QUEUING... IT’S one of those things you have to do in life. You cannot avoid it and you cannot circumvent it. At some point nearly every single day you are going to have to be prepared to queue. It’s often a frustrating thing but one you have to be prepared to deal with calmly...or risk madness.
There are two main queuing positions: the sitting down queue and the standing up one. Here’s an example of both: there is the steering-wheel-drumming type of queue, during your rush-hour drive in or out of work or on the road to the next rest point; and then there’s the pre-adrenalin rush type of queue, as you stand in line for the Alton Towers’ Nemesis ride. Those examples also highlight that queuing can come in a variety of different guises too, such as: boring, frustrating, entertaining, maddening and even pleasing. From the anxiety-inducing, waiting-for-a-dental-check-up queue, to the pleasurable waiting-for-a-cold-beer queue. I prefer the latter...
Now, how about the post office queue? ‘When I yer a lad’, my mum would send me off to the ‘big’ post office for something or other. Picture it, a little lad in a big post office with six possible serving windows to go to. Six queues to choose; which one to queue? Inevitably, I’d pick the wrong one. If I saw the queue with just one little old lady in line, I’d deduce that this was bound to be the quickest queue. Wrong! Out would come her life savings in a hundred little cash bags and I’d be there for hours. I quickly learned that swopping lines was no good either because the minute I’d jump from one queue to another the sod-behind-the-screen would scroll the down the blind marked ‘position closed!’
One simple modern innovation that has helped take some of the frustration out of post office or bank queuing is those ‘funnel-them-into-a-single-line’ mobile barriers. It stops those queue lane jumpers that frustrate so many of us. They use these barriers a lot at Gatwick to herd all of their passengers into a queue that snakes back and forth across the customs hall about twenty times. To cover a distance of a hundred yards you end up walking half a mile.
Oh, while we’ve move onto airports that reminds me: did you know that one budget airline has even turned queuing into a first and second class pursuit? “How can that be?” I hear you ask, “Wasn’t the whole concept of budget airlines a ‘one price for all’ deal?” Anyone can sit anywhere they like, surely? Just like at the bus stop; you turn up, queue and then make a mad scramble for your favourite seat.
Well, not quite because now if you do not opt - aka pay more money - for the ‘priority’ queue then you have to wait in a second class queue until the mad scramble for favourite seats has taken place, with the priority queue first. I suppose it’s a bit like doing the final challenge on TV’s Gladiators. More points will give you the better start: “On my first whistle, contestant one will go... On my second whistle, all the cheapskates in the non-priority queue can go...” Phew, you get two mad rugby scrums for the price of one.
However, I think there could be a problem here and you don’t need to be Einstein to figure it out. Dear Mr O’Airline, I would really like to know the answer to this: what if everybody has paid the bit extra to get on the first-class priority queue? We’ve all paid to get a head start and err... we’ve all got a head start. How’s that gonna work? Right, so now we’re back to one queue again. Do you get a refund? A sort of non fast-track disappointment payment. Or, will we now have you to pay you more money for a ‘priority’ priority queue? It could go on indefinitely...
Anyway, all of which brings me to be where I’ve never been before; at the front of the queue. Yup, for the first time ever I found myself in poll position. It’s never happened before and probably won’t again but on Saturday night at ASDA I was there no queue a nice young lady in uniform said “This check out is empty .” “Yippee,” I cried, “this really is a first.” Mind you, I must confess I didn’t feel all that comfortable being at the head of the queue... All those years at the back, I guess.
Well that's it folks for the time being if you see me just pop in for that mug of tea and bacon banjo have a nice holiday.
Toodle pip Magic
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