Whatever Happened to a Good Queue?

There was a time when people knew how to queue. It wasn’t written down anywhere. There wasn’t a government leaflet about it. Nobody needed an app. You simply turned up, found the end of the queue, and stood there. Remarkable, really.

These days, however, the humble queue has descended into complete chaos.

Take the supermarket. You join what appears to be a perfectly respectable line, only for someone to wander over with three items and a look of innocence that fools nobody. Before you know it, they’re hovering somewhere between two queues like a seagull eyeing up an unattended chip. Then, the moment a new till opens, they’re off like an Olympic sprinter.

And don’t get me started on coffee shops. In my day, if you wanted a cup of tea, you queued, ordered, paid, and drank it. Now people stand around staring at menus the size of encyclopaedias, debating the merits of oat milk versus almond milk as though they’re negotiating a peace treaty.

Airports are even worse. The gate isn’t open yet, but half the passengers are already standing in a queue. Why? The plane isn’t leaving without you. Your seat number has been allocated. Yet there they stand, clutching their boarding passes with all the urgency of people escaping a sinking ship.

The real problem is that queueing used to be a social contract. We all understood the rules. No pushing in. No pretending you were “just with him.” No sending your entire family to join one person who’d been waiting for two minutes.

A good queue is a thing of beauty. Fair, orderly, predictable. Everyone knows where they stand, literally and figuratively.

Perhaps that’s why I miss them. In a world that seems increasingly complicated, the queue represented something reassuring. You waited your turn, and eventually you got what you came for.

Mind you, if that fellow in the post office thinks he’s getting served before me because he’s “only got one parcel,” he’s got another thing coming.

How do you feel about queueing? Is it a skill we seem to be losing in this counytry as we see more foreigners joining us who have no history of queueing?

I’d love to see your thoughts in the comment section below.