Buckle up. We’re headed to McDonalds with more beef than we might leave with.
TL;DR I feel that Americans might do well to adopt the term queuing to help normalize a sense of community and cooperation instead of the usual “destined to conquer” approach we take to nearly everything in life — including the McDonalds drive thru.
People hailing from overseas (UK) use the word queuing to describe what we (‘Mericans) would call waiting in line. Why is that?
You could call it a regional difference in parlance — just two ways of saying the same thing — but that, I think, glosses over some important differences that reveal something about our national mindset.
The term queuing seems more accurate to me because it describes a system of intentionally moving people in an orderly “first come, first serve” fashion. The queue progresses people through the system (drive thru, ticket counter, whatever…), minimizing the need for decision making and additional stress. Nobody wants extra decisions or stress in their daily lives.
Conversely, a line evokes a simple formation that seems more like a situation to be dealt with rather than a system to work within. It suggests to us a certain lawlessness (we do love our Wild West mentality) and lack of intention, making it easier for us to ignore the orderly process of the queue and violate its rules for personal gain by cutting the line. As school-aged children we often struggle to learn the concept of “staying in line” and “waiting our turn” and most of us only make marginal improvements in that area as adults.
I believe we act this way for a variety of reasons, all of which are more or less related to a characteristically overinflated sense of individualism and entitlement.1
This occurred to me as I was hungry and waiting in the McDonald’s drive thru the other day. Like many McDonald’s restaurants these days, the drive thru splits into two lanes just before the order kiosks. I can only guess the reason for doing this is simply to pack more cars into the drive thru system. There’s still only one person taking orders inside, alternating between the lanes. The two lanes then merge back together before you get to the payment and pickup windows.
I’ve noticed, for me at least, this semi-bifurcated system creates two points of contention.
Point 1: The Divergence
The first is the point at which the line splits just before the ordering kiosks. This is where the cars in the queue are supposed to choose a kiosk lane. The expectation is that you will simply pick the opposite lane of the car ahead of you, thereby maintaining balance between the two kiosk lanes.
Yet, driver’s often decide they’re going to get themselves into the outer-most lane before they reach the designated point of divergence if they see that a driver ahead of them has not chosen a lane quickly enough (because they’re busy editing a blog post on their phone). The temptation to bypass the line of drivers ahead of them to get into that second lane, effectively cutting the line, is too much for many of us to resist.
I actually used to do this as a matter of course before I realized that the drive thru begins as a clearly marked single lane starting about 100 feet before the point of divergence, reaching all the way back to the street. I got a side order of mortification with my meal the day I realized this.
I had unwittingly been exercising my “freedom” as an American and cutting the damn line whenever it got me through the drive thru quicker 2. Screw those other people in line. I’m the central character of my universe! ‘Merica!
Point 2: The Reconvergence
After you’ve carefully examined the menu, considered how often you eat at this place and how it’s affecting your health and overall well being, decided to stop thinking about it and placed your order at the kiosk, the next step is to merge back into a single line to proceed to the payment and pick up windows.
This requires some degree of cooperation between you and the driver in the other lane. Both of you must be aware of and honor the order in which you arrived in your respective lanes (assuming traffic has been moving smoothly through the drive thru) and allow whoever arrived first to proceed to the payment window.
However, if the other driver is supposed to go first but doesn’t get into position quick enough — which you’ll notice because you’re watching the other vehicle like a hawk at this point — you can take advantage of the situation by wedging yourself into the point of reconvergence to get ahead of them, aggressively avoiding eye contact the whole time.
Here, again, an opportunity for personal gain presents itself, and many of us cannot resist. A behorned Ronald McDonald appears on our left shoulder — you know, the sinister one — and makes his case, reciting some interesting points about how valuable your time is and how deserving you are of special treatment given your natural superiority as an American (more so than the other driver…), not to mention your discomfort caused by the fire and ice situation happening in your car on this hot summer day with the AC blasting.
His points are obviously ridiculous and self-serving, but you’re too exhausted by everyday life to fight it. You just want to pick up your warm meat patty sandwich with salted potato forever sticks and diabetic primer water and get the hell out of there.
Inevitably, you begin to assume that the other driver is having the same nefarious thoughts and plans to cut you off at the point of reconvergence by trailing the driver ahead of them by mere inches, forcing you to relinquish your position in the queue. You can see the degree to which we instinctively distrust each other by examining the passive aggressive manner in which we merge back together into one lane with numerous furtive advances to ensure the other driver can’t wedge themselves in and cut the line — before you have a chance to.
Everybody assumes everyone else is out to steal their spot in line, and so we all do whatever we can to minimize the chances of getting screwed by the other drivers. At least that’s what I’m telling myself so I don’t feel like a heel when I’m plagued by these thoughts.
Why do we do this?
Because we are horrible, irredeemable creatures.
Sorry. That just came out. I might be getting hungry again.
I don’t think people who use the term queuing are fundamentally much different than people who say waiting in line. We’re all just human beings doing our best to get through each day without doing anything too egregious while slogging through complex and chaotic environments and situations of our own design — like drive thru restaurants.
Ultimately I believe the likely culprit is isolation. The general consensus these days is that people are increasingly isolated from each other despite (or maybe because of) the rise of social media and people who use it for personal gain through manipulation. Drive thru lines force willfully isolated people to engage with each other in ways that encourage pointless competition with plenty of opportunities to be underhanded.
Or maybe I’m just a little too cynical. It might be both.
Am I reading too much into this?
Footnotes:
- I realize that I use the phrase “overinflated sense of individualism and entitlement” here as a middle-aged, land-owning, middle-class, white, straight, cisgender male living in rural United States. I think the relevant idiom here is “the pot calling the kettle black,” but it’s my blog so I’ll do what I want. ‘Merica!! ↩︎
- I may be using the word “unwittingly” here as a cop-out for my behavior. Ultimately, I was cutting in line. ↩︎
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