Fear of Lines

This will be a short post because I just want to highlight a weird phenomenon that is occurring everywhere.

Shoppers don't like lines. I'm not talking about the "Oh man," sigh of just my luck; I'm talking about the anger and non-patience that a two-year-old exhibits when they don't get what they want.

The example: Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the busiest shopping day of the year, the lines are out the door in the whole mall. People shop and after they get out of their world they look up and realize that the line is long. Here comes the tantrum: they walk to the back of the line where an employee is bringing up the rear. The shopper asks how long will the line be. The employees says we are doing the best we can to make sure the line moves quickly and efficiently. The shopper, I have never seen anything like this and the lacking ability to help customers. The shopper drops the bag and walks out.

Really? You shop on the busiest shopping day of the year and you don't expect lines. The best part about all of this is that I've seen people do this when we have ten people in line and there are three registers open, taking less than two minutes with each customer.

The math: wait is five minutes.