Stupid Guest Tricks

I don't get it either. Sometimes in the break room I ask semi-rhetorically if the Guests and Cast Members in question have been to a bank in the last 20 years. :p:

Actually, if there isn't something that suggests that people should form one line for multiple registers, I can understand people making a line for each registers. Now, if there is at least a sign saying to "Form one line here", then one should not try to jump the line, as it were, by forming their own.

That being said, I'm not as annoyed at the Guests who assume that the register with one Party being served somehow has no line (and proceed to stand behind said party. I usually ask, "Are you with them? No? Can I have you join this line over here please?") when the adjacent register has a huge line (I still wonder why they think there's no line in that situation though) as I am with the CMs who let it happen rather than herding the Guests into one line, or worse, *intentionally* having the Guests form another line for no apparent reason.

OK, I just typed all this out and realized it ended up WAY longer than it should be for such a boring queueing story. ;-)

I went to get gas on Thursday after work, at a station attached to a local supermarket. (Cheap gas, made 5-cents cheaper when you have their loyalty card) The station was shoehorned into a small plot of land, with one driveway marked "enter" that looped around to the back, and then a short "exit" driveway, with not a lot of extra maneuvering space. Twelve pumps, no convenience store, just a cashier window.

I'd never seen it totally full before Thursday, and apparently a queueing system had spontaneously formed on the entrance drive (not really sure if it was the intent of the station's designer or not), where the person at the front of the entrance drive stopped, waited for a pump to open, and then drove around to that pump using whichever route was the most-convenient. I was about 4th or 5th in line, and the system went great both before and after me, keeping overall wait times down. That is, until I was partway through pumping...

Some idiot in a pickup at the back of the line kept leaning on his horn, annoyed that people weren't pulling further into the station. Eventually the more-timid people in front of him were bullied into pulling in and around, and from that point on chaos erupted in trying to get to empty pumps. There were people stopped all over the place, blocking the way for people who were done and trying to get to the exit, and others who were waiting longer who had pumps taken by newcomers while they tried to get around to the pump.

A spontaneously harmonious system f***ed up by one impatient a**hole... Grrr!!!! :mad:

What they really need to do is at least post a sign at the front of that entrance lane saying "wait here for next available pump".

And don't get me started on the people who mess up the very intelligently-designed layout of the rest area gas stations on the Massachusetts Turnpike...

-Rob

Freak wrote:Title says it all. I'm not sure why guests do it either. You can have a healthy line going and up comes SG standing completely out of line demanding service.

See now, I always found the opposite true. We'd have four lines open on Small World, two crowded and two with no one in them. The rule for SG's always seemed to be, "if there is a line, get in it, it must be something good" or "that line can't be open because no one is in it."

One day in a much simpler day, when I was young and idealistic, I made a very professional, reasonable plea to the SG's to use all four lines. "Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to It's a Small World. We do have four lines open for your convenience, so please use all four lines."

No one moved. My nose twitched.

My older, wiser and more cynical cast member mate who was with me taking tickets said, "all wrong, you have to communicate on their level."

He steps out in front and in his best Quasimodo imitation begans to speak loudly, unintelligible words and gesticulating wildly with his arms to the open queues.

Well of course they all moved now. I just hadn't understood SG's yet.

It was the drool that did it. :D:

tommy_b wrote: "that line can't be open because no one is in it."

my wife and I got to take advantage of the SG rule stated above at Auntie Gravity's. Lines seemed really long, but the hostess on the end had guests only on one side of her dual laned register. In and out with a couple of smoothies and SG glares.

tommy_b wrote:See now, I always found the opposite true. We'd have four lines open on Small World, two crowded and two with no one in them. The rule for SG's always seemed to be, "if there is a line, get in it, it must be something good" or "that line can't be open because no one is in it."

One day in a much simpler day, when I was young and idealistic, I made a very professional, reasonable plea to the SG's to use all four lines. "Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to It's a Small World. We do have four lines open for your convenience, so please use all four lines."

No one moved. My nose twitched.

My older, wiser and more cynical cast member mate who was with me taking tickets said, "all wrong, you have to communicate on their level."

He steps out in front and in his best Quasimodo imitation begans to speak loudly, unintelligible words and gesticulating wildly with his arms to the open queues.

Well of course they all moved now. I just hadn't understood SG's yet.

They still do it, although we only have 2 lines now. When I'm greeter, I just say there's two lines open and if they don't get into the other line, I figure eventually someone will be smart and do so and then they get rewarded with no line.

lady ulrike wrote:They still do it, although we only have 2 lines now. When I'm greeter, I just say there's two lines open and if they don't get into the other line, I figure eventually someone will be smart and do so and then they get rewarded with no line.

There is also the possibility that one will over-think the situation: "Hmm. No-one is standing in that line. Obviously, there must be a good reason why they aren't, because otherwise someone would stand there so they wouldn't have to wait. So, it must actually not be open."

PatchOBlack wrote:There is also the possibility that one will over-think the situation: "Hmm. No-one is standing in that line. Obviously, there must be a good reason why they aren't, because otherwise someone would stand there so they wouldn't have to wait. So, it must actually not be open."

That's not really over thinking. It is logical thinking. No one wants to leave their current place in line to go to an empty one only to find out that it really is closed and now they have to go to the back of the line. CM's need to go up the the individuals and say..."that line is open now" not just hand gesture or holler from a mile away. People are preoccupied or talking with friends or family and if they were to barge out ahead and find it closed...they would be on the pages of Stupid Guest Tricks the following day.