An

Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. George Mikes

Vol. III, No. 28, 17th July 2015

Whose line is it anyway?

Waiting in the queue in a traffic jam, a question crept in my mind, Whose line is it anyway? Are
the people waiting in the queue the wisest of the lot or are they the biggest fools on planet? If
Darwins Survival of the fittest theory holds true, jumping the queue could well be the best
survival skill in India. Be it road, food joint, railway station or amusement park, the defaulter will
win with odds in favor. At this juncture, all the concepts related to Waiting and Queuing taught
in services management, simply fail. Management gurus strongly advocate the concepts like FIFO
in waiting. A reality check would state the inverse though.

Why do people Cut the line?
Did our culture imbibe these habits? The answer can safely be Yes. Most Indians are trained to
live in scarcity and have grown jumping red lights. To an extent, at times, it is almost unsafe to
stop at a red light. A few have also come to terms with reality and have become tolerant to Cut
the line culture. Politicians and VIPs / so-called VIPs add fuel to the fire. Any exception to this
culture in fact goes viral. Chiranjeevi stopped at the polling booth for jumping the queue is an apt
example. Interestingly, the corporates have contributed their bit as well. The privileges like
McDonalds Privilege card, Frequent flyers program, Amazon Prime, Flipkart First are few
glorified terms for companies way of spoiling the customers. The people with big pockets are the
Chosen few who are legally preferred over the others.

Way forward
The management books suggest methods like redesigning the process to shorten transaction
time, managing customer behavior and perceptions of wait. An interesting experiment at an
airport where the distance till the baggage carousel was increased, effectively reduced the
number of complaints of baggage delay. Unfortunately, most management books and studies fall
short of understanding the psychology and the cultural issues attached to wait. As on date, the
worrying part is that a lot of Indians, even alone, can manage to form an unruly queue of one.
Hope the better sense prevails

Written by :- Dilpreet Singh
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