The Art of Queuing
Whilst on my way back from my recent trip to Sydney, I had the privilege of travelling JetStar - Australia’s newest low-cost airline. Having already flown with them, I was not too bothered about the way they operated. After checking in and being told that we had to wait an hour because the plane was delayed coming in, we finally managed to get on to the plane, and then we were off.
But this would have been far too simple and straightforward after having waited for an hour. Instead the captain comes over the loudspeaker and announces something along the lines of:
” Hi there ladies and gents. Since our departure was somewhat delayed - and due to the high volume of traffic - we are currently fourth in the queue to use the runway. But we expect to be off the ground shortly. “
It was true too. Leaning over the person beside me I was able to see at least three or four other planes either behind us, or parallel to us, waiting to get onto the runway. Not only that, but the intonation and phrasing of his announcement had me thinking of the bane of modern society. The Phone Queue.
I could just imagine an automated voice coming over the pilot’s intercom saying something like
” You are currently … fourth … in the queue. Please be patient as your flight is important to us. You will be assigned a runway as quickly as possible. And please note, your take-off may be monitored for training and quality assurance purposes.”
And then proceeding to play lovely hold music, possibly a calming overture or something of the sort. I am sure that the pilots would develop queue rage within minutes.
Queuing is seemingly a delicate art, or so I discovered recently. Whilst walking around the lovely suburb of Artarmon in Sydney, I noticed a sign that read:
No queuing across roundabout
I had to wait a while to read the text, as a car was in fact queuing in front of it. But it got me to wondering: Shouldn’t anyone with common sense or a basic grasp of the road rules be able to figure out for themselves that queuing through a roundabout - or for that matter any intersection - is really not a sensible idea? Why can’t they see that the easiest way for everyone to get where they want to be is to follow the road rules, like they were taught when they were learning to drive, all those years ago? Just think what would happen if planes queued across the middle of a runway!
October 6th, 2006 at 3:20 am
It’s a bloody British thing, all this queuing business. They absolutely love to queue up there. No idea why. I think its the most extraordinarily boring waste of time. Well, there you go… I figured out why they love it so much.
October 6th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Maybe they’re hardcore subscribers to the “it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters” methodology….
~SST
October 6th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Having worked in a call centre myself, both as an operator and as a team leader, i KNOW the bane of phone call centre queues… but believe me… 30 people in queue and the person a the end gets answered within 7 minutes of waiting, only to get to the front of the queue and waste 10 minutes of the operators time complaining about the queue… my standard response was always… stop complaining about the queue and we get to people quicker, after all there are only 80 ppl working here for the 8000 calls we take daily…
…if you don’t like queues, then don’t bother with the service, cause your going to have to queue to get anything worthwhile, just like a theme park
October 6th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Actually, try Disneyland in Paris in the middle of winter : your hands are so numb you just have to hope the safety harness doesn’t fail, because there’s no chance you’ll be able to grip the rail, but there are no queues. None. Nada.
Queues are such a part of today’s society that it’s HUGELY exciting to discover you don’t have to wait… !
If you muster up enough polite French, you can actually stay on the ride for three rounds (or less if you’re prone to motion sickness). Allez!
October 6th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
and if you wear gloves, you will once again be able to hang on for dear life!
October 6th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Mmm knew there was something I forgot!
Thanks Sach.
October 6th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
A favourite type of queue for me is a queue to get into queue, as I was recently when acquiring tickets to a sporting event.
Another favourite type of queue for me is with regards to planes, but rather than queuing to take off, queuing to land. It’s a pretty sight, I think, to look up and see 20 planes circling around lighting up the night’s sky.
October 7th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Nice one Mike, I’ve also been in a queue for a queue. I must admit it was frustrating at the time, but the irony became apparent after a while!
When thinking of queues of planes, I can’t help but think of Die Hard 2 when dozens of planes have to circle the airport after terrorists have stormed it. Great Film.
October 7th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I think the worst queue i have been in was the one for uni registration. The nice guy at the front was having such a good time chatting to everyone and discussing papers that almost every person to sit down in front of him would not get up for 10 mins. This may not seem to long, but when there are five people waiting in front of you it takes an eternity.
A solution. Move to a small town like Dannevirke in NZ. There are no universitys or queues.
October 8th, 2006 at 4:25 am
Yes, university queues are the worst… in first year I made the mistake of applying for scholarships (wait in queues), moving into residence (wait in queues) and buying books (wait in queues for queues).
I did however, learn a couple of things that year… if you dont work hard enough they wont give you scholarships again (queue #1 solved), never live in residence more than once (queue #2 solved) and never, ever buy books (multitude of queue problems solved).
October 8th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Queueses suck!
and who writes a link to a previous blog post? Well, besides wL?
October 8th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
I wonder if that counts as a link for google. No doubt macguyver will check it out.
~SST
October 9th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I think it might, but seeing as all of my pages have a low Page Rank, it really doesn’t matter how many self-referring links I post! I was just reminding people that I had posted about a similar subject previously.
The best queue I think I’ve seen in Aussie, is either the queue to get into Frost Bites (just to enjoy the view). And the queue for student administration in the first week of semester, it is usually out the door and down the stairs, if you’re lucky
October 10th, 2006 at 12:23 am
The weekly North Court sausage queue can be quite impressive, I’ve seen it to the east end of Union House.
Free food will do that to people. Oh, and Beer. And V.
~SST