Another post on queuing and another post on supermarkets (see Trolley-Pushing: A Man’s World?) but this time excitingly combined J Unlike the previous blog on queuing, this one is less complimentary.
So when I visit my local friendly supermarket of choice, I have to queue at the counter. At some point there is only one person ahead of me. This usually seems like a good time to start unpacking my trolley or basket. In fact, it is probably the most efficient time (and economists love efficiencyJ) in terms of getting out of the shop as quickly as possible.
Here, I have some problems though. I find that the space to place goods on the check-out before reaching the till is rather small, so people have to move properly on before I can start to unpack. But people don’t move to the other side of the till until they have completely finished; they stay exactly where they are until they have paid. What is more, people don’t seem to pack their bags until everything has been paid for. I find this very strange.
Most people stand and watch over the check-out person until all products have been scanned and placed on the other side of the till. Then they remain in a position which prevents me from unpacking while they pay. Only then do they begin to pack, and am I able to unpack.
As in other cases it seems that time is a lot less important (see Oh! You Mean I Have to Open the Door Myself?!). There is little rush to get out of the supermarket, and the assumption is presumably that everyone else is happy to spend longer queuing than they would otherwise have to.
I have been trying to think of alternative explanation – like it is a ‘safer’ place to pay in terms of other customers watching how much you pay, or seeing a credit card code, but that does not really seem to be the case. If anything, the fact that you are preventing the next customer from unpacking means their attention is more focused on you than it would be otherwise.
Alternatively, maybe having waited a long time, a customer feels that they deserve to monopolise as much time of the cashier as possible – even at the expense of someone else’s time and convenience. This would suggest that this happens more the longer the queue is – something that I have not noticed occurring.
So I am now confused. Why is the habit to waste one’s own time, and that of other people? I do not really fully understand the time preferences, and the general meaning of time in Africa. Not worrying about wasting time is one thing – actually having social customs whose aims seem to be to deliberately waste time seems somewhat strange to my mind. And another great reason for research psychologists to branch out to Africa in their research – why should experiments to understand social perception of time be limited to Western countries, and might it not be interesting to make some comparisons?
4 comments:
pah, real developing countries don't even have supermarkets,
I would like to share some comments made when this came through on facebook:
Comment:
great post dude! I think the explanation is simply that the opportunity cost of their time is much lower. The fact that they stand in the way (a negative externality that you suffer as a Westener) is caused by the fact that they assume that other people's time has a low opportunity cost, too - this is the case in Maseru but not in London. Bottom line: the more boring the city you live in, the lower the opportunity cost of your time. Put this together with the assumption (on behalf of each person in the queue) that everyone will have the same perception of time, and you'll get an inefficient set up in which a new entrant with a different opportunity cost of time will suffer a negative externality.
In all this... We are geeks. Put in plain English, their culture values 'not rushing as rats' as valuable. Being a mediterranean, I see their point.
about an hour ago · Delete
My reply:
A good point [name]- that suggests that there is utility (happiness) to be gained from saving time, but also gains to be had from not rushing and taking it easy - even for chores.
So:
Total utility = f(speed[+], chilling[+], other) but
Speed = f(chilling[-]) and
Chilling = f(speed[-])
There must be an equilibrium somewhere. In fact, depending upon individual preferences (presumably influenced by social environment), there must be several equilibriums depending upon the country (or, for Italians, the area of the country with the North being more like me and the South being more like Lesotho - which category do you fall into?)
54 minutes ago · Delete
Second comment (same person):
equilibrium should be... around Perugia, I guess :)))
Definitely, there are multiple equilibria - a 'chilled' one and a 'rat-race' one... Let me complicate this a bit more. Humans are by nature hyperbolic discounters - in other words the present is given disproportionately more value than the future. That's why people smoke, dont use condoms, etc. So, from an aggregate welfare perspective, we should all move to the 'race-rat equilibrium'... but when in the queue, time-inconsistency prevents queuers to do so as they value the 'chill-out' in that particular moment MORE than the additional leisure they could get if they moved faster... so there is a dynamic type of analysis that needs to be done.
The perception of time and how humans value it is an amazing field! One of my favourite quotes on this is from Randy Pausch - he said: 'time is the most important resource we have... cos we never get it back!'
...now TIME to dedicate some TIME to my work...:)
What about trust? In a low social capital society, you could be suspected of trying to pass your purchases on your predecessor's bill. Even in France old ladies make sure there is a clear limit on the between her purchases and mine at the counter.
There is also an adaptative issue. I guess supermarkets and scanners are fairly recent in Lesotho? In a typical open air african marketplace, you would NEVER leave the cashier nor the next customer in line out of sight before you've actually paid and had your purchases in hand...
I think its a combo of what Thomas said and something else. They want to make sure that a) the checkout lady is not screwing them by scanning items twice b) the items ring up for the price that was listed on the shelf c) that they have enough money to pay for whats on the counter. If they start pre-maturely bagging their items they might find they don't have enough to pay for them, so by leaving them on the counter they can easily select an item to put back should it become necessary. Combine that with the fact that shopping (along with many other daily activities) are seen more as social events than simply for the utility of completing the task of 'shopping' and you have a recipe for slow queues.
A weird thing Ive noticed though is that people sometimes tend to get very close BEHIND me in the queue, particularly in smaller shops. What's that about?
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