Question:
Hi fellow seniors, do you have the patience to stand in a queue?
anonymous
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Hi fellow seniors, do you have the patience to stand in a queue?
38 answers:
-
2012-05-04 06:40:48 UTC
I don't remember turning away at store because I didn't want to stand in line, before I started working in a store I would save up my shopping at the busier stories for a couple weeks or longer and made it worth my while, and also shopped during the less busy part of the day after I retired from my other job. The problem where I work is that there is a constant turnover of new employees, especially cashiers, they get trained and half of them are gone within a few weeks and the process is repeated. The younger employees also have a bad habit of calling in "sick" on the days they know will be busy, around any holiday, weekends or the first of the month, as many as a third of them will do that because they don't plan on staying much longer.



Shopping for food to make a meal wasn't an easy thing while I was visiting Morocco, first the veggies would need to be bought at a green-grocer, spices or beans, macaroni, rice, etc. at another stall, meat at a butcher, and dairy products at a little tiny convenience-type store. At least 4 places and a lot of walking outside and standing in little lines. Coming back to the U.S. and getting all my shopping done at one place was a very easy experience regardless of the lines, I'd hear customers sigh, moan and complain and think they didn't know how easy they had it.
anonymous
2012-05-04 09:07:58 UTC
Cashier Number 2 please, Cashier Number 5 please !

How I hate to find myself in shops with this repetitive

line.



The local Wilkinsons has this system. Your stood in the

queue, your making your way to the blessed till and still

the cashier presses the message button.



Queue's years ago were friendly places, you learned all

about Mrs. Hargreaves corns, Mr Thomson's lumbago,

but nowadays, you stand as do most other people, not

making eye contact, grimly holding your purchases or

heavy basket, and wondering how you might get out of

the shop.

No Lily, I do not like queue's these days. It appears that

shops open less tills and make you wait longer.



I was once in Sainsbury's in a long queue, and just as

it was my turn, the checkout person, it was a spotty

youth with a face like half a pomegranate, decided that

it was time for his tea- break.



I had put all of my shopping on the conveyer, some thirty

or more items, and he was not going to serve me. I said

that normally you put up a little board which say's This Till

is Now Closed. He replied that he could not find one, and

he was closing. So I said, Well when you have finished your

tea, you can put all of this shopping back on the b****y shelves

and started to walk out. A supervisor came rushing after me

and said that she would serve me, but by then I had lost

all interest and left the store.



Bring back the old style grocery store with a couple of chairs

and a big ginger cat that wandered around the counter.

We got served properly then.
Phil Trum
2012-05-04 03:16:11 UTC
I didn't like standing in queues when I was younger (some people will wait for an extended period of time for a table in a restaurant, not me) and find it intolerable now.

That is one of the great pleasures of being a retired senior: I stay close to home on the weekends when more people are out and about (and in queues) and do my running around during the week when others are at work. From 9:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m I can go just about any place and not have to deal with long queues.
anonymous
2012-05-04 06:53:22 UTC
Normally I have the patience of a saint but avoid long queues like the plague.



Once, while on an mission to the bank for an employer there wasn't much choice but to join a queue so long it extended into the street. By the time I reached the front I was bored stiff, yawning my head off and worse, forgot what I was queueing for. Fortunately my memory lapse provided a little light relief for the people behind me and also drew attention to the length of the queue. Within seconds a couple more windows were opened. Somehow I can't see a quick response to adding the extra staff happening today
?
2012-05-04 05:07:09 UTC
I have spent quite a few years in Germany, and remember talking one night over a stein or two, with a group of older Germans and the subject of the British obsession with queueing came up.



One said "You only have to stop to look in a shop window, and before you know it, there are twenty people behind you standing in a line" It is quite a joke over there.



Personally, I never join a queue that is so long that I won't live long enough to reach the checkout.



Changing queues is fatal, as the short one you join always includes one at the front that takes root, whilst the one you have just left goes through like a rat up a drainpipe.



Many times, having reached a frenzy or frustration, I have just dumped my basket on the floor and walked out. Nothing is worth queueing for.



