Queue line12/27/2022 For example, lines at train station ticket windows are often inexplicably formed horizontally rather than vertically. Similarly, grocery clerks, summoned to open a second register when the line has reached critical mass, will alert the person at the end of the line who then becomes the next person serviced, and the line then proceeds in reverse order until reaching an equilibrium.įurther complicating matters is the inconsistency about which queuing is conducted in Poland. Sadly, this practice is upheld by clerks who will stop fulfilling your request for a ticket on the next train to Warsaw in order to look up all of tomorrow’s train times to Berlin for some jackass who suddenly walks up wearing a blazer and sandals. Also, if a person feels their needs can be easily satisfied it’s agreed that said person need not stand in line, but march straight to the window, interrupt whatever is happening there and expect to be assisted. Should you give any space between you and the person in front of you (a courteous gesture in most civilised countries) it will be filled by someone who either completely ignores the fact that you are there, or spears you with an umbrella and a glare to ensure there’s no protest. Pan Tu Nie Stał! (ENG: You weren't standing there!)Ī popular boardgame, parodying queue-culture in Communist PolandĪnother well-loved strategy occurs when someone arrives at the queue, tells you they are in front of you, then leaves only to appear again just as it’s about to be your turn. Tactics include confusing and deceptive bursts of Polish dialogue to the effect of “I was standing in front of you" (when they clearly were not), "I’m late for something, I have to go before you” or more commonly “I’m older than you, let me go first.” In such situations, patience is both a blessing and a curse as everyone and (especially) their mother will attempt to oust you in line. Queuing for Pączki (ENG: Jam-Filled Donuts) in Warsaw, 1 March 1974. As a result of this national apathy, you can anticipate spending part of your trip to PL in slow-moving lines as well. Even the most modern Pole today seems to accept that, cumulatively, years of his or her life will be spent standing in line. Simultaneously, Poles were also being conditioned into complacency over the poor quality of services rendered, regarding the resultant queues to be as unavoidable as sleeping. Rudeness and results began an unholy marriage and queue barging became a common practice that endures to this day. Sadly, the most courteous family was the family without toilet paper in those days. Such a queue did not bring about any reward during the Cold War era. It appears that decades of communist rule, which featured endless necessity-induced queuing to obtain the most basic goods - and then quite often only to find that they weren’t available – obliterated any respect the Poles had for the concept of an organised line operating under an unwritten but widely-accepted code of etiquette and common courtesy. A seemingly straightforward concept, while standing in an orderly line is probably as unconsciously ingrained where you come from as staying to the right while passing in a narrow corridor, here in Poland, queuing is a cutthroat game of cunning and sabotage.
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