Waiting in Line

It doesn’t take long to make someone mad.
I’ve noticed that if you really want to make someone lose their temper, you can do a number of nasty things. You can pull them onto a TV talk show and reveal that your great uncle Rupert was really a cross-dressing extrovert that really fathered your brother.
Or you can make them wait in line for something.
Those ever-stuffy Brits like to call it queing. But what ever you call it, people hate it. And I couldn’t hate it more than my last trip to the local water company.
Don’t get me wrong — I think my service with them has been pretty good — no brown water, no water shortages and the like. And despite an overly large connection fee, I think we have a pretty good water department here in this part of Arkansas.
What my last trip did to tarnish my view of the company was the overly large lines at their main office just last week when I went to pay my bill. I did notice several signs telling customers that we could pay our bills at other locations here in Pine Bluff. Cool. But what I didn’t understand is why they had just one cashier lane open.
One.
Uno.
I kept my temper and was patient for about 15 minutes, longer than the others in the line that had been waiting longer than I. But the pressure finally got to me and I asked for another cashier or a supervisor to come help.
That’s when my line-mates all thanked me. I felt great.
And when the supervisor showed up, he made the mistake of coming out into the line to talk to us all to resolve our concerns.
Big mistake.
After voicing my frustrations, all 15 of us started yelling at once, especially after he said there were no more cashiers to help us.
I felt sorry for him ... for about two seconds. He was jumped by an angry mob on a Thursday afternoon without any warning, and it probably wasn’t his fault.
Whose was it? Why do we have to wait in lines anyway?
When I go to my local grocery or department store I see something that was woefully lacking at the water department and other assorted line-waiting-places. If I stand in line at Wal-Mart or Brookshires and there are several customers in line, store managers jump to their intercoms and call in chashiers or checkers and open more lanes.
If I walk into a fast food restaurant and stand in their little rat maze — you know the zig-zag corridor thingy that they make you walk through to make you feel like you’re moving but are really just taking the longest possible course from Point A to Point B? — most of the time the managers open another cashier for us to pay our money and get services or products.
There is a whole culture to waiting in lines. We’ve all been there. We’ve all stood in the “12 Items Or Less” line at the store and watched some hapless person who can’t count try and buy 14 items with a check.
That kind of stuff can get someone the “Evil-Eye.”
The “Evil-Eye” is the blatant, “I’m-disgusted-with-you” stare that we’ve all seen and/or given at one time. It usually means “Hurry up or I’ll pull out your kidneys through your toenails.”
To give credit where credit is due, cashiers/checkers have to deal with a lot of different people, whether they be in a restaurant, grocery store or water department. They are working as fast as they can (most of them) and are working with either little or no training. I bet airline ticket agents have the record for keeping their tempers with surly, tired passengers in a crowded airport. And I sympathize with those waiters that have to deal with rude, crude or obnoxious customers.
That said, a little perspective is in place. As a customer, I don’t want to wait in line for more than 5 minutes. And if I have to, I will get up and leave — voting with my feet.
But in a place where I have to wait, such as a water department line, the DMV, hospital or other needed service, I feel as though the customer suffers most. I’m there to get something, and not necessarily because it’s the most fun thing in the world.
It’s because I have to. And that’s more frustrating than waiting in line.