Sunday, March 25, 2007

My queue is the longest one. Oh God!

Have you ever realized that the queue which you belong to is the longest? Then you change the queue thinking that the other one will be shorter but in vain. You will get stuck in the longest one, no matter how much you try. I can't predict about you but it usually happens to me - like today.



I went to pay the monthly bill of telephone at Nepal Telecom counter. At first I just chose one of the two queues randomly. Standing, I counted the number of people in both the queues. It seemed that the one I belonged to had two more than the other one. And the woman at the front of my queue was discussing with the counter person. It's definitely going to take time, I thought for a moment and shifted to the seeminhly-shorter queue. Guess what happened? People who came after me paid their bill and went out one by one and I got stuck in the shorter-yet-longest queue. The person behind the counter was little slow and so was his computer. He would wait for 20 seconds before the bill gets printed. I didn't want to re-shift to the former because the next turn in that queue was mine. And my turn wouldn't come. I didn't count properly but probably 10 or more people who came after me overhauled me. I was so furious. But what? It was my decision to change to the shortest yet longest queue. That's why I hate this orthodox system. I like the queue management system, an electronic system that issues you a number at the time you arrive and your turn will come when that number appears in the scrolling LED screen, attached somewhere around the wall. First come first serve basis. I am really bad at locating the shortest queue. It has happened to me several times in the past. Yet it's happening. Why don't these big corporations implement such an efficient queue management system?

No comments: