Not Such Fine Lines

Let’s face it, nobody arrives at the true meaning of the season without waiting in line.

“Everyone rushes, trying to beat the crowd,” says Jeff Lee, 25, manager of the Wherehouse at the MainPlace/Santa Ana, where he is beginning his eighth holiday season as a retailer. “But usually, they end up being the crowd.”

That predicament isn’t limited to the holidays, of course.

Waiting has become the American way, year-round and everywhere--at the store, in our cars and on the phone. Even getting an interview with Richard C. Larson, PhD--the MIT professor whose operations research has made him the country’s preeminent authority on lines--requires a wait. Before calling back, Larson finished teaching a class--about waiting in line.

“It’s not implausible to suggest that we spend a half-hour of every day waiting, and some believe it’s even more,” Larson allows. “Over a lifetime, you’re talking in terms of waiting in line for years.”

Half an hour of waiting a day would translate into one year and 243 days of waiting over an 80-year lifetime. Double that to a full hour a day, and you’ve spent three years and 121 days in line.

In December, it can take that long to get a turn at an ATM.

“Actually, the lines at automated teller machines are among the most civil,” says Chris Cozby, PhD, a professor of social psychology at Cal State Fullerton. “In those situations, people display a very respectful notion of space and privacy. Also, the procedure is a lot clearer than in some other waiting situations.”

The holiday spirit gets testier in traffic jams and department store aisles, at checkout counters and complaint windows as would-be revelers are at a standstill while the season ticks torturously past.

Most people cope civilly, although not without considerable toe tapping, gum snapping, heavy sighing, eye rolling, watch checking, snide remarking and asking to speak with the manager.

Sometimes, however, the exasperation spills over into jostling, arguing, pushing, shoving and worse.

“There gets to be bloodshed, so to speak,” says Jennifer Krueger, 21, of Huntington Beach, a veteran of six holiday seasons at Toys International in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa. “Try to imagine World War III.”

Toy stores are the front lines of the waiting wars. The crusade to find the perfect plaything can resemble medieval combat in the aisles and a POW march at the cash registers.

“People go crazy about things like Beanie Babies and virtual pets,” Krueger says. “Then they go to pay, and they can’t see the end of the line. At that point, some lose their patience.”

The Kay Bee Toy Store chain considers the holiday season so volatile that it has issued a gag order to its employees, prohibiting them to talk to the media.

At Toys International, Krueger contends that diplomatic language can disarm the tension.

“People get angry, but we can usually deal with them with sympathy and logic, pointing out that the wait is rarely longer than 10 minutes,” she says.

“The real challenge is to the employees, who have to deal with this all day, every day. I’m in the middle of training them now, although nothing can really prepare them for it.”

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Danny Berringer, a transplanted New Englander who took a job at Starbucks when he arrived in the Southland, learned during the holiday season that he really wasn’t cut out for making cafe latte for the impatient masses.

“They’d say something rude, and I’d want to climb over the counter and ‘hockey-ize’ them, you know, slam ‘em against the boards, pull their shirts up over their heads and hit ‘em with a bunch of uppercuts,” Berringer says convincingly.

“Maybe it was their attitude; maybe it was the holidays, or maybe it was all that free espresso I was drinking.”

In any case, Berringer quit and took a job at a warehouse.

The waiting can also get weird at department store cosmetics counters. Customers are usually without a specific line to stand in and, thus, on their honor to adhere to a first-come, first-served system. Despite their ostensibly good grooming, they aren’t always on their best behavior.

“They’ll take cuts--oh, yes, they will--especially when it gets hectic,” observes Mary Jane Dyda of Anaheim, who has been selling Clinique products for 10 years, the last three at the Robinsons-May in the Westminster Mall. “Then they get angry with the girls behind the counter when somebody is served out of turn.

“But we can’t see everything and everybody. I try to line them up. But I tell them too that they have to let me know who is next. They have to keep an eye out if it’s going to be orderly.”

Self-policing tactics occasionally leave something to be desired, says another clerk.

“A woman once became so frustrated that she just went wacko, grabbing some perfume and spraying another woman in the face,” she recalled. “The woman who was sprayed gasped and began choking on a cough drop. Before it was all over, we had to call the paramedics.”

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Larson says his files at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are filled with similar examples of people getting out of line, literally and sometimes violently. He contends that a well-devised line--or queuing system, as the experts call it--can alleviate many problems.

“When someone who entered the system after you is served before you, there is the perception of injustice,” Larson says. “Even more problematic, you are going to be angrier about being skipped over than the other person will be happy about slipping by.”

Other contentious situations are created when people bring 11 items to the 10-or-less express lane and when groups place people in more than one line, then move to the line that proceeds fastest. And of course, taking cuts, which is the cruelest of all.

“Depending on your perspective,” says Larson, “this behavior can be considered illegal or even immoral.”

Lack of consideration can get downright dangerous when the traffic coagulates into lines on the roadways.

“There are more rude drivers this time of year, especially around shopping centers,” says Allen Trautloff, a truck driver from Costa Mesa. “They cut across lanes, cut you off and cut in front of other cars, then they give you a little holiday wave as if that makes everything all right.”

Consequently, ‘tis the season for fender-benders and parking tickets, say local traffic cops, not to mention the potential for road rage.

“My advice for the holiday season? Don’t go there! It’s a trap!” jokes Lt. Ron Wilkerson, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff Department. “Please, everybody stay in your homes until we signal all-clear.”

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Reading Between the Lines

Here is some queuing terminology, as supplied by Richard C. Larson of MIT:

Serpentine queues: Single-file lines.

Multiple queues: Several single-file lines for related goods and services from many servers.

Accordion queues: Lines that are served by increasing numbers of servers as they get longer and decreasing numbers of servers as they get shorter.

FIFO: First in, first out.

SIRO: Service in random order.

Queue delay guarantees: The promise of free goods or services if there is a long wait in line.

Queue delay feedback: Information about the length of wait in line, given verbally or by printed or electronic signs.

Balking: Deciding not to join a line, often because it is too long.

Reneging: Leaving a line before getting goods or services.