Waiting in Line Across Cultures
Waiting in line works in different ways across the world : Different societies, of course, exhibit different queuing cultures, according to sociologist David R. Gibson of Princeton University. Here are some of Gibson’s observations, anecdotal and otherwise: * “The Brits are famous for their lines Southern Europeans much less so.” * “A friend from Israel tells me that Israelis fall into the queuing-challenged category.” * “Sometimes there are other procedures for determining who gets served first. I once had a student from Pakistan who told me that in mixed-sex lines, women get served first … and old men second, out of respect for their seniority.” * “In high school lunch lines social status, especially tied to athleticism, sometimes trumps order of arrival.” This may seem like a more inconsequential social norm but people spend a lot of time waiting in line. I remember being struck by the waiting in line procedure for the BART in San Francisco. Unlike Chicago where th...
