The promise was broken the moment it was made.
It happened in a busy store where one person was on duty at the cash register, helping a customer while two other people waited to pick up their order.
“I’ll be right with you,” said the counter clerk to a customer who had just walked through the door.
The sales clerk worked as fast as he could, putting a previous customer’s purchases into a bag. He was fast, but there was no way he could be with the new customer “in just one second.” I started counting the seconds. I got to 23 before the sales clerk could help his last customer.
I doubt anyone else in the store noticed the expression. “Just a second” has become commonplace and is considered nothing more than a figure of speech.
Sometimes it is said as “two seconds” or “half a second” instead of “one second,” but the meaning is similar.
Waiting 23 seconds at a counter is hardly an inconvenience. A red light at an intersection lasts longer. The same goes for heating up a plate of food in the microwave. A typical commercial break during a TV show lasts a few minutes.
But that’s not what it is about.
While the phrase “just a second” refers to a short period of time, a second is also a precise measurement of time. The International System of Units has a calculation for a second.
There are 24 hours in a day. That’s all. It’s a finite amount of time. If you take away the time for important things like eating and sleeping, there are fewer hours left in the day to get things done.
The same 24 hours can be counted as 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds.
No matter how you divide a day, the result is the same.
There is no way to fulfill the promise of help in a single second. Even the words “just a second” will take several seconds – unless someone is speaking extremely quickly.
As for the task itself, I can’t think of anything that could be done in a single second.
At the same time, the phrase “Just a moment” takes into account the busy schedule that is part of everyday life for many people.
Time is limited, and for some with busy schedules, any measure that can save time and increase efficiency is beneficial. That’s why well-run customer service hotlines tell the caller how many minutes he or she is likely to have to wait.
This is also the reason for the development of the elevator pitch. It is a presentation that can be given in the time it takes an elevator to get from the first to the second floor of a building.
Or, even more succinctly, the escalator pitch. Here, the time frame is shortened to the time it takes someone on the escalator going down to present the concept to someone on the escalator going up. Instead of half a minute – already a short time frame – the concept must be presented in a single sentence.
These and other measures take into account the value of a person’s time – without making impossible promises of immediate action.
John Arendt is editor of the Summerland Review.
