Kiwis can't wait!!

Its a well known beleif that the Kiwis are a relaxed, laid back lt. Happy to enjoy life at a slower pace where everything is 'sweet as', 'choice' and 'awesome'. But make a Kiwi wait and he shows himself in a new light!

There's always someone in the paper each week complaining that the traffic into town over the bridge was so busy that they had to sit and wait 10 minutes. They want to try getting through Newcastle in rush hour!

Mount Maunganui is very busy this time of year yet customers don't expect to wait any longer in shops and cafes than at any other time of year. Just the other night in our shop, someone called David ordered some pizzas by telephone, we told him the wait was 30 minutes as we were so busy. He said that was OK then he turned up 15 minutes later and started shouting at me because he had been kept waiting an hour and his pizzas weren't ready! Duh!!
Unfortunately he is not an isolated case.

Why is this, I wonder?

I think it is down to a population thing again. Being such a small population, most towns are over subscribed with services so there is no reason to queue or wait so when there is a bit of a delay they can't handle it. British people are programmed to queue and wait. If I went into town in the UK I would expect to join a queue in the post office and wait for 15 minutes or I would think myself lucky to find a checkout in Salisbury's with only 6 people in front of me. So coming to New Zealand and walking straight up to counters or to empty check outs is great. Even at the Boxing Day sales Georgia and I had whole changing rooms to ourselves!

Now having said all that I have come to realise that I too have become afflicted with this 'kiwis can't wait' phenomena. I found myself the other day hopping from foot to foot because there were 3 people if front of me in the bank and I changed my mind about getting some shoes because the queue at the counter had 4 people in it!!

Anyway, a Scottish guy was in the shop the other day and he asked the usual questions of how long we have been here, do we like it etc but he also said that if we ever went back to the UK we would be surprised a how KIWIFIED we will have become without even knowing it. Do you know, I think he may be right!