Patience Metre — customer wait tolerance and shift pressure

The Patience Metre is a hidden or semi-visible customer timer that controls how they behave when ignored or served slowly. It runs parallel to the regular quota system: even hitting sales targets, slow service causes customers to leave or escalate, hurting your shift rating and quota.

Arrived with security cameras and the Chainsaw in the September 1 patch.

• Each customer has an independent patience window. Serving too slowly or spending too long on checks drains it.
• Low patience shows as visible agitation — pacing, looking around, sighing. At zero, customers may leave or vent to other customers about slow service.
• Patience resets between customers but stacks pressure during busy periods.

• Queue length — the longer the line, the faster all waiting customers burn patience.
• Slow ID checks — spending too long on doppelganger checks while other customers wait drains patience fast.
• Hunt phases — patience pauses or slows during a Hunt, then builds rapidly during recovery.
• Staffing — solo play makes patience harder to manage; co-op lets one person keep the queue flowing while the other handles checks.

Spending excessive time on thorough screening with slow customers burns patience quickly. Use the five-question rule to stay efficient: complete ID checks and NET queries quickly, save the Emotion Detector for genuinely suspicious cases. Spending five minutes on one customer causing others to leave is worse than letting one doppelganger slip through.

Security cameras let you spot agitation signs before customers reach the counter. Use cameras for broad awareness and the Patience Metre for timing — watch the feed, then decide when to push a customer through versus when to dig deeper.

The July 29 patch removed the patience timer from Endless Mode and post-story play. The September 1 Patience Metre applies to regular Story Mode hours. Endless marathon runs are now purely about quota and monster pressure — no customer patience timer.