But I'm just a miserable old git anyway.
Laurence
2012-05-05 10:57:09 UTC
Staff reductions are making queues longer everywhere. The line to go through airport security is often much longer at Newark NJ than the one for immigration at Heath Row, As I live in the east of England I usually travel via Holland, and then take the ferry from the Hook: Schiphol airport is so much better organised. One waits on the telephone for the Income Tax, either British or American, longer than either. As for supermarkets, I use Waitrose or Sainsbury and avoid Tesco. A situation I find even more infuriating is when I travel from Paddington on the line to Cheltenham: they avoid even the possibility of a queue by only announcing the departure platform a couple of minutes before departure, so one waits around the departure notice board and then when the announcement comes up, makes a mad dash with all the other passengers, but it is only with this particular service: all other departure platforms are announced anything up to twenty minutes before depature. I once arrived at Victoria station to find the Underground on strike, so I queued for a taxi, for 60 minutes: I could have walked to my destination (Liverpool Street) in 50 minutes!
?
2012-05-04 09:25:55 UTC
I have no patience at all for queues but sometimes I just have to, but I am tutting away to myself all the time and cursing under my breath.



The worst place is my local Spar supermarket. They have a notice above each check-out saying - Please form a queue at each check-out. But every time I am there, all these stupid people are forming one long queue up the aisle, then when they get to the top of the queue they go to the first available check-out.



One time I walked straight up to a free check-out when there was a queue and I thought I was going to be lynched lol. The guy who was first in the queue told me off and said there was a queue. I pointed to the notices and said if they were in Asda or any other supermarket, they wouldn't just form one long queue, so why do they do it in Spar? The assistant actually served me and said I was in the right, but they weren't allowed to get involved.



I'm afraid I am too much of a coward though, and don't want to get shouted at again, so I am still one of those stupid people standing in the one long queue.
Milton
2012-05-04 04:29:29 UTC
It doesn't matter if I have the patience. The issue isn't patience. It is common sense. If the product or service is one I need, I have to put up with the wait. If it is not, I do not. I will not wait in line for a free sample. I will wait in line for a bus going where I need to go. There is also the element of time that alters the length of the queue. I go food shopping early in the morning on a slow day of the week and I lessen the queue. I do not go to a store that is having a big annual sale. That is asking for a line of immense proportions.
abcdef
2012-05-04 03:43:09 UTC
I find as I get older, I seem to have more patience for standing in line, although I think 40 minutes to buy stamps is unreasonable and I'd probably have given up fairly soon. Here in Canada we have Costco where people usually buy in bulk. I usually only buy a few items (there's no fast line). I try to go when I know there won't be a lot of people. Yesterday I was in a long line up there and struck up a conversation with a very nice lady. The time went by quickly. I'm always pleasant to the cashier because it's not her fault (they're all women) and I find that people are pleasant to me. So, standing in line is just part and parcel of modern living. Life doesn't need to be a rush all the time.

Good luck.
anonymous
2012-05-04 04:16:01 UTC
Sod's Law: Whichever queue I join at the checkout regardless of it's length it will always end up being the slowest.

Have you ever been 'smart' enough to join the shortest queue having seen that the person in front only has 2 items only to find that when they get to the checkout the price tag is missing and the checkout girl/guy can't get an assistant to go find the price or the customer has forgotten to bring their purse?

Or it's time for the checkout girl/guy's break and you have to wait for the changeover.

And then you get the customer that, having been processed, takes forever loading their bags or they know the checkout girl/guy and spend five minutes (well, it seems like five minutes) chatting.



And when it's eventually your turn it's frenzied activity trying to load as fast as they scan.



I have a secret weapon. I let my wife do the shopping. O.k., I know it's sexist and I know it's unfair but sometimes you just have to be selfish.





We've given up going abroad on holiday because we can't stand the interminable airport delays and patience is one virtue I was never endowed with
Marilyn T
2012-05-05 01:30:45 UTC
I always do my morning yoga before heading out in public, it is my cure for insanity.

I can usually wait my turn unless I notice something really stupid going on that just makes people wait for no good reason.

I agree the Tesco stores are a real pain in the you know what.

I don't know how it works in the UK Tesco stores but here in Hungary the whole set up is so lame it drives me insane even if I have done 2 hours of yoga first.

The deal here is the clerks do not bag for you, you must do it yourself and either bring your own bags or buy some from the clerk.

