Standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles (USA) or the Ministry of Transportation (CAN.) aswell as many other government extensions, banks,and even the grociery store can mean a tedious wait determined in length by the number of people in line, their business, and the uncaring, smug disposition of the government worker, teller, cashier etc. and even the customer.

I propose that instead of these factors controlling the speed of the line, that the line itself be a slow moving conveyor belt that makes the employee at the front and the customer being served cunduct their business as a race against the clock so that they are not crushed by oncoming customers.

This will only inconvenience those employees with a care little, careless attitude about the people they serve and those customers who insist on paying with pennies, carrying out conversations, and not have such things as a purpose or proper documentation at the ready when their time to be served comes.

If a person takes too long and a new customer's time has come, the laggy individual must return to the end of the line and give it another try. Fortunately, it wont be a very long wait.

And maybe to have a little fun a supervisor can crank the conveyor belt up to full speed to give a no-good employee a nervous breakdown.
-- ImBack, Aug 27 2002

Conveyor Belt Queues http://www.halfbake...yor_20Belt_20Queues
closely related idea by [baboo] [krelnik, Oct 04 2004]

Heh. Can we have those little dividers between people like they have at the supermarket checkout line?
-- phoenix, Aug 27 2002


Yes. We can.
-- ImBack, Aug 27 2002


like luggage carousels for the rat race called life.. +1 on the pastry counter
-- Mr Burns, Aug 27 2002


"The divider is poking me"
That ain't no divider...
-- thumbwax, Aug 28 2002


The conveyor should deposit the customer onto a trapdoor. A counter then starts to run; after 3 minutes the trapdoor opens, and the customer is dropped into (i) helterskelte slide, landing them in the street (ii) Pirahna/Crocodile tank (iii) sharpened spikes (self-cleaning).

And how to motivate the clerk ? "Lose 3 customers on a shift and you go the same way ..... "
-- 8th of 7, Aug 28 2002


Will the bagboy wear mewling-kitty-headphones?
-- thumbwax, Aug 28 2002


Sounds like the physical incarnation of the call center, which I believe is the avatar of evil or something of that sort, at least in its current implementation. Fishbone. Employees are sometimes timed to see how quickly they can handle customers- in almost every case you have to push the customer quite a bit if you wish to advance in your job. That explains at least some of the 'smug dispositions.' The conveyor belt also doesn't address the issue of tired feet; although it might help people with heavy bags. And pushing customers off the line because they take too long is just poor customer service, and they'll have to get back in line and that will shirley increase the wait time overall. Rrrrrrrrant.
-- polartomato, Aug 30 2002


Huge fishy. I'd prefer to have a comfortable waiting area so that customers can relax while waiting in line. If you're there for more than ten minutes, they have to give you coffee and cakes. Most of the delays at my local supermarket are caused by checkout operators with sub-zero IQs; I don't see why I should suffer any more because of it.
Also [thumb], bag-boys? We don't have them here.
-- angel, Aug 30 2002


This is an outstanding idea. Because the worst thing about queue environments is the lack of any, but *any*, thing to occupy the mind.

I recall Paris CDG airport used to have something like this, with the immigration booths set right at the base of escalators.
-- General Washington, Aug 30 2002



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