diff --git a/functions-common b/functions-common
index f442211a61..f8543c1f98 100644
--- a/functions-common
+++ b/functions-common
@@ -1256,8 +1256,13 @@ function screen_process {
 
     # sleep to allow bash to be ready to be send the command - we are
     # creating a new window in screen and then sends characters, so if
-    # bash isn't running by the time we send the command, nothing happens
-    sleep 3
+    # bash isn't running by the time we send the command, nothing
+    # happens.  This sleep was added originally to handle gate runs
+    # where we needed this to be at least 3 seconds to pass
+    # consistently on slow clouds. Now this is configurable so that we
+    # can determine a reasonable value for the local case which should
+    # be much smaller.
+    sleep ${SCREEN_SLEEP:-3}
 
     NL=`echo -ne '\015'`
     # This fun command does the following: