Bhagyashri Umadi
Whether it’s lining up at the mart to pay for your groceries, buying a movie ticket, making a bank transaction, fuelling your car petrol, boarding a flight, the queues play an essential role in our day to day life.
They are the foremost place one needs to go through before opting for any kind of service. The queue theory was invented to work out the imbalance between the supply and demand services in society. Be it restaurants or even the temples, the queues are an integral ethical process every citizen must follow.
Unfortunately, people are usually not seen following the queue theory which often creates a problem in providing optimal services. Queues at places have people who are rebelliously passionate about being fair and getting in between is more or less made to look like a crime committed which usually leads to all sorts of fights and frictions.
Well, queues usually define a clear relationship between the time you arrive and when you receive the service. First come, first serve protocol is followed to maintain the same but often this protocol is not followed by some citizens.
It is not uncommon to find servants or drivers queuing at the electricity board offices, paying the bills of their employees; similarly, superiors in an institutional hierarchy, such as officers or executives may send underlings to line up, evading the queues.
The process is highly regimented but there are times when the approach to queuing seems unethical by queue jumpers who easily commit indiscipline acts. Some people don’t mind holding someone else’s spot in a queue – especially if this someone is their friend or relative and this is usually observed at the banks.
“Usually at the banks, the queues cannot be easily deceived but there are spot holders who help their friends and relatives get along in the line by saving a spot for them at the banks which cuts their time but is also unfair for the others who have been waiting in the queue since a long time.
Such voluntary practices are also objected by the bank authorities when brought to notice”, says Krutika Purab, branch service partner at Yes bank. Railway stations and bus stands are havoc only because the queuing theory could never be followed religiously there.
The everyday scenario is people pushing and climbing to get on board, irrespective of the fact that anybody could be injured. “I travel to Mumbai everyday from the Nashik Road station and it is really a fuzzy scenario every morning.
In spite of making a queue to get in, people prefer pushing each other”, says Jayant Desai who is an everyday railways traveller. Time being valuable to everybody one must also understand the importance of being in queue.
Even at the petrol pumps, it is observed people are impatiently honking rather than waiting for their chance to arrive. It is generally frustrating to get along lengthy queues but it should also be in our ethics to follow the rules and regulations set for us to follow.
The queuing phenomenon has a great impact on the society as it helps in efficient results on the quality and productivity of the service and human mankind. The wrong attitude of saving time and competition is more than the absence of discipline and civility which makes room for such practices. This sense of civility should be inculcated in every citizen for a smooth functioning of the city.
