A few weekends ago, Mr & Mrs Kong went for a mini shopping trip to get some things in town and ended up at a sports shop looking for swimming goggles for Mr Kong as his were leaking like a sieve.
There was a long queue for the cashier as there was only 1 cashier open but the staff finally twigged that more customers should = more cashiers open.
Mr Kong arrived with his goggles in hand as the new cashier opened so in that situation, what would any rational person with half a brain do –
- Join the looooong queue of people
- Join the newly opened cashier
B of course!!! And that’s what Mr Kong did but suddenly there was a shout & looking up he saw a red faced guy shouting “No, no, no – you cannot jump the queue like that!” and dragging not HIMSELF but the person in front of him to the new cashier.
This dude was quite bewildered by it all but happily went in front. At this point, Mr Kong was too shocked to protest but after a couple of seconds, fired back with the logical point that it was not ‘jumping’ the queue as it was a totally new queue.
Unable to calmly & logically challenge this statement, the man just went “Aahh, forget it” and went back to his own queue where his by now embarrassed wife was waiting.
Mrs Kong also made the good point that if the guy was that anxious to save himself 5 minutes by barging into the new line, he could but I think by that time he had given up.
The moral of the story and a lesson for visitors to
Don’t mess with the English and their queues and their unknown, illogical ‘Rules of Queuing’.
To be fair though, the Malaysian style ‘queue’ which in other parts of the world might be called a free for all / mad rush / riot is not the ideal either…
1 comment:
I'll have to say that i don't like the malaysian way of q-ing in the restroom where you q in front of the toilet stall u want as opposed to q-ing for the next available toilet stall!
-rachel-
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