Americans Workers Lost $38 Billion In Their Wages Waiting For The Cable Guy Last Year

Waiting for people like the cable guy, the internet guy, or the air conditioner guy is just a few of life’s little tedious necessities, like doing laundry or visiting the in-laws. But it is vastly more expensive. According to a new poll, American workers lost a combined total of $37.7 billion waiting around for in-house appointments in 2011.

CNN Money reports about an IBOPE Zogby survey of over 1,000 adults that found that 58 percent of Americans had waited for a delivery many or technician to pay a visit to their home in the last year, for an average of 4 1/2 hours on three separate occasions.

The poll was taken on behalf of TOA Technologies, which is a software company that says it can accurately predict when an in-field employee will arrive at your home.

According to the poll, more than a quarter of Americans lost wages while waiting for the doorbell to ring. Half of them said that they used a sick day or vacation time. Yuval Brisker, who is the CEO of TOA Technologies, said that the average customer lost $250, which is the equivalent of every American losing two days of work.

According to the poll, the No. 1 culprit was the cable guy. TOA Technologies has partnered with cable companied in the U.S., as well as the biggest cable companies in Spain and France, to provide real-time alerts to expectant consumers. ”Consumers waiting at home without knowing–it’s universal, it’s everywhere,” Brisker told Forbes.

Frustration over service wait times has reached a fever pitch in the past few years. Online forums brim with a bunch of customer complaints: ”DirectTV is the worst company ever.” ”SCAMCAST should be there name.”

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office even filed suit against Time Warner Cable in June of 2008 for ”unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business acts and practices and deceptive advertising.” Its alleged crimes were excessively delayed repair appointments (forcing subscribers to spend hours on hold), internet outages and deceptive pricing.

Last year, Americans voted Comcast Corp. the worst company in America.

Perhaps the introduction of so many 24-hour delivery services like GrubHub, Seamless (formerly known as SeamlessWeb), and dot-com flame outs UrbanFetch and Kozmo, have made the cable company’s request that you stay home between noon and 4 p.m. on Tuesday, seem annoying archaic.

According to a 2006 study, while Americans actually have more leisure time these days than they did in 1965. That same year, a Pew Research Center survey found that nearly a quarter of Americans always feel rushed. Our perception of time has changed, and out cell phone and e-mail may be the one to blame.

”Technology has been a rapid heartbeat, compressing housework, travel, entertainment…squeezing more and more into the allotted span,” the historian Theodore Zelding wrote back in 1994. And although technology promises to save us time, it is possible that it has forced up to live by its frantic rhythm, which makes those long hours waiting for your couch delivery all the more excruciating.