I agree that Ovid is most probably right about this expectation pattern of "now, now, now". After all, just look at the just-in-time economy, customers don't want to wait and store owners can't have stuff in stock because it is too expensive.

On the other hand, I don't really see it as a problem in the context of Usenet or PerlMonks in the sense that I'll help whenever I have time. This is a luxury we have here, we can set the pace, there's no-one to tell us how fast an answer should be provided, if any.

Of course, it's nice to be able to help, even addictive, but I've been a bit too long in tech support to underestimate these effects. (If you talk about "now, now, now", talk about tech support, there it's "yesterday, yesterday, last week"). The most important lesson I learned in that job was how to say "no, I can't do that without consequences for other important matters".

Nowadays I regularly turn down projects or requests for help I'd like to get my hands in because I just can't guarantee myself that I'll be able to give it the attention it deserves without neglecting other matters.

Although tech support is very bad for ones health I'd strongly recommend a relatively short exposure to it, one's perspective on a number of issues tends to change ;-)

Just my little rant, not even worth the costumary 2 cents, -gjb-