When we ask for bags,the clerks usually are very slow in giving them out while the food items are collecting and not being bagged. I hate waiting there knowing I should be bagging them up but the clerk is slow.

On top of that they do not for some insane reason have a practical way of delivering the items to the end of the counter so that you can reach them without showing off your bottom or having to half way climb up onto the counter. I must always ask my husband to help push the items down the belt so I can reach them and keep bagging.

The Tesco store also does not have a device to separate customers items from each other. If the person in front of you is slow then you have to wait until they have finished bagging to be able to even start bagging your goods.

I usually am bagged long before my husband has paid the bill but I am a speedy person and if possible have my bags sorted and ready for action.

This way of shopping is new to me but I have adjusted quickly and really can't understand how people here raised with difficult shopping methods haven't learned yet what they are doing.

I suppose it goes back to the old "American Way' of taking on a challenge and doing something about it.

People here just go along with the same old way and don't change much even if the changes would improve things.

I am starting to take great pride in my grocery packing abilities, my new art form, packing cold items, bottles and paper products like a real box boy.

The thing that gets me here is the prices on food and other items are not so cheap here, unemployment is high and they could be doing a service to both the public and to the economy if they would hire baggers in these big stores.

At banks, utility co. and other sorts of offices you are given a no. and just wait your turn while sitting or even leaving the building for a bit until your no. comes up. That is a practical way to do some things, it is the food stores that are not practical here at all.

All I can say is shopping in the US is a dream compaired to shopping in Hungary.

In the Us if you get home and find the product not to your satisiaction almost every store will let you return the item something even without the recite.

For get that in Hungary, even if you just paid for it and change your mind you are stuck with it.

If you ask any clerk for anything like change for the trolley to be able to shop at all they will give you a bad attitude and might even tell you they can't give you change even if they are free, God help you if you interrupt them while they are talking to another clerk or reading abook.( No customer service here at all)

So rude here.

You mst also double check your recite as some stores are known to double charge or not to give the sale prices on items, some sort of scam where the clerks share the profits for overcharging at the end of the day.

We have had several words with some clerks, yesterday is fact I went into a Lidel store by myself and saw a sale price on chips, when I got the the counter, I didn't get the posted sale price.

Often the stores even the Tesco store will leave up outdated sale prices and you are surprised when you check out, they just say sorry but don't give you the sale price, very misleading and sometimes expensive. These sorts of business practices would never fly in the US.

We have several store that we now boycott because of poor service or rip off pricing.

Not sure what we will do when we run out of stores, our list is getting very short.
Diana
2012-05-04 03:09:55 UTC
Happy Friday Lily! My patience is not great for standing in line (queue). But I hate to shop, so when I do go to a store it's because I REALLY need something. So I have no recourse but to stand in line. As far as airport security lines, I love to travel so I will put up with that because of the anticipation of what lies at the end of my journey. All in all, it depends on why I'm in line as to how much patience I have.
Harley Lady
2012-05-07 08:50:35 UTC
I try to do all my shopping in the middle of the night now, because I can't stand waiting in lines anymore. Thank God for 24 hour stores! But, if I am traveling or happen to be somewhere else that requires me to stand in a line for a period of time, I do medication. I don't know what has happened to me......I always liked crowds when I was younger!
?
2012-05-04 02:47:42 UTC
I am ever less patient, especially if they want my money and it is for things I can buy elsewhere.



I can't carry stuff easily so I tend to use a trolley in supermarkets, even for a few things. In my local Sainsburys I queued for a while with my trolley containing 12 items at a 'quick till' with a 14 item limit. Once I started putting my shopping on the conveyor belt, the till operator loudly said this was a quick till for up to 14 items. I said I had fewer than 14 but she said she thought it looked more than that so I told her Sainsburys could keep all 12 items and walked out, leaving my fresh fish and meat on the conveyor belt. That was 18 months ago and I haven't been back since.



If a shop wants my money, they had better make it easy for me to spend it!
Monny
2012-05-04 02:42:32 UTC
I am not a senior citizen but wish to answer.

I frequently walk away and leave my shopping.

Yesterday I wanted to buy stamps but wasn't prepared to queue for what probably would have been 40 minutes in the post office. Very frustrating !

