Although after one year I thought that I would no longer be stood in the Congo and instead back in a queue in Asda, Leicester, it seems in fact with the arrival of my work permit that I am now to stay for a few more months on this side of the Sahara.

Although the Stood in the Congo blog will continue, I am however no more in DRC and instead in Kenya. Stood in the Maasai Mara to be precise, where you will find a photo a day.

A Maasai ‘queue’. More photos on Flickr.

There’s a scattering of me in a few other places here and there as well.

And I used to be here, and also here.

From the Sokwanele blog which I’ve been following these past few months, are two unfortunate queue stories. The photo above is for a queue just to get into a supermarket, and today Sokwanele posted on a queue which you actually have to pay to be in.

“It is now common that commuters have to pay to queue. If you do not pay for a spot in the queue the touts simply shove you out the way for the person who has. Their retort is that if you have money to travel you have money to queue.”

I’m afraid that this is the last of the queue stories from my inbox. And although I thought just two weeks ago that I’d be back in the land of queue, it seems that I’ll be staying here in Congo after all. You will find snapshots of life here over on Stood in the Congo.

In the beginning of July I received an email from a Catherine Gibson who comes from the state of Texas. Despite it’s lack of photos, this is a rather good queue story and definitely worth posting:

Howdy from the states and Texas. After a delightful lunch hour browsing your blog, I just wondered if you have ever had anyone send in the completely amazing image of a Southwest Airlines Triple queue?

In case you’re not familiar, Southwest Airlines, true to it’s egalitarian spirit does not offer proper reservations, with assigned seats. Every traveler, upon queuing up at the check-in desk obtains a color coded boarding card. Each color represents the first, second or 3rd group. Your location in any one of these groups is completely driven by how early you arrive. Get there early, you’re in group A, manage to come running up at the last minute, you’re in group C.

Once the plane is seen to be on the ground and driving up to the building, the queuing starts. But here’s where it gets surreal; each person goes to the queuing area marked A, B, or C, carry-ons in hand, and lines up. It’s ages before the flight crew even makes the announcement that it’s time to line up. Line jumpers are not tolerated and large amounts of scorn are heaped upon those who either wait in the wrong line, or simply though their oblivion, block the line with their person, bags, or bass viol. You’d be amazed at what goes for carry-on luggage these days.

There is a formal screening process by the check in staff for authorized line jumpers. That would be those with physical limitations, children traveling alone, or parents with small children, which makes it prudent for them to be boarded before the cattle stampede begins. They usually get to wait in an area set aside at the front.

The pre-boarders go first. The A’s go next and on down to the C’s. There are only a handful of seats that are worth getting at all excited about having. And usually, the preboarders get dibs on those anyway. Mostly the issue is the coveted overhead bin space. It’s all completely civilized, in a sort of perfectly organized melee kind of way that usually feels as if someone is just about too, but never quite starts, throwing punches, kicking and spitting.

Next time I’m at the airport in Austin or Houston, I’ll snap a few photos for our friends across the pond.
Thanks,

Catherine Gibson

A lovely chap called Charles Leung emailed at the end of June with an article about queuing he found in the New Yorks Times. He states: the whole foods system is quite neat. even though the queue seems exorbitantly long, it only takes a few minutes to reach the checkout. although i’m not sure if you would like it, as in some of the nyc whole foods stores, the queue runs all throughout the store, making it rather difficult to navigate while shopping.

Of course, we Brits are used to this type of queue in our capital, and also in the larger towns, however what interests me most about this article is the third from last paragraph. You would never see a screaming match in Marks and Sparks, good God, I’ve never before even heard someone raise their voice in Woolies.

A Long Line for a Shorter Wait at the Supermarket

By MICHAEL BARBARO

Published: June 23, 2007

Show New Yorkers a checkout line and they’ll tell you whether it’s worth the wait.

Starbucks at 9 a.m.? Eight minutes, head to the next one down the street. Duane Reade at 6 p.m.? Twelve minutes, come back in the morning.

But now a relative newcomer to Manhattan is trying to teach the locals a new rule of living: the longer the line, the shorter the wait.

Come again?

For its first stores here, Whole Foods, the gourmet supermarket, directs customers to form serpentine single lines that feed into a passel of cash registers.

Banks have used a similar system for decades. But supermarkets, fearing a long line will scare off shoppers, have generally favored the one-line-per-register system.

By 7 p.m. on a weeknight, the lines at each of the four Whole Foods stores in Manhattan can be 50 deep, but they zip along faster than most lines with 10 shoppers.

