All good things come to those who wait
5th April, 2007
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The modern world is a perfectly wonderful place. It's just that the little corners of our existence have a lot of irritating gunk in them. It's not that I'm unhappy with my life - it's just that I have a long list of things that are really getting up my nose at the moment.
And it's not that I moan because I'm a misery guts - it's just that I like to moan. And so do most of us. Look at that TV show Grumpy Old Men. Followed up by Grumpy Old Women, it was nothing more than a bunch of people griping at the camera. The women's version was so successful, in fact, that it's about to mount a live Australian tour (due in Brisbane, 1st - 6th May). So today I shall turn my built-up grumpiness to queueing in ridiculous situations. No one likes to queue nose-to-back with perfect strangers. It's such an unpopular concept that entire nations - notably the French and Italians - refuse to have anything to do with it. But Australian stores have invented a new kind of frustration by introducing the notion of providing services completely unrelated to their core business and then allowing those services to overtake the thing people actually expect them to provide. When was the last time you went to a servo to buy petrol and didn't have to queue behind someone buying a hot chook and cigarettes? Why does anyone think it necessary to buy a hot chicken at the petrol station? I can maybe understand a Mars Bar and a roll of dunny paper. But a muffin, a cup of soup, some dog food, a bunch of flowers, a greeting card, a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of shampoo? Money, obviously, is the answer. The servo operators are making lots of dosh selling things that have nothing to do with refuelling a car. And obviously people are happy to use their servo as an ersatz convenience store. But no part of that makes me feel any better as I queue behind the chicken people while outside I can see a growing line of vehicles pull in behind my car. It's not logic going through my mind when I cool my heel as some idiot dithers between the cigarettes in the green packet with the rotting teeth or those in the red packet with the festering ulcer. When was the last time you went to the newsagent for a paper and didn't have to wait behind someone buying Scratchies or Lotto tickets? Or ducked into a takeaway and didn't have to hang about while the poor cashier played barista to create some semblance of a cappuccino in a fancy takeaway cup for people who think they're too good for a spoonful of instant mixed with tepid tap water? And on a related but separate gripe, how come it costs three bucks for a cup of hot water with a teabag on the side? Why the sandwich on rye, gluten-free, Turkish or wholegrain but not on white or brown? Then there are those queues that should never be necessary - like the ones that jam up plane aisles. If airlines asked everyone in window seats to board first, followed by people in middle seats, followed by those in the aisle seats, no one would end up sniffing random armpits while waiting for the overhead locker grapple to be over. If we're all guilty in the modern world of being grumpier, more frustrated and less likely to exhibit patience with our fellow man, shouldn't we give up on the queue? Maybe not. You really don't appreciate the benefits of waiting in an orderly line until you don't have the opportunity anymore. Ask anyone who has waited for a bus only to be shouldered off by Pierre or Guido why a queue might be preferable to a chaotic scramble. But what we should do is insist on dedicated queues. So the chicken people go in one place and the petrol people go in another. Mix the two and it gets ugly. |
