The nonsense of queueing

This article appears in Ireland today in the regional newspapers of Independent News and Media.

By Michael Commane
Cycling in Dublin last week close to midnight I spotted a queue outside an Xtra Vision shop. I was cycling from Heuston Station to the south side of the city. It wasn’t just late and dark, but it was also wet and windy and there they were standing in a queue. I could not believe my eyes and kept cycling. Curiosity got the better of me so I stopped and asked two young ‘fellas’ what was up. They were not in the queue but across the road and were clued in to what was going on. They told me that those outside the shop were queuing to buy a new computer game that was about to be launched. I expressed my bewilderment to the two ‘fellas’ and they also thought it hilarious and expressed what a weird sight it was, especially because of the night that was in it. It was 15 minutes away from midnight on a wet windy autumn night in Dublin.

This queueing business has developed a whole life of its own. Or has it?
Back in the boom times, remember those days, there were queues for knock-down bargain-price houses. The houses were selling for well under €1 million!
Some months back I spotted not a small queue outside an Aldi shop. It was about 30 minutes before the shop was due to open. The ‘queuers’ had obviously seen there were special offers about to go on sale and they wanted to be in first to get their hands on them.

What struck me was that none of those in the queue looked particularly happy. You would imagine they would be a type of ‘professional queuer’ who made it their business to pick up bargains wherever available and that they should be full of the joys of life and delighted with the great bargains they pick up. Not so at all. I was also struck by their dress. There was nothing special or elegant about how they were attired.

The phenomenon of Aldi and Lidl offering special bargains alongside their usual groceries seems to have given men the possibility of becoming shopaholics.
A friend of mine has a roomful of unopened gadgets bought at Lidl and Aldi. I have designed a new modus operandi for myself when I am in these shops. If I spend more than ten seconds thinking about buying a particular item, then I don’t need it and walk on.

That’s not always easy.

But the queues are around a long time. Those early New Year bargains that begin on December 26 get people planning their queue strategy on Christmas Day.
Just examine the money that is spent on advertising and you would want to be a fool to think that we are not all influenced by smart slogans no matter how single-minded we might think we are.

And then once you are hooked on some brand or other it is most unusual to change.
It’s easy enough for me to scratch my head and wonder at people queuing in the rain and wind at midnight but one way or another we are all children of the world of advertising.

When I was a child the clothes label was inside the garment and if it appeared on the outside it would be a source of laughter and derision. These days it has to be on the outside. Not just on the outside, but screaming at you. Free advertising for which the customer pays.

And then there are all the various brands and branding. Companies spend large sums of money branding their product. In my childhood, branding had all to do with sheep.
The times they are a-changing. Of course things are forever changing and that’s the way of the world. But just as we are asking serious questions these days about where our leaders and bankers have brought us, is it not time to ask some questions about the world of advertising? Have we all been driven crazy by an ephemeral quicksand that is silly beyond words.

To queue for a computer game at midnight in the wind and rain has to be a nonsense.
And then I was back thinking again about my own childhood and how people queued in church pews to go to confession. Is there simply something in the human psyche that forces us to queue and look for those fleeting bargains whether in terra firma or in the sky?

Every time I see a queue at an ATM I think back at the confession queues. Can I dare ask the question whether or not we are better off queueing at an ATM or outside a confessional?

One way or another queueing at midnight in the wind and rain in autumnal Ireland has to be crazy.