Because people stand in the same line, waiting for a register to become available, there are no ‘’slow” lines, delayed by a coupon-counting customer or languid cashier. And since Whole Foods charges premium prices for its organic fare, it can afford to staff dozens of registers, making the line move even faster.

”No way,” is how Maggie Fitzgerald recalled her first reaction to the line at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. For weeks, Ms. Fitzgerald, 26, would not shop there alone, assigning a friend to fill a grocery cart while she stood in line.

When she discovered the wait was about 4 minutes, rather than 20, she began shopping by herself, and found it faster than her old supermarket.

”By now,” Ms. Fitzgerald said of those competitors, ”you’d think everyone else would catch onto this.”

The science of keeping lines moving, known as queue management, is a big deal to big business. Since arriving in 2001, Whole Foods stores in Manhattan have won bragging rights as the top sellers among grocery chains here, with sales of $42 million per store last year, according to Modern Grocer, a trade publication.

Some of its competitors acknowledge they are feeling a bit of line envy. ”I should give it a closer look,” said John A. Catsimatidis, owner of the Gristede’s chain, which uses the traditional line system.

Even New York grocery chains that use a similar system but on a smaller scale admire the efficiency of Whole Foods. ”It’s very impressive,” said Jon Basalone, a senior vice president at Trader Joe’s.

Lines can also hurt retailers. Starbucks spooked investors last summer when it said long lines for its cold beverages scared off customers. Wal-Mart, too, has said that slow checkouts have turned off many.

And they are easily turned off. Research has shown that consumers routinely perceive the wait to be far longer than it actually is.

”We have good clocks in our heads for roughly three minutes,” said Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, a retail consulting firm.

”Once we get beyond that, time expands wildly,” he said. ”If somebody is there for 4.5 minutes and you ask them how long they waited, they will say 15 minutes.”

In most of the United States, the wait in a grocery store checkout line is negligible — under a minute, Mr. Underhill has found.

Then there is New York City. Here, hundreds of shoppers, in grocery stores that feel as cramped as a junior one-bedroom, can wait 10 minutes or more to reach a cashier.

Whole Foods executives spent months drawing up designs for a new line system in New York that would be unlike anything in their suburban stores, where shoppers form one line in front of each register.

That traditional system, they determined, would take up too much space and could not handle the crowds they expected here.

The single-line, bank-style system was quickly chosen for its statistical efficiency. Then, Whole Foods paired the system with possibly the largest number of registers in the city, more than 30 per store, and it hired an army of cashiers to staff them throughout the day (including ”floaters” to fill in for those who need a break).

The result is one of the fastest grocery store lines in the city. An admittedly unscientific survey by this reporter found that at peak shopping times — Sunday, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. — a line at Whole Foods checked out a person every 4.5 seconds, compared with 19.6 seconds for a line at Trader Joe’s.

Granted, it may not be an apples-to-organic-apples comparison, but when faced with a line of 5o people, it takes about 4 minutes to check out at Whole Foods, half the time it takes at competing chains with significantly shorter lines. (With a 7-person line at Zabar’s one Sunday, it took about 8 minutes to check out. With just 10 people in line, it took about 13 minutes at the Food Emporium.)

”Whole Foods has just figured it out,” said Kelli Wicker, 38, who waited less than two minutes to buy $15 worth of groceries at the Whole Foods at Union Square, despite a line of more than a dozen people.

Perhaps the most important role players in the Whole Foods system are the ”line managers,” who monitor the flow of people, direct them to a cash register and, when needed, hold up signs saying how long it will take to check out. In another innovation, color-coded digital screens are now replacing those humans.

Others have tried to copy the Whole Foods system, including Trader Joe’s, a popular California grocery chain that opened its first Manhattan store last year. But with far fewer cash registers, lines often snake around the entire perimeter of the store. The wait on a typical Sunday night is about 20 minutes (which might explain why a screaming match broke out one Sunday after a customer tried to sneak into the middle of the 75-person line).

”It is something that we recognize and would like to remedy,” said Mr. Basalone of Trader Joe’s.

Michael Ridgway, 33, no longer shops at Trader Joe’s. ”The line just does not move and makes it impossible to shop in the store,” he said. But every week, he and his girlfriend, Jennifer Tolan, 29, queue up, with 50 to 70 strangers, at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. ”You can’t pick a slow line,” Ms. Tolan said.

Back at the beginning of June, I received a lovely email from Gabs who is in Japan. She pointed out a couple of queue stories from her own blog and very kindly offered to have them here on Standinaqueue. Over to Gabs:

There’s a whole lot of queuing going on in Japan. People think nothing of standing in line for an hour or more for their favourite food.

