The culture of queuing in UK is so powerful that many British suffer a real cultural shock by “asking for the time”

“The other day I go to the post office and everyone is sitting everywhere, in a corner of the room, etc … there is no tail.” So explained The British Tiktoker @edwardthelife What for him is “one of the greatest greatest cultural differences: the fact that in Spain” is asked at the same time. “

And it may seem an exaggeration, but (in the light of comments) it makes sense: “An English, even being alone, will form an orderly tail of a person,” said George Mikes and Check the anthropologist Kate Fox: The British loves to queue each other. Or, at least, they have them so within their cultural conception of the world that they make them by default, almost without realizing it.

But does it make sense?

The theory of tails. As it seemsthe first serious mathematical study on the queues was made by a Danish, Agner Krarup Erlang. His intention was to know how to dimension the telephone switches to attend optimally. At that time, the operators had to manage the calls manually and the intention of the Danish mathematician was how to reduce the queues without spending disproportionate.

Since then we have learned a lot of interesting things. For example, now we know that common sense (the solution to bottles is to expand the number of lanes) It doesn’t always work. In the case of roads, for example, there is an optimal number for a certain amount of cars: if the number of lanes above that optimal lanes is wide, cars change too much lane and, in the end, the flow becomes slower.

But in this case the two are tails, right? Indeed, the fundamental difference between the “English tail” (to call it in some way) and the “Spanish time” (to call it from another) is not that one is a tail and the other does not, but the rules that govern each one. The second, in fact, is still a social/virtual order without physical training.

The English, requiring that all members physically make a line, allows us to better ponder the number of people in front of them. The Spanish, having verbal control, allows people to do things in the meantime (or to wait in more comfortable places).

Is there any better than another? From what we know about virtual tails, order without physical formation usually Improve satisfaction of users (to the extent that you release the client from “being planted”). However, this system also encourages abandonment more than the other.

That is why, when I wait for her It is not too long And therefore release user time does not make sense, a single long row (especially if there are several homogeneous attention positions) It usually favor the feeling of equity.

ANDSa may be the most reasonable explanation. Because, in Spain, there are also physical tails. It is when the wait is long or when the physical space does not allow to create a tail easily when “asking for the time” emerges naturally.

So I suppose that whoever has to take note of the Tiktoker comments is the mail itself. Most likely, neither space nor the time of waiting is the most recommended.

Image | Xiangkun Zhu

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