People have very different reactions while waiting for computer systems (any process for that matter) to complete or change. Take for example launching a program on your home computer: you click a button and the "wait cursor" comes out. What do you do? Get angry? Wait patiently? Hope for the best? Some people tap their foot and get anxious, others watch and wait and think about what might be happening and how things might be working. We have a chance to be introspective about systems other than ourselves.
We can witness the same behavior on the road every day in our driving: some drivers are patient and don't give too much thought about what the drivers around them are doing while others are very critical of the other "stupid" drivers. I'd say that the way we think about other systems and what they are doing is a very clear reflection of how we think about ourselves: Are we patient? Are we forgiving? Are we intelligent? Are others intelligent? …All of these things cross our mind in computing and in other life-systems as well.
In this way, I recommend that we be more patient and seek to UNDERSTAND what the other systems around us are doing and why…and in that process we will learn much more about ourselves, our intuitions, and how we are actually impacting the systems around us. Thinking at this level will help us change things for the better.
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