I was at the front of the queue at a council owned swimming pool a while ago, waiting to be allowed to proceed to the changing rooms, with both my daughters, when the young attendant shouted imperiously at us (whilst seemingly looking in my eye) to move back. I had to make a rapid decision; did I...
- Turn around and push the poeple behind us over and like dominos knock the whole queue over?
- Shout imperiously at the people behind me to move back...craftily passing the buck on to them?
- Whisper to the people behind me to 'move pack, pass it on' and see if the message got to the back of the queue before the young attendant lost his rag and thumped me (and if the message did get to the back of the queue, see what it consisted of by then)
- Like a shrinking violet, step out and walk towards the back of the queue, with my eager young girls dying to get into the swimming pool beside me, and risk them thumping me, and losing our place in the queue, perhaps forever?
- Shout back at the attendant, imperiously, what the hell did he think he was playing at shouting at the people at the front of the queue to move backwards?
- Just stand there and feign ignorance, perhaps pretending to not understand what he meant?
- Have a quiet word with the attendant and suggest he manage his queuers a little more sensitively?
I've been more interested in queues since. For example, the idea that better to have two queues, one for the shorties and one for the longies (by which I mean the time required to deal with their problem or their shopping basket) as practised by most supermarkets and some emergency departments.
The experience is, and I'm led to believe that the evidence suggests, that by having separate queues, seeing the quickies separately from the longies, you reduce the overall length of stay, and therefore the numbers of people in the shop/department (for some time after you revert back to one queue) and increase their satisfaction with the service.
Another related idea from the emergency department is that if decision making is likely to depend on blood tests being done, get these tests done on arrival in the department, rather than waiting for the decision maker to see the patient and then take the blood (practiced widely by 2020)
Does this translate to supermarkets?
Only if you engineer the blood testing to be like the summing of the cost of the goods bought, hence the introduction of personal barcode scanners, so you scan your goods in as you go round the shop taking them off the shelves.
Better still if you pre-order your goods over the telephone or on line.
Some people do ring up the emergency department and ask how busy it is at that time or whether they are planning to come to the right place.
I shouted back at the young attendant of course and immediately realised that I hadn't use what emotional intelligence I have and might have been better having a quiet word with him about how to move a queue backwards, perhaps by going to the back of the queue and leading them backwards first and then proceed forwards along the queue.
Try queuing theory.
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