A bank has two cash machines (seperated by the bank’s entrance). The queue for one is quite long. The queue for the other is just two people. Which queue do you join.
Me, first thinking the short-queue machine must be out of cash (the software is badly designed, so it doesn’t tell you it’s out of cash until you put your card in) head for the long queue, but then an afterthought reminds me that people are stupid and could quite possibly be making that same ‘mistake’ (and thus joining the longest queue)*. This afterthought causes me to aprahensively join the short queue (but I make a note of appearing to be merely ‘checking’ the machine to see why it’s queue is so short)
Sure enough the short-queue machine is out of money.
So, standing in the long queue I observer person-after-person go to the short (or no) queue machine, some switching to the long queue, others, oblivious to the existence of another machine, walking off in a huff.
Are we stupid or just cynical about the stupidity of others?
[sub]*In my defence, I have been in a situation in the past where a long queue developed simply because the people in it assumed there was something wrong with the machine (in this case an ATM and cashier) with the short queue. In that case My guess that this assumtion was wrong was correct. It is this life experience that caused the afterthought in the above text[/sub]
I’ve noticed this too, so it’s not just a product of Lobsang’s twisted psyche. Imagine that you’ve just walked up to the ATM point to get some of your hard earned so you can buy shoes for the kids or a much needed drink, depending on your situation and priorities. Because the bank is alive to the large number of people passing this particular location, and keen to charge as many of them as possible for access to their own money, it has provided not one but two ATMs in order to process more customers more quickly. However, something appears to be amiss: one machine has no or very few people queuing for it; the other has a long line of impatient and frustrated people shifting from foot to foot and tutting when the person at the machine takes longer than 10 seconds to complete the transaction. The question is whether you[list=a]
[li]join the short queue[/li][li]join the long queue or[/li][li]flit between the two like an indecisive hummingbird[/li][/list]
It depends if you think that people are basically sheeplike and will simply join the long queue without checking if there’s a good reason (such as ATM malfunction) not to join the short queue or that people are smart enough to check, therefore the ATM is bust and you might as well trust their judgement and get in line.
I usually try the short queue, find the ATM’s bust and then watch other people do the same thing, thinking to myself “Sheesh, of course it’s malfunctioning - do you think we’re all idiots?” Which I admit is a less than rational position.
There are those who will assume something’s wrong with the other ATM and join the long line. There are others who will doublecheck the machine for themselves before joining the long line. And then there are those who will stand there kicking the empty ATM and insisting that it give them the cash that they want.
In my misspent youth, me and my friends would often play on this tendancy by standing outside doorways looking impatient. More often than not, people approaching would stand and wait with us, assuming the door was locked/store was closed/etc. It was always a hoot to see the expression on their face when someone of a non-sheepish persuasion would saunter up and pull the door open without a problem. So now, when faced with situations like this, I almost always check to see if there’s really a problem or just a bunch of goofballs waiting around assuming that there is.
The “they must know something I don’t” attitude can backfire, too. Once, while living in Prague, I was walking with a group of about 10 people towards a bus stop. I break out in a slow trot. Those around me assume I must be privy to the bus schedule and that the trot is necessary to ensure making it on time, and trot along with me. I speed up, and my compatriots speed up as well. Pretty soon we’re all racing toward the bus stop in a mad dash, apparently in vital danger of missing the bus. This goes on for several blocks.
When we reach the bus stop, everyone stops, breathing heavily…except me. I keep going. I look back to see everyone’s surprised faces, angry and confused. Geez, not my fault…I wasn’t trying to make the bus, I was just warming up for my evening run!
Just to confuse matters there are two machines where I shop, one on each side of the very wide entrance. They belong to the same bank. I can regularly walk straight up to one while people queue at the other. Sometimes when I pass them I will ask “Do you know there’s another ATM over there?” Invariably someone leaves the queue to use it. I have no idea why one draws a queue and the other doesn’t - they are on the same western wall facing the carpark.
So there I am, at a dollar store in the middle of Nowhere, Mississippi.
The replacement POS that I was supposed to swap with the defective one is also defective. So there I am, trying to make two non-functional POS units into a single functional POS.
I’ve got some tools out, and the guts of both of these systems are spread all over the checkout area. Meanwhile, the only other register in the store has a line stretching as far back as the eye can see.
Then some genius woman comes up and asks, “Is this register open?”.
Maybe she was a short-liner who was so clever she figured out that the mound of circuit boards scattered across the area was just a cunning ruse. Maybe she was just a moron who was so focused on her own particular specialhoodliness that she figured I’d somehow wave my magic screwdriver and check her out anywas.
Make of it what you will
-Joe, short-liner, but not that fucking stupid a short-liner