Checkout Queues

[bimsey]

Why is it when you join the shortest checkout queue you are still waiting when all the others are finished and gone.

[sft42]

This is an example of Murphy Law at work.Why Toast always land butter side down? Why does it always rain when you've just washed the windows? why does the phone ring when you've just got comfy in the bath? as noted you really only notice these things when they go against you not all the other times the phone doesn'r ring or it doesn't rain.

[geofbob]

The classic example of this phenomenon is that a lost object is always found in the "last place you look". Of course it is, as you stop looking once you've found it.

[lisaj]

geofbob > I used to suffer from this really badly when looking for a CD. Now I simply decide the order I'm going to search them in, eg. left to right, and then grab the last one. Works every time!

[lisaj]

bimsey > Have a look at what people in a queue are like. Avoid checkout queues with : dippy staff on the till (inevitable), the elderly, mothers with small children or pushchairs, luncheon vouchers, large quantities of fruit & veg, large trolleys (obviously), and people who still insist on paying by cheque, despite the fact that their compulsory guarantee card could have been used much quicker by itself. At the end of all this, you'll avoid food shopping, and only do it online, or eat out!

[PhilLew]

Sorry to be picky sft42 it's not Murphy's law it's Sod's law. Murphy's law is that any job of work will expand to fill the time allowed for it.......God, I sound like Spellmaster...sorry

[sft42]

Well sorry to argue philLew but according to the book Murphy's Law Complete the definition is as follows "The principle that whatever can possibly go wrong will" If anyone is interested Murphy was a real person who worked at Edwards air force base in the US in 1949.

[Welshwizard]

Spot on, Murphy was one of a team of mechanics who basicly did everything wrong causing all sorts of problems. He was fired and from then on every time something went wrong the mechanics would call it murphys law... With regards to the checkout ques, if the staff see that there is a long que, they rush to make it smaller again, the longer they take the longer it's going to be before they get a break. If the que is small, whats the point in rushing???

[Leg of lamb]

You're probably in the queue with parents and children. They take forever and they do it deliberately because they only have a short walk to the "parent & child" parking bay. Take their car spaces, that will hurry the blighters up.

[evolution]

Yes Wildwood, its called pessimism, 'A tendency to stress the negative or unfavorable or to take the gloomiest possible view'. I think we're all prone to a little of this syndrome now and again! Bimsey, why don't you do a little survey and actually count the number of times this queue thing happens to you vs the number of times it doesn't. Just a little diagnostic tool for the 'pessimism syndrome'.