A Line Violation

Happy New Year’s Everyone!

 I thought I would cover a topic that is generally more prevalent during the holiday season but something we all run into at least once or twice a week.  That topic is waiting line etiquette.  I have always argued that the only fair approach to merchant lines is a single line with fan out.  Specifically this means that there is a single line that all customers begin in.  At the end of this line you disperse out to an open register.  This insures a true FIFO (first in first out) that insure a fair treatment of all customers and no one is victimized by a particularly slow checkout employee, unacceptable price checks because the merchant failed the customer by not effectively labeling or programming the price of an item or god forbid the two parties decide it is chat time.  Unfortunately, only a few merchants appreciate their customers enough to impose this order at the registers (note, failure to plan enough space to do this in the register area is not an acceptable excuse).  I will give Best Buy, Taco Bell and Burger King props for consistently using this checkout model.   Often times I will attempt to initiate this myself by standing back a couple feet from the registers in hopes that at least two other people understand that this is really the fastest approach in the long run (there is a chance you might pick the fastest checkout, but I’ll bet you will fail more than you will succeed).  Note, I say two people because I have found through trial and error that this is the key number – as long as those two other people hold the line, others feel obligated to conform – and thus everyone wins. 

 My recent observation not only did not have the optimal line approach, there was clearly what I call a line violation – translated – someone decided they were more important than the other individuals waiting in line before them.

There I was standing in a line at a store waiting to purchase a few Christmas presents.  Definitely annoyed at not have a single line checkout approach, I surveyed the employees and opted for the more senior individual in hopes they had more experience at handling the checkout duties and more importantly had been in this situation before and understands the urgency of the situation (we are not there to gab, we are not there to hear about how bad your day is going – no… we are there to hand over hard earned money for a product or service that is rarely worth the common wait in inefficient lines.  Sometime add up the amount of time you spend in a line during the course of a week and then multiply that by your hourly salary and then for even more effect, multiply it by 48 (4w/m*12m/y) – my guess is you could purchase yourself a couple of Christmas presents with that amount).  An empty register continually caught my attention.  Having experienced this particular annoyance numerous times, I scanned the various people in line trying to figure out who looked inconsiderate enough to violate the line code.  Who thinks they are more important than the rest of the people standing in line?  Sure enough, this soon played out.  Another employee walks up to the register and fails to say the magic words “May I help the NEXT customer in line?”  Nope, instead he lazily just stands there and provides the catalyst for the line violation.  Within seconds, someone from the back of the line comes strutting up.  I expected this, so there was no true personal shock involved in the event, but I was curious as to why this person felt more important than the other individuals in line.  She didn’t leave in a hurried fashion so I doubt there was a crisis at home … or at least a crisis that was more critical than the actual purchase of a crock pot and she casually strolled out of the store.  Was she patting herself on the back for beating the system, will she gather everyone around the dinner table and divulge her success in overcoming the odds… I don’t know, but clearly she did mpt have any concerns that the others had and they will have to continue waiting longer than her. 

I am intrigued to know if this person would be concerned if a line vi0lation occurred against her at the doctor’s office.  I should quickly point out that there are definite times when line jumping is completely acceptable.  One particular example off the top of my head is the emergency room.  Obviously, each particular injury needs to be assessed in order of criticality – a gushing head would likely be treated before a cold regardless of the order the given patient came to the check-in desk.  I may be wrong, but in relation to this particular observation I do not think a crock pot purchase carried more time urgency than the lady purchasing the purple blouse or the guy in front of my buying some fluffy slippers.

I at least received some blog fodder for my 17 minute wait (yes, I multipled that by my salary*48).