. As the flash of recognition hit him, he smiled and shared with the team the vital importance of having those floating personnel available for that very purpose during technical demonstrations!
Sometimes it pays to have read the book before seeing the movie!
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