On the way in to my office this morning, I went to the bank. I normally go into the Commercial Teller Services, take a number, sit down and wait my turn. Depending on the time of the month (not mine!) this can be anything from five minutes to two hours. If I think it looks like it's going to be a two hour wait, I leave and go back the following day. I don't have a great deal of patience!
This morning I had to go to the Customer Services Teller - I say teller because although there are six cubby holes, one is lucky if two are manned!. This means standing in a queue. Sometimes there are several lines snaking around the bank - all starting at different points and each queue is kept 'in line' by a barrier as below:
I have no problem with queue barriers but I have a problem with security guards who make you go all the way round to the entrance of your particular queue barrier when there is no one in the queue to begin with. Just try to unlink the rope or do a quick hop over the rope! Put a person in uniform and they want to rule the world. Not only that! When you come to the end of the queue as in next up, there is a mark on the floor which woebetide you if you so much as put the tip of your pointed 5" heels over!!
So there I was this morning waiting in line. There were nine people in front of me (no number, no seat - just a queue) waiting mostly to conduct foreign transactions which take enormous amounts of time.
Here's my grouse! Not the queue or the long wait but the person behind me. I always leave quite a space between the person in front of me and myself. I am sure they need breathing space as indeed, I do. So why is it that every time I stand in a line, the person behinds me insists on shuffling up and getting as close to me as possible? I take a small step forward and they move with me. The girl behind me today was obviously studying. She was holding a text book and every now and again it jammed into my back at waist level. She was short - very short! I turned to look at her. She did not look up from her book. I sighed a loud sigh. She did not look up from her book but started talking to the book. I know it was the book because she was that close!
At last I was next so I moved up. No one in front of me. She moved with me! I turned and glared. She ignored me. I moved again - out of the barrier zone and over the red line. The teller glared at me! I glared at the teller! "Say something if you dare" I thought. No one dared!
I don't know about you but I believe a distance of three feet between bodies is acceptable when standing in line!
What do you think?
Oh I'm with you on that. The other place I find my personal space invaded is in a crowded elevator where you often have to become more familiar than you care to with the bodies in front and in back, and vice versa (and then there are the men who capitalize on your predicament!).
ReplyDeleteYou know, Bee, you have the perfect weapon - just take a well-placed step back with those 5" stilettoes, and just watch the person give you room after that!
Absolutely, it oughta be a law. Three feet minimum. I don't want to make puppies with some unknown,unwashed in a grocery line. No and giving the evil eye does not work. Actually the 5" stilettoes should do the trick. "Oh, pardon me". Cheers.RD
ReplyDeleteLOL. Totally although to be honest my "touch me if you dare" glare almost always works. I make sure to use it as soon as that person joins the queue and before they step into my space.
ReplyDeleteNo, I certainly don't like strangers in my personal space.
ReplyDeleteI have done some studies on this personal space issue. Generally it is agreed that personal space is 2 feet in any direction. Closer and the encroached upon feels threatened. There are, however, born without a sense of personal space and they will constantly invade yours. So I agree on such instances that the 5 inch heels are a great solution. I have also whirled around quickly pretending I heard my name called and "inadvertently" elbowed those too close.
ReplyDeleteAnd the heel trick works even with hiking shoes if placement is on the arch and not the toes. I also recommend being clumsy and spilling coffee.
But I also want to say the queues in your bank are stupid. All informed organizations having to deal with lines now have one queue and the available clerk or teller calls the next person from the head of that one line. This avoids the feeling of always being in the wrong line. Everything goes faster. Even backwards New Mexico post offices have learned this trick.
i also have a problem with the need people feel to be all up in your aura when cued ... particularly at the bank.
ReplyDeleteis it that they are of the opinion that all the money will disappear once i get to the front of the line, so they keep edging and edging so as to remind me that they are next and also in need of funds?
i seriously am put off buy this young lady's need to follow you at the head of the line and over the red line.
that strikes me as her attempt at provocation!
next time, SAY SOMETHING!!! shoot i certainly would have ...
PS: I LOVE your new pic miss thing ... lookin hot!!!
ReplyDeleteI usually find that a discrete and simple 'piss off' works, but there again that's just me.
ReplyDeleteNot funny but funny:-) Which bank is this? Do tell? I step over those barriers all the time if there is no one in the line. I have never been told off by a guard because of it. Also no one hasever scolded me for being over the mark on the floor.
ReplyDeleteI am deliberately going to test this out at the bank to see what happens. Sorry but that young lady would have been prodded by an angry elbow as I whirled around pretending to look behind me! I am slightly claustrophobic so I would have been forced to act. I ahave a hard time at the cinema or on the plane where you have to share the arm rest with a stranger. Why don't they make each seat with 2 separate arm rests? Sigh