Cafes should have 2 lines...

Snide agism is uneccessary

Oh Yes! I think it's another form of complete lack of awareness. Surely it's common sense that if you're in a huge queue, you try to be served as quickly as possible and not faff around chit chatting or asking unimportant questions and be prepared such as having your card/cash etc ready in your hand.

@Badbadbunny God yes.

Recently DH and I were at the monthly Sunday market in our town. A very popular event, especially close to Christmas. There was a stall where a man was selling his charcuterie and this was very popular and had a long queue. However, we liked the look of his stuff so joined the queue.

It soon became apparent that the queue was slow moving because:
a. There was only one man serving
b. Although some of his produce was pre-packaged a lot had to be cut and weighed to order, e.g. air dried hams off the bone, big spools of sausage where you could buy just as many as you wanted.

The woman in front of us, when it was her turn, then decided to engage him in conversation to show off what a knowledgeable foody she was about exactly what she was going to use it for (a carbonara), what other types she had tried last time she was in South West France, exactly where he had trained and blah, blah, blah.

FGS woman, you have just queued for nearly 20 minutes like the rest of us, why do you think it is OK to make everyone behind you wait even longer while you show off?

Slow and fast lanes don't work with roads! There's always somebody pootling along in the fast lane at 20 mph less than the speed limit, while a huge queue develops behind them and others overtake on the inside

I want two lines in all cafes. One for people who bothered to look at the menu and decide what they wanted to order before they got to the till and one for those who didn't.

There's a cafe near me that's nice in theory but only seems to employ barely trained teenagers who take forever to do anything and don't appear to have any initiative. Hence long lines of frustrated customers.

Recently, their coffee machine broke, and rather than announcing the fact to the waiting customers, they spent ages taking other orders (very slowly), faffing about and telling nobody about the lack of coffee. I did feel a bit sorry for them, but the whole thing was a fiasco really.

I had this effect just by it being Christmas. I'd been posting parcels one at a time all year with no queue in our tiny local PO, & then at Christmas a woman ran in in front of me with carrier bags full of parcels destined for different countries & faffed around making a big palaver of the whole thing. So there should be two queues at the PO, too: one for people doing one simple, quick thing & one for people with bags of parcels & people who want to do complicated stuff without a clue or the relevant documents.

🤗👍🏻

More machines, as pp said.
Or a design whereby at least 5 could be made at one time.

Think there's a lot to be said for this. I worked in a city centre bar and then later a local country pub. You could time the drinks service in the latter on a sundial...

Thrice yes! I have the palate of a four year old, with a queueing ability to match. I just want a pop and a sandwich and to sit down and have a lovely time.

Why isn’t there a more efficient way of moving queues along in coffee shops? Would more machines help? A conveyor system when one staff member did one bit of it and another did the next?

I somehow always end up behind the faffers at the post office or bakery. Both are small shops so queues quickly spill out onto the street.

They have two counters each, but it only takes one particularly needy person to cause a log-jam.

The latest one was (at the post office) a woman trying to open a bank account without any ID, and she wasn't having it that she needed it, and then at the bakery a family who all had to individually faff back and forth along the counter choosing a damn cake.

It’s an odd USP, isn’t it, making the experience so off putting that people are scared to come in and buy your product.

Re. Airport faffing - I seem to unintentionally be ones of these every time! It would help if the rules were consistent - instead of suddenly asking me to remove (lace up) shoes after letting everyone in front of me through with them on.

I think a lot of it is down to the training of the baristas, though.

In big cities where they have long queues first thing in the morning for coffee, it’s served so fast that you’ve barely had time to pay before it’s whacked onto the counter and off you go.

Outside those places, the baristas seem to have a very leisurely approach, even when they think they’re being quick. I really think that as part of their training, they should have to do a fortnight in some central city location so that they learn to get their skates on when people are waiting.

It doesn't really.
Nor does using "milk" that is not dairy, or decaf coffee, or even squirting a bit of cream on.
The cold frappe ones are the ones that take slightly longer.

The main issue generally seems to be people who can't decide, or baristas who drift around and don't multi task, or having one person/one machine making drinks whilst another takes orders far faster than drinks can be made!

About queuing in banks (so rather a vintage text), but the same problem: Richard Brautigan’s “Complicated Banking Problems” (from “Revenge of the Lawn”)

Edit: Well, similar. Apart from the skeleton, probably.

Brilliant ideas. Love the idea of some kind of "being organised" loyalty card scheme to jump the queues of the terminally disorganised.

I missed the first wave of the Subway trend so I’m now too scared to go in because I don’t understand it.

Good lord. Have you been attending a 'Hilariously arch, snarky internet posting for beginners' class?

If your time is so important that you can't be held up from your urgent walk, perhaps you should make your own coffee and take it with you. I'll have my coffee however I like it, thanks. I can't have cow's milk, so the server might have to get a whole other carton out of the fridge

Oh Yes! I think it's another form of complete lack of awareness. Surely it's common sense that if you're in a huge queue, you try to be served as quickly as possible and not faff around chit chatting or asking unimportant questions and be prepared such as having your card/cash etc ready in your hand.

I remember once in a very long queue for the car hire desks at an airport. We were stood in it for over an hour and it was moving glacially slowly. Maybe each person taking 10-15 minutes to pick up the keys and sign the paperwork etc. When it got to my turn, I had the paperwork in one hand, credit card in the other hand, and I was dealt with within around 2 minutes. That was because I was prepared and wasn't asking a hundred and one questions and had pre-researched the various insurance options so didn't need it all explaining to me as it was already clearly explained on their website.

Same in our post office, it's super easy to look online at the Royal Mail website to see the options re speed, tracking, sizing, etc., so when I take a parcel/letter, I know exactly what I want, ask for it, and am in and out in a minute or two. Yet sometimes, stuck behind people who've not got a clue and need every permutation of options explained to them in detail, often requiring repeating when they forget! It's all on the website you muppet! Fair enough for older people who may not have the internet, but younger people do it it - the ones who are glued to social media on their phones and who could easily google for the best option beforehand.

This is very true but some of us hate coffee but still like cafes (cause it’s somewhere to socialise with someone and also: cake).

How about a 1 minute queue? If your order will take less than 1 minute (assuming staff engagement), you join that queue. If your order takes longer but you joined that queue, you pay double (or, better, you pay for the person behind).

Airports I would have a loyalty scheme. You get a stamp on your card for every time you are well organised, when you have 4 stamps you get to go to a special area for organised people.
Or as they have it some places, everyone is sidelined into a "get organised" area and when you are ready, you take your position in the queue rather than approaching the security area and then deciding you need to take off all your clothes. The organised could just bypass that area.

Subway, well, I'm a bit scared of Subway.

lol, so bizarre cleaning the nozzle and making sure it’s hygienic ey 😂. Ya’ll need a party tonight on this thread, loosen up

I'm fairly sure Jesus had hot chocolate with cream on top... It says in the bible

Everywhere should have two lines - one for people who’s first day on earth is today, the other for normal people