Why Waiting Is Torture
nytimes.com
Why Waiting Is Torture
1–10 of 49 posts
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#2"Occupied time (walking to baggage claim) feels shorter than unoccupied time (standing at the carousel)".
That is true, since say a 5 minutes traffic jam seems like eternity compared to say 25 minutes of driving. Wonder if we can apply this principle to any situation. For example customer perception of progress in a consulting project is much better when you are hitting all kinds of milestones while developing a feature such as design, prototyping, development, testing, deployment. Ironically if we say we are doing all of those in parallel, it doesn't work very well.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#3I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#4[deleted]
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#5I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
That would be torture
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#6I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
Maybe those restaurants should use people's names instead; on the other hand the article indicates that people like feedback on their wait times. Perhaps people would be happier if they were instead given time estimates that the restaurant could reliably beat.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#7I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
At least processing them linearly gives a reasonable upper bound on the wait time. With random waits, some customers would be processed instantly ("WHY do THEY get to skip the entire line when I'm still sitting here?") and others would never be processed.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#8I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
I'd say that goes directly against one of the theses of the article -- that "uncertainty magnifies the stress of waiting".
The most excruciating waits that I've had to deal with in the last many years are at the Ausländerbehörde here in Germany -- the "foreigners' office". It's the place that you have to go to get a work permit if you're not German.
They use a randomized system. You don't have any idea if you're going to be waiting 10 minutes, 3 hours or even if you'll make it through the line at all before they close for the day. Combined with the stress of the possibility of rejection or missing some critical piece of paperwork, the uncertainty adds a huge amount of cognitive load. Need to go to the bathroom after you've been waiting for an hour? What if they call your number while you're away for 5 minutes? I would love for them to switch to a linear system so that I could produce a ballpark estimate of where I am in the queue.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#9I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
At least processing them linearly gives a reasonable upper bound on the wait time. With random waits, some customers would be processed instantly ("WHY do THEY get to skip the entire line when I'm still sitting here?") and others would never be processed.
I think what the GP meant was that the numbers on the slip would be randomized, but the queue still ordered like a queue with the numbers in some database.
Re: Why Waiting Is Torture
#10I've long thought that those "take a number" queuing systems (commonly used at fast food places) should be random not linear. When someone with a larger number than you gets called first it feels like such an injustice! However, most people wouldn't be the wiser if the numbers were randomized. I bet it would reduce wait time complaints substantially.
The appearance of fairness is often as important as fairness itself. With randomness, you completely destroy that appearance. I'll even bet that a lot of people will make up their own theories about how the tokens are given out ("Oh, that other machine usually gives smaller numbers"). So, my hunch is complaints will actually rise.
Btw, one strategy the article doesn't mention is making queues seem more asynchronous-- this is what Starbucks does when they employ "expeditors", those employees who walk the line and take orders (but not cash). The (partial) success of having ordered your coffee mitigates the agony of waiting to reach the cash register (it also makes people less likely to abandon the line).