The problem is under staffing - profit counts for more than customer satisfaction these days.
!truth!
2012-05-04 08:51:12 UTC
That really depends on how important to one why one will be standing in line for. I have gone to a grocery store to pick up a couple of items but when I went to check out there was a long line, so I just left my items on a counter and walked away.
ChemoAngel
2012-05-04 03:07:17 UTC
On any Other day but Black Friday, or when people have more than the amount suggested in the Less than 10 items grocery line. It's quite frustrating to stand in line behind a carriage full of food when you only have 1 item! They really need more cash registers open.
anonymous
2012-05-04 04:14:02 UTC
I honestly don't mind waiting in line for most anything, because where else have I got to go? It does seem silly, though, when places like Walmart only have two or three attended check-outs on a busy day. The self-checks are fine, but not always practical.
?
2012-05-04 15:27:08 UTC
Yes, I stay and wait as I certainly would not want to waste the time I placed in shopping! I usually strike up a conversation with people around me and this makes the time go faster.
?
2012-05-06 18:22:21 UTC
When in the U.S. Navy I stood 4 hour Quarterdeck/Mid-ship Brow watches, and stood in chow lines that sometimes took up most of my meal break. I've sat in sick bays for a LONG, LONG time to be told I need to see someone else.

No big deal anymore. I have always taken a book with me where ever I go...Post Office, dentist, physician....

LATER: Today I went to the Navy pharmacy to pick up my wife's meds and sat for 45 minutes...READING. Then only got 1 of 4....it was too soon to pick up 3...have to wait until June.
anonymous
2012-05-04 05:59:32 UTC
I love queues when I'm in a chatty mood. People can't get away when they're next to you in a queue.



I do have a queue strategy, which involves many systematic choices.
?
2012-05-04 09:07:43 UTC
We have what we call here ''The express Lane''. I call it the express to no where. Some stores I have heard limit the items to 12 items or less. O nce you hit the 12 items the register will automatically stop and add the total. That puts a stop to miss use.
gee bee
2012-05-04 14:58:02 UTC
I always carry my Kindle around with me and can always get back to the book I'm reading while standing in line, so it never bothers me.
Bilbo
2012-05-04 02:38:57 UTC
No - if the shop can't be bothered to staff the checkouts adequately I can't be bothered to wait. I go elsewhere. (Life is getting too short)



Tesco is one of the worst culprits - and they wonder why their profits are going down the pan.
LeRoy
2012-05-04 09:02:17 UTC
If the reward is worth it, why not? I have plenty of time on my hands and many a good conversation has been struck up while waiting with your fellow sufferers.
?
2012-05-04 03:46:59 UTC
It depends, if it is at the liquor store I will wait a mighty long time if I have to....(Where I live there aren't enough liquor stores.) But if it is at the grocers I tend to lose patience easily.
SavvySue
2012-05-04 04:20:45 UTC
Not much. It seems stores are trying to save money by having less check out clerks.
?
2012-05-04 04:36:00 UTC
I do my shopping during off peak hours in order to avoid long lines.Plus self serve check out is wonderful.
June smiles
2012-05-04 08:54:59 UTC
I used to have patience for it, but now it causes my back to hurt too much to be able to stand for long.
anonymous
2012-05-04 02:41:15 UTC
It all depends on how good looking the patient I am standing with is.

If you are a real honey doll, I could stand in line with you all day!
jessieblue
2012-05-04 09:30:21 UTC
I got sick of the the line up a while back , so use he scanner myself , much quicker
ROXY
2012-05-04 03:14:23 UTC
If I really have to ,I will, but I have been known to flounce out.leaving a trolley full of groceries behind.
daisy
2012-05-04 09:57:29 UTC
I don't mind at all, but then, I do not live or shop in big cities.
marcus VI
2012-05-04 13:29:57 UTC
More often than not, I do. A lot of the time I'm in no hurry !
anonymous
2012-05-04 03:17:36 UTC
Yes, I can I usually find someone to talk to.
KENNETH D
2012-05-07 11:09:39 UTC
yes I have plenty of time
jonds
2012-05-04 06:20:19 UTC
There is no waiting where I live.
?
2012-05-04 02:38:46 UTC
HAHA this is such a random question, well i always use to wait


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...