Waiting time is a cost of service extracted almost entirely from clients
Evidence
Just as available time is a resource for people in politics, it is also a unit of value that may be extracted from clients as a cost of service. Clients are typically required to wait for services; it is a sign of their dependence and relative powerlessness that the costs of matching servers with the served are borne almost entirely by clients. It is to maximize the efficiency of workers’ time that queues are generally established. A primary reason that clinicbased practice is more efficient than home-based practice is simply that it is patients and not physicians who spend time traveling and waiting. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 657
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Waiting costs fall on clients, not workers, to protect worker efficiency; Even universalistic first-come, first-served service imposes real costs on clients. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 692; Scheduling systems that routinize agency convenience shift service costs onto the least organized clients. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 697 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Waiting costs fall on clients, not workers, to protect worker efficiency
#expands(0.95) - Scheduling systems that routinize agency convenience shift service costs onto the least organized clients.
#expands(0.90) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 697 - Even universalistic first-come, first-served service imposes real costs on clients.
#expands(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 692 - First-come, first-served queues ration service toward those whose time is cheap.
#exemplifies(0.85) - Agencies design waiting policy as if poor clients’ time costs were nonexistent.
#expands(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 696 - Waiting-line rationing advantages people whose time is cheap and obligations few.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 695