Imagine you are waiting to catch the metro. You are standing with a dozen or so other people at the empty platform. Everyone is milling around at the accepted distance, establishing their place but not standing so close to the edge as to be in danger. Then the train starts approaching. Immediately the person who had been standing next to you steps directly in front of you, and is now precariously close to the platform. This triggers the person who has been standing to the other side of you to take action, stepping up to the other person in front of you, ever so slightly closer to the edge. It does not matter that the train has yet to stop, and so the exact location of the doors is as of yet unknown. As soon as the train does stop the jostling focuses on the doors. Even if there are only three people vying for one door, the jockeying continues until the door opens. You let the two people who have been forcing themselves in front of you step onto the train, trying to be the more mature person. Just as you lift your foot to step on, two more people materialize and squeeze into the 3/4-of-a-person space that had been between you and the entrance. Just as the doors are about to close, you make it in. Welcome to Lausanne, you just got swissed.
Kris and I have even experimented, seeing how close we can stand to the door and still have someone get in before us. Frequently, even though we are standing next to each other as the train pulls up, we will end up with four people between us by the time we actually board. At first we thought that this was an oddly aggressive practice in a highly structured society, but we have since learned that it is because the entire swiss population suffers from a common disability: they are incapable of waiting in line.
As Americans, we wait in line all the time. In the cafeteria. At amusement parks. At restaurants. Waiting to come in from recess in elementary school. When we walk up and see two people waiting at a reception desk, we go stand behind them. If another person arrives, he or she stands behind you. Simple.
In Switzerland this situation almost never arrises. When you walk into a building - anything from the post office to a cell phone store - there is a ticket machine. Think of the numbered tickets you get at the deli counter. Instead of standing in line in the order you arrived, everyone takes a ticket and sits or wanders around until their number appears on the overhead screen.
It's a chicken-or-egg question whether this system exists because swiss people can't wait in line or swiss people can't wait in line because this system exists. What is clear is that if the ticket system is in place, it MUST be used.
When Kris and I went to register with the power company we walked into a room with no customers and five employees behind five desks. After consulting the labels above the desks, we walked up to the employee for people who had just moved. Before we can even introduce ourselves he waves both hands in front of his face and tells us that we must first take a ticket. Looking back at the entrance we notice a small electronic ticket machine. We also notice that there are no other customers. We look back at the man to make sure he is serious and go get a ticket from the machine. The man then greets us politely and asks us what we need. We start making our way through the French phrases we had rehearsed when we are once more cut off and told that we are at the wrong desk. We were supposed to go to desk four; he is clearly at desk three. We apologize and head over to desk four, but are immediately stopped by more frustrated hand-waving and emphatic pointing. You can't just walk up to the desk; you must first go get a new ticket. Please note that in the time it took for this exchange, no new customers have come in. We get another ticket, proceed to desk four, and register. Simple. So much better than standing in line.
This protocol may seem ridiculous, but the few places we have encountered without the ticket machines are havens of frustration and a constant sense of impending chaos. Our insurance office serves as an excellent example. The lobby is set up with a single desk and a line of four chairs against the left wall.
Each time we have entered there has been one customer at the desk and at least one person sitting in the chairs. Being from a line-literate country, we recognize that our place is to sit in the other chairs and wait until everyone else in the room has been served before we approach the desk. We sit down, smile at the people in the other chairs. They recognize that we know our place in the metaphorical line and smile back.
Then another person enters the lobby. This person, either willfully or not, does not notice the people sitting in the chairs. This person sees the customer at the desk and walks up behind them. This new person does not stand at comfortable line distance, but rather stands so close that if the person at the desk bent to tie a shoe, they would bump the new person with their behind.
The people sitting in the chairs now begin to experience the early stages of panic. Has the person not seen them? Does the new person not understand that the people in the chairs are waiting instead of simply sitting there to enjoy the fake ferns and strange hissing noise from the overhead speakers? The people in the chairs begin to shift to the edges of their seats, never getting up but clutching frantically at their purses and making intense eye contact with the new person's left ear. In the US, this is the point where someone would say, "Hey! There is a line here!" possibly followed by a gender-specific or body-part-themed expletive. In Lausanne the people in the chairs simply become increasingly agitated until the person at the desk completes their transaction. At this point the person in the first chair leaps up and hurls herself at the desk in front of the new arrival, never making eye contact. Now confronted with the solid evidence of a genuine person standing in front of them, the new person looks around and takes one of the vacant chairs. The process can then repeat itself.
Viewed in this context the free-for-all of boarding the metro seems to make more sense. It isn't that you weren't standing close enough; it's that where you are standing doesn't matter. The goal is to get on the train. If you get on the train, you win. It makes me wonder what would happen if someone put a ticket machine on the platform and had the numbers appear over certain cars as the train pulled in. Would this fix the problem, or would people peacefully move to the door of their indicated car and then proceed to force their way in front of the other people allotted to the same car? I would be interested to find out.
That's all for now. Au revoir.
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