Tamahide started business in 1760. The queuing probably started in 1750. They serve oyakodon, chicken and egg on rice. The lunchtime queue starts at 11am everyday.

This taiyaki booth called ‘Yanagiya’ has a constant queue - it snakes around inside the shop and then out onto the street. This place is famous for using the freshest bean paste. Despite the huge number of people, the queue is eerily silent.

Daikokuya tempura restaurant. Come rain or shine, nothing dampens Japanese customer loyalty.

Here’s some people queueing literally around the block for Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The whole affair nicely orchestrated by some white-gloved field marshalls.

Please don’t send any doughnuts over, there’s not a shortage!

I’ve heard they’re tasty, but are they really worth a two hour wait in the cold?

As things have started to move again here at Standinaqueue, I think it would be best to give you all a quick roundup of some of the emails that have appeared in my inbox over the past couple of months.

The first was an email in the beginning of May from Rhodri Marsden, who writes for the Guardian, Observer and whatnot. It seemed that queuing was fashionable in the media for a short time in Blighty and he was interested to get in touch about an article that he was to write for The Independent.

Unfortunately it was too late when I found his email, but that shouldn’t stop you all from having a read. It is actually a rather brilliant and well informed article, which I would love to post here on Standinaqueue, but I do worry that there may be a problem with copyright. Maybe I should pop Rhodri an email and ask.

The second email of interest is from a man called Tony who wants to place an advert on this post here. He says that he will pay me $25 for a year and, for those who are interested, his website sells kitchens.

The next email is actually rather important and I was hoping that somebody out there may be able to help. It is an email from Captain P.T.C. Bush who mistook the standinaqueue email address for that of Leicester Post Office.

He writes:

Hello Leicester Post Office

I have been away from the UK for thirty years and I need to locate the address of:

Either Mrs. Elizabeth Ethel Luce or Mrs. Elizabeth Ethel Bush, who lives somewhere in Leicestershire. Having lost touch with her I am now retired and wish to correspond to her as her long lost friend.

I appreciate this may inconvenience you but this is very important and I would be very grateful to you if you will assist.

Best regards,

Captain P.T.C. Bush

Now I tried both www.192.com and www.thephonebook.bt.com but to no success, however maybe somebody out there may know this lady and if so they should get in touch or, if you want to be terribly kind, maybe you could publish his letter on your own blog and together we will find Elizabeth. All other ideas on how to find this lady are most welcome.

Last month, after increased rebel activity in Eastern Congo, it seemed a good idea to take a break. Rather excitingly I found myself on the coast of Kenya, even more exciting however was that I found myself next to the supermarket Nakumatt, pictured here in all its capitalist glory.

After spending many an hour wandering, and indeed wondering over the many aisles and goods that were on perfect display, these visits were ended by the obligatory wait at the checkout queue.

I would estimate that 8 out of 10 of these queue standings would be unremarkable if compared to an English queue. They probably weren’t as fast moving as their English counterpart, but I didn’t really notice as I myself am now hardly ever in a hurry.

However, I would like to bring to your attention a couple of factors that could create a problem for the potential queuing visitor in Kenya.

The first problem is large Indian families. On more than one occasion I noticed that, rather than queuing, they tend to gather in the queuing area behind many queues, thus increasing their chances of being served faster.

We have seen similar behaviour in England, although never before attempted by a large extended group where such characteristics are also encouraged in the very young.

There may still be hope for this young lad however, notice the pensive, even hesitant stance that he has adopted in the queuing area. His elders were not so shy and with brusque confidence they took their positions across two and a half supermarket checkout queues.

The second factor to look our for when shopping in Nakumatt, Mombasa, is the rogue shopping basket. It is actually something to look out for from the very start of your shopping experience as you will never find one near the shop entrance. Instead you will be in competition with your fellow shoppers, hopeful to find a basket before you reach the dried pasta or, and I do not wish this even on my worse enemies, the bottled water. But let me not digress, I can already hear Gary Wood shouting “The queue William, what about the queue?” And yes, my dear Gary, the queue indeed.

Well, as the shopping basket has become such a sacred, sought after object in this temple of consumerism, it is only natural that those who have it, flaunt it.

And so here you can see this chap, like a child with a new umbrella, he has not put the basket to its proper use and is instead spinning it nonchalantly, while he holds his soon to be purchased toothpaste and bag of three onions in his other hand.

Not only is this a hazard when standing behind him, the real obstacle to my queuing experience occurs when he decides to leave the basket on the floor of the queuing area.

