What does the phrase “Thank you for your patience” mean?

When you go to a restaurant or at any place where you have to wait for some time to get in, the staff there would either say, “Sorry to keep you waiting” or “Thank you for your patience.” This must have happened with you as well many times. But now people mostly say, Thank you for your patience as it is more effective and suits more in such a situation.

When you use this phrase, it means that you are showing gratitude for the patience that someone has shown. Also, by saying this, you are stating respect for their time and wait.

This phrase is used a lot of time sin the telecom industry or customer services. By saying this, you are telling them that letting them wait was not the best thing to do, and you are thankful that they are not complaining about it.

This phrase is used to acknowledge a person’s time when he/she wait for an extended period, mostly longer than they would have thought.

Patience means the capacity to tolerate or accept problems, delays or suffering without being anxious or angry. This word is from Old French, Latin and Middle English. Patience word comes from the Latin word “pati” which means to suffer. But the phrase Thank you for your patience has no particular origin, just the terms have.

Waiting for a long time is no less than suffering; therefore, it is better to show gratitude rather than apologizing in such a case.  As when you show respect for their time, they would feel better as they would take it as a compliment.

People do not use sorry in such a situation because by apologizing, you show that it’s your fault. Hence, people start thinking that it must be his fault; perhaps as per people’s psychology, it is better to show gratitude than saying sorry.

The phrase seems really simple, but it isn’t. It is written in present continuous tense as we use present tense for the things that we do regularly. For example, I drink juice at breakfast. This statement shows that you are not doing this action now, but this is something that you usually do. So, when you are thanking someone, you would not do it regularly but just for that specific situation.