In a time-poor world, waiting in line is a modern form of torture.

In fact, our inability to wait has spawned such modern creations as virtual queues, online reservations, drive-by deliveries and self-serve shopping.

Today many modern companies pride themselves on getting you in and out of the door before the deli staff have time to wrap your lunch meats.

And in some organisations, allowing their customers to feel as if they are always at the head of the queue is the definition of customer service.

Dr. Richard C. Larson or “Dr. Queue”, a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Center for Advanced Educational Services at MIT, is a leader in the operations research field of queuing. His advice to organizations wanting to minimise queuing time includes -

• Use serpentine, rather than individual lines at banks, fast food restaurants, and other establishments
• Entertain, enlighten, and engage those waiting on lines
• Announce delays
• Compensate customers who are not served within a guaranteed period of time
• Let customers serve themselves

But all this talk about minimising the impact of queuing wakes me wonder if it is really about the inconvenience caused or the need to feel in control and powerful.

In an increasingly competitive world, where road rage is a common side-effect of being held up at an intersection, does it really demean us to have to give way to the guy on the right?

The Queue Blues

Research shows that queuing is most torturous at post offices, movie theaters, banks, police departments, sanitation departments, and emergency services, but in my experience it is waiting in a supermarket that often brings out the beast in people.

After happily sauntering the aisles for half an hour – spending longer comparing the calorie content of two frozen dinners than it will take to actually cook and eat them – people turn into dogs on short leashes when it is time to actually ring up their purchases.

Have you ever seen your local supermarket transformed into the starting gate at the Spring Races? Everyone eying off the person in the checkout next to them, desperate to be proven the most effective at choosing a fast lane?

Queuing, it seems, is often perceived as a quaint custom for those with time to waste.

Consider the “ten items or less” checkout, where a bulging shopping basket can earn you the death stare from every customer in the store.

Or the expectations of a shopper with only a tin of soup and a box of pop tarts when they appear behind you at the register. Obviously if you have time to fill a recyclable bag with a selection of real food, intended to be cooked in a real kitchen, you have time to wait for them to complete their purchases first…

Wait Watchers

Why do we hate to wait?

A perceived lack of social justice often underlies frustration with waiting.

The custom of “first come, first served” underpins the culture of queuing in many countries and never is a culture clash more clearly underlined than in the form of the tourist who ignores such an expectation.

The reality is that different nationalities view queuing and the concept of “cutting in line” very differently. In continental Europe for example, people are less inclined to join or form a queue, moving directly to their goal without paying attention to others who are already present.

In countries where a sense of “fair play” is instilled into children before they climb onto their first swing-set, queuing is a structured thing. The English, famous for their reserve, often view the structured queue as a way to avoid talking to strangers.

And in former Communist countries where waiting in long queues was a near-daily occurrence, the act of waiting in line is an institution. It is acceptable, for instance, for a person to leave the queue to use the bathroom and then return to their original place without having to ask permission. In other countries this might get your passport confiscated.

And yet the concept of queuing is a complex thing. In the United States – where many believe that money can lift them out of the mob – fines are imposed on those cutting in line to catch a ferry!

Mind Your Ps and Qs

Wikipedia has amassed much information about queuing and queue-jumpers in particular:

A negative response from the rear of the line is appropriately expected when someone has cut in line up ahead. It is usually viewed with disdain, due to the “wait your turn” aspect of a line. Indeed, a person cutting in line has a 54% chance that others in the line will object. With two people cutting in line, there is a 91.3% chance that someone will object. The proportion of people objecting from behind the cutter is 73.3%, with the person directly behind the point of intrusion objecting most frequently.

But has waiting in line really become such a science? A report on queue management in theme parks reveals the philosophy behind keeping customers in a queue:

If there were to be no queue at all, it would create the impression that the value of the attraction is to some extent diminished. In general terms, one may observe that attractions with short queues tend to attract less public. So, in principle we should not aim at the elimination of queues, but instead concentrate on giving people an option to join the queue, or to skip part of the queue and spend the wait somewhere else.

In other words, give people the impression of not wasting their time by getting them to wait in a virtual queue…

Stop and Smell the Roses

But when is waiting in line really a good thing?

A long queue – like the one I waited in last night while trying to get a taxi – can be a positive experience.

Here are a few suggestions as the benefits of being made to wait:

It keeps things in perspective – Is the meeting so important or the parking space so perfect, that you are prepared to throw a tantrum in public? Being made to wait reminds us that our priorities are perhaps not as urgent as they appear.

It lets you interact with your fellow man - Waiting in line also reminds us that we are social creatures, trapped together on this eternally shrinking planet. Assuming there is nothing to catch your eye on the magazine rack, try striking up a conversation with the shop assistant or your fellow shoppers. Instead of tapping your foot with the fury of an Irish dancer, use that energy on getting to know the people in your neighbourhood.

It leaves you alone with your thoughts – Perhaps a frightening prospect for some, but by meditating the wait away, you might just find the time for the introspective stroll that always alludes you. Use the time to think some positive thoughts or to plan your way through a difficult decision.