As you can imagine, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of wondering whether I should just step around the basket as if it was a normal occurrence, or, bring attention to this faux-pas by moving the basket myself to its correct position under the conveyor belt.

Luckily for both of us, after a few hesitant moments the basket was snatched up by a small girl sent in to the queuing area by her older sister, who was standing nearby with her arms laden with bread, powdered milk and cassava.

This city, small by Chinese standards, used to be called Gyalthang by the Tibetans. It’s in the Tibetan cultural area. It was then called Zhongdian by the Han Chinese until central government recently decided they would call it Shangrila, from James Hilton’s book. They did this to attract tourists. High on the Himalayan Plateau at 3,200 meters it lies on the old pack-horse route from southern Yunnan to Lhasa.

These guys are queuing up to enter a cemetery. This was taken in early April, on the Thursday before Easter. Next to the Tibetan Cafe Hotel in Zhongdian is this Martyrs Cemetery. On “Ancestors Day” every school child, policeman and military conscript in this small city turned up to clean and tidy the graveyard and make an offering at each tomb. I think most of the tombs were from the early days of the revolution. There was a huge monument with a Red Guard style statue atop against which they placed these decorative devices.

A military unit queuing up before the monument waiting to place their offering. Just as I took this shot the General standing on the wall turned around and caught me with raised camera.  He said something in Chinese that I did not fully understand. After using my two words of Chinese that I know, to translate what he said, I came up with “If you take any more pictures you will be transported to the Mongolian salt mines.” At least that’s what it sounded like. Apparently photographing military personnel is strictly forbidden in China. I smiled weakly, started whistling and walked briskly away towards Lhasa.

As promised, here is Laurence of Australia’s latest most recent queue posting. I have divided his queue story into three separate posts, with the next installment on Tuesday and the last on Wednesday.

Apologies again for my tardiness. I will try not to let it happen again.

Now over to Laurence:

G’day Standinginaqueue

I had hoped to win a certificate for the remotest queue but since certain people are globe trotting around deepest Africa it’s unlikely to be awarded to me. I have been doing a bit of globe trotting myself. A quick itinerary; Sydney (Australia), Guangzhou (China), Lijiang, Wenhai, Zhongdian, Lhasa (Tibet) and return, taking in Dali and Kunming on the way back to Sydney. It’s a great route to travel. A sort of backdoor entry into Tibet through the Eastern Himalayas via South West China. Most Westerners arrive in Tibet via Beijing and the new railway to Lhasa. I traveled by plane, truck, horse and bus. Anyway, to more serious matters…

My flight from Sydney into China stopped off for one night in Guangzhou, just north of Hong Kong. Having booked into the hotel, found my room, then hunted for the girl with the key, I sauntered outside into the street to see what life would offer.

They won’t let you have the key to your room. There is a young girl on each floor who lets you into it and who is always missing when you return. Perhaps they expect you to steal the bed when you book out.

A short distance from this China Southern Airways hotel, just past KFC, is a fairly large and busy bus station. Outside the people numbered millions. Inside I’m sure it was only thousands. It seemed like it. I didn’t stay long. I went in with half an idea about making a casual inquiry about something completely irrelevant. But life is so short I didn’t join any of the queues. I must say that the queues were extremely neat. Almost as if a surveyor had lined up the people with a theodolite. Outside it was absolute chaos.

Oh dear, oh dear. It seems I have some apologising to do.

The first apology being that this blog post will not exactly be about standing in queues. The second being that after a false restart in the beginning of May, this blog never really got going again, and for that, I am truly sorry.

You see, things got a little complicated here in Congo when, after nearby rebel activity, we all decided to get out for a bit. Our evacuation took me as far as Kenya and I even managed to take a delightful little break on the beach in Mombasa. I also, rather pleasingly, even managed to queue up while in Kenya and so have an interesting post about that which will be coming up shortly. However, it means that ever since coming back to Congo things have been rather hectic without a moment’s pause.

It’s not all bad though, as I have been lucky enough to see these fellas who were pretty much in a line when I found them.

Although when it became the time for them to leave, I regret to inform you all that the gorilla at the end of the line pushed his way through first.

But enough of the distractions, I do believe that I owe one rather big apology to Laurence of Australia, who sent me a queue story more than two months ago and yet in that time I failed to post it up on Standinaqueue.

My dear Laurence ran out of patience and posted it himself here, although tomorrow I will be posting his story where it truly belongs, here on Standinaqueue.

It’s been a while since I’ve checked the Standinaqueue inbox and I see that there are various other stories that have been sent in by your good selves, and I promise that they too will be coming up in the next week.