QueueAnon

My life cannot help but be filtered through the eyes of the queue.

Image Credit: Bonnie Huang

There are many niche things you might dedicate a blog to, and in the Information Age, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will have a hot take, a spicy opinion or a complex theory on just about anything. One of the strangest blogs I have come across in my travels down the Internet superhighway is Qminder, a website dedicated to anything and everything queue related.

I first discovered the website last year when I was researching the history of bread lines in Soviet Russia, and the accuracy of that imagery. Clicking on a link titled “Back in the USSR: The Art of Soviet Queues”, I was instantly transported to an alternative world, a world of queue enthusiasts and theorists alike. Intrigued by the purpose of the site, I began scrolling through their various articles, curious as to how much there really is to say about the experience of lining up for something.

Qminder is an Estonia-based startup that began in 2011 that aims to improve customer service experiences and queue management for several high profile corporations such as Uber, Verizon and AT&T. Filled with over 60 pages worth of articles, their blog is dedicated to informing readers about anything and everything to do with the art of queueing.

As it turns out, a lot goes into waiting in line and the experience of queueing. From the history of queues, to the phenomenology of queues, how queues have evolved in the digital age, queueing in different cultures, politics of queueing, the etymological origins of the queue, so on and so forth. Now that marijuana is legal in some US states, there are even articles dedicated to how queueing specifically relates to dispensaries.

The origins of this queue theory date back to 1909 with the publication of Agner Krarup Erlang’s The Theory of Probabilities and Telephone Conversations. Erlang’s work sought to figure out a model that would resolve the long waiting times at telecommunication companies. It has since proven useful in various fields and contexts outside of telephones, such as traffic engineering, computing, industrial engineering, and influenced the designs of office buildings, hospitals, shops, and factories.

Queueing theory is not just about the length of the queue, but also about the arrival of customers, the capacity limit of how many people can fit in the line, the number of service points where customers can be attended to, and the rate of departure from the line.

Queueing theory has since branched off into a fully-fledged mathematical study, with many equations and theories surrounding reducing wait time and improving queue efficacy. A peer-reviewed, scientific journal called Queueing Systems has been writing about queueing since 1986 and continues to do so to this day.

Besides the mathematics of the queue, there is also the psychological experience of queueing. According to the world’s leading expert on queues, Richard Larson, “often the psychology of queueing is more important than the statistics of the wait itself.” 

Queues have an interesting relation to time. When a queue feels like it's been going on for hours, it usually means that the perceived time waited is longer than the actual time waited. Those wishing to start a queue themselves need to find a way to occupy the queuers’ minds in order to reduce perceived wait time. I can recall lining up for the Scooby-Doo roller coaster when I was a child, and being entertained by various screens that lined the walls of the queue area, showing behind-the-scenes featurettes of the early 2000s film. This lessened the perceived wait time of the queue through means of distraction.

At the same time, clued-in queue managers can manipulate the expected wait time by being upfront about the wait time, or even exaggerate how late the service will be so customers will be pleasantly surprised when they are served quicker. When working at Pizza Hut, I told customers delivery orders would arrive 20 minutes later than I knew it would, allowing for a 20 minute window for human error or traffic conditions, and allowing them to be shocked by the supposed quick service.

In regards to the politics of the queue, there's nothing worse than queue cutters. When people cut in line, studies show that there is a 54% chance of people objecting. Two people cutting will result in a 91% chance of people getting upset. According to sociologists Sasser, Olsen, and Wycoff, “the feeling that somebody has successfully ‘cut in front’ of you causes even the most patient customer to become furious.” There are many times where I have been waiting for the bus and grow increasingly frustrated when people jump in front of me. Tricks and tactics people often pull involve standing near the front of the queue after the bus has arrived and snaking in while people are filing on. There's also the infamous chat and cut — you see someone you know and start a conversation, just to then cut in line and get on with them.

Unless there are marshalls, bus queues are usually self-governed. Sometimes they may snake around in a zigzag formation, or they may remain scattered until the bus arrives and it becomes a fight for survival to get on first. One aspect of the psychology of queues is the perceived fairness of queues. According to Larson, sometimes it is more important to make people think they’re being treated fairly rather than attempting to form the perfect queue. At the self-governed bus stand, one feels they cannot get as mad when someone cuts in front of them as somewhere like a movie theatre where the order of the queue is largely dictated by the business.

Different contexts for queueing yield different feelings and experiences. Lining up outside a bar or gig, or waiting to get onto a roller coaster at a theme park, provide radically incongruent results. For the bar, there is an exciting electricity amongst your fellow queuers, though this can quickly turn to frustration and boredom if left waiting too long to get the sweet nectar of alcohol. On the flip side, the roller coaster queue anxiety grows greater the closer they get to the front. Many people often leave the queue out of fear, versus people leaving the bar queue out of frustration. At the same time, fairness in the queue is entirely different. At the bar, if someone is allowed to go straight inside without queueing, it is deemed unfair and infuriating. For the roller coaster there exists sanctioned line cutting, such as Disneyland’s FastPass where guests who arrived earlier in the day can skip long queues in the evening.

With COVID, one would think that there would be little to talk about in regards to queues, considering the mass cancellation of many queued events. But for queue enthusiasts, it only added a new theoretical framework to the concept of queueing. Signing in with QR codes, distancing in lines, contactless customer service, showing vaccine certificates — all of these things expanded the scope of how writers and thinkers were able to theorise, analyse and conceptualise the art of the queue.

As I stand here, 1.5 metres separating me from my fellow queuers, waiting for my Courtyard coffee, my mind is a race with ideas. Upon first discovering Qminder, I never thought I would find myself plunged into a world of complex mathematics, theories and histories stretching as far back as a hundred years. Now, my life cannot help but be filtered through the eyes of the queue.