It lets you rethink the impulse buy - The salvation of everyone caught up in the hysteria of an end-of-season sale, being made to wait gives you time to reconsider your purchases. Those few minutes waiting for a cash register to free up might be all the time you need to see through the euphoria of fifty percent off, to the diamond-encrusted toothbrush underneath.

You may just find that waiting in line is time well spent!

In the modern world being busy is a sign of a full, productive and successful life.

Our weekly routines are often written in concrete, with each day parcelled out into hours dedicated to work, exercise, family, relaxation and sleep. The complex dance that is modern life is carefully choreographed and we perform it with perfect timing – up until the moment that we finally hang up our ballet shoes…

Unless we choose to stop the clock…

Stopping the clock is viewed by some with the same frustration as a power blackout. All those hours lost! All those jobs that weren’t done! All that ironing, emailing, gardening, research, cleaning etc that could have been completed! For some of us it is as if we carry a gigantic score board around over our heads, our current productivity flashing in neon for all to see.

In the workplace, emails have brought clock-worshipping to a new level of addiction. In many offices I’ve roved through, people return from annual leave with wild eyes and heart palpitations at the thought of all the emails that await them. Rather than catching up on what’s new in the office or people’s lives, they leap at the laptop like it is a Rubik’s Cube and furiously start slogging through their correspondence.

So why do we do it? Why do we allow a little thing we wear on our wrist to dictate our days?

Time is precious. It is also limited. Everything around us points to exactly how precious and limited – all the best things are available now, all the sales are never to be repeated, all of the opportunities are one time only.

And of course we now have so many choices that time seems to be our enemy. We can be everything, do everything, experience everything, but all within the original constraints of a twenty-four-hour day. And it doesn’t seem to work if we try and do a deal with time – I want to be a little bit of a mother, a quarter of a scientist, a smidge of a friend, a glimmer of a lover, a nanosecond of a homemaker… The scoreboard never reflects the truth of our commitment or achievements.

But is time really the enemy or is this a self-imposed affliction? Have we been so indoctrinated with the need to make the most of our time that we have forgotten how to do things simply for the pleasure they give us or for their intrinsic worth?

A friend who recently went on an extended vacation with her family to “get away from it all”, still managed to put together an impressive itinerary and proudly reported in her first email on their ability to stick to it. Determined that her family would benefit from the freedom of the road and an alternative experience, the heavy hands of the clock still managed to get their hands on her agenda.

The reality is we cannot smash the clock. All we can do is stop it for a while by reducing its influence on our lives.
This means taking time out – literally. It means taking time out of your frame of reference. To do this you have to put aside the mental stopwatch and accept that the only factor at play is the experience – not how long it takes, or when you can do it or if it is worth your time to do!

No doubt you are imagining your busy life and trying to fit this concept around it. It is clearly not a realistic thing to do all of the time – see how time manages to wriggle back into the picture? – but there are ways we can stop the clock without losing track of time altogether.…

The reality is we have to plan to stop the clock. Unless we are free of the broader constraints of work hours, school times, family schedules and so on, we have to fit taking time out around these other commitments. But the important thing is to remember that it is about the experience, not its value in terms of time out of your day.

Here are some “Stop the Clock” techniques:

1. Ban clocks on Sundays – agree to a time-free Sunday and then remove all references to time. Sleep when you want, stay in and play or go out and explore. Listen to music, enjoy pottering around and be governed by the sun when it is time to go to bed.
2. Have a movie marathon – this doesn’t have to be a day spent watching endless DVDs unless you want it to be. The point is to do something you enjoy for as long as you want to do it.
3. Enjoy doing nothing – call this conserving your energy if you’d prefer, but the essence of this is to remove any feelings of guilt at not being productive. Go to the beach without a book, sit at the traffic lights without looking at your mobile phone, watch the kids play without interjecting with words of advice or encouragement.
4. Observe energetic activity – this is a form of meditation that can be really soothing and refreshing. Look for a busy pattern, like storm clouds, traffic, feeding birds or rolling waves and observe it. Enjoy the busy activity, but stay removed from it.
5. Take a break outside time – on your next vacation, look for a place where time has little relevance. A lot of busy people go to “wellness retreats” to get away from their daily demands, only to find that every moment of their day is structured around activity. Instead, consider a self-catered holiday where the only rules are those you make.
6. Volunteer your time – there is nothing like giving your time away for free to discover its real worth.
7. Make waiting valuable – we all hate waiting in line, because it is such a waste of time! But put this imposed activity to work, by using it to achieve other things. This could be as simple as meditating or daydreaming, or it could be structured, like list-making or letter writing. The number of families who stand mutely in line is amazing – use this time to talk, to joke with the kids or to meet the people around you.

For a quick fix, begin by banning these phrases from your “Stop the Clock” commitment:

• “When… (anything!)?”
• “I’ll be there in a second.”
• “Give me a minute.”
• “How long will it take?
• “Where did the time go?”
• “What time shall we meet?”
• “Can you hurry up?”
• “What took you so long?”
• “If only there was another hour in the day…”
• “So much to do, so little time.”