Watching your Ps and Queues

Singapore

Singaporeans love to queue. As a visitor, your need to be aware that follow the rules, you will be marginalised. You won’t be caned; you will run the risk of being looked on.

You must queue.  You see a queue and you wonder what is happening. Singaporeans see a queue and join it to see that it leads to. It could be that at the end of the line, you find Hello Kitty merchandise, the latest yoghurt or famous noodles. Wow. Be careful though. Go to a hawker centre and you will often see two laksa stalls side by side. One has a queue snaking round the block, the other has no one. Why? It is famous? More likely, the cook there is slow.

Queuing is di rigueur in the island state. However, there are some naughty people (shock, horror) who break the rules. Let me describe some of them. Why? So that you won’t follow suit: you don’t want to be seen as a crass foreigner.

1.              SQPs.

The SQP (Senior Queue Professional) In some queues, you will see mainly (but not exclusively) aunties and uncles (a Singaporean term for anyone older than you) with enough equipment for a weekend camp on a Pasir Ris beach. They have mobile phones (all Singaporeans must own at least one), umbrellas, food, maybe a pillow or a blanket, food, water, and sometimes a sharp implement — say a switch blade in the end of your walking cane — for warding off those who threaten one’s queue status. Whether it is for a freebie, a kewpie doll, a pass to a show or sample of the latest in coffee sachets: beware! Jump the kew and you will be skewered.

Advice: never upset an SQP

2.              MDs

So you think aunties and uncles are scary? Singaporean MDs (mums and dads) are worse. They usually have children. And a home helper (HH) a.k.a. maid. If there is a an HH present, the kids are under control. If HH is home painting the flat, you don’t. If MDs are in the queue alone with their ankle biters, prepare for chaos, particularly if one of them drops their iPad or mobile phone.

The MDKs (mum and dad’s kids) run wild. Scream. Shout. Annoy. Tantrums is a word that often comes to mind. Chastise the MDKs? Heaven forbid. Most MDs wouldn’t know where to start.

‘Where is the HH!”

Advice: interfere at your own risk.

3.              OMs

Office Minions. OMs dominate mainly morning queues at coffee cafes. The OM has to. His or her future depends on achieving their mission. They take their place in a long line to buy orders for their betters: senior staff in the office.

You stand behind them. You have been in line for 17 minutes.

OM arrives at the counter.

’21 coffees please’, they say.

‘What type?’

‘Three latte, four flat white, five long black, two with sugar, two without, two espressos, seven cappuccinos’.

‘Take away or have here?’

What kind of question is that? Anyway, you counted 26 when the OM rattled off the order. Check again: you were wrong. Only trained baristas can deal with this level of commerce. You sigh, check the line behind you to see if there is a PQ waiting with a spare director’s chair.

Advice: go somewhere else for your coffee.

4.              HBOs

House Bound Organisers: a.k.a. home helpers, slaves or maids though these latter terms are now considered not politically correct, despite their wages. They do everything from washing the car to nursing the baby; from taking the dog to work to cleaning the litter tray for the cat; from cooking to cleaning and for fetching meals because the MDs don’t want to cook for themselves or the MDKs.

Singapore has thousands of them, chosen from line ups in numerous malls where they are on display. Who said slavery was abolished? Go to Katong Shopping Centre or Beauty World and look around. Shop after shop of expectant Indonesians, Myanmarese, Filipinos and so on.

‘This one is built for hard work. Madam would find her useful’.

‘This one has all her teeth’, and so on.

They are particularly problematic when ordering coffee at a Kopi Tiam. It takes foreigners years to get used to what is genetically implanted in Singaporeans: how to order coffee and tea from over 200 varieties. (See previous chapter)

And if it is not a queue at the coffee shop, it will be at a food stall or a restaurant. They may well come armed with a scrap of paper with the required items written in Chinese. What happens when it is sold out? What if they dropped the note? What if there is not enough money to pay for them? Whose fault?

Not the owner: every Singaporean knows that.

Advice: Keep spare change handy to show your benevolent kindness and charity or you will never get your order.

5.              SKs

School Kids. There should be a rule against them. Noisy, shouting, screaming: totally disruptive and disorganised. But wait: the real problem is that when they have to pay. They count out their five cent cpins and hand them over.

‘Malay coin’, shouts the ASS (Assisting Sales Staff) on the cash register. The kids babble and skitter round. Seven and a half minutes later, they either (1) find enough money or (2) cancel the order or change it to an iced coffee with seven straws.

Advice: See HBOs.

6.              AMs

Ang Mos. What? Foreigners usually white; a.k.a. tourists. Now, no one can say Singapore is racist. No one can say any country is racist, least of all Singapore, but when it comes to queuing, AMs become NMs: no manners. Let’s go back to the coffee and tea line at the hawker centre.

AM: Could you please advise me, my good man, the varieties of coffee which you have available?

The ASS rushes through the twenty-seven and a half types of coffee available.

Lengthy pause. A blank look spreads over the AMs face.[1]

‘Do you have tea?’ they ask.

The ASS rushes through the thirty-seven and a quarter types of tea available.

AM: I’ll have a coke’.

One thing Singaporeans are good at is understanding basic and advanced tea and coffee types: whether it’s in a coffee shop or a real coffee shop, they know the difference between a Kopi O and a Flat White.

AMs do not.

Advice: read my article on coffee and tea ordering in Singapore. You will need a few hours.

7.              ERPs

Extremely Rude People. These are particularly noticeable at bus interchanges. Cattle corrals are conveniently placed by the authorities so that passengers can queue in an orderly fashion. ERPs stand slightly to the side of the front of the queue, then slowly insert themselves into the law abiding and responsible queueists while pretending to be a) disabled, b) old, c) infirm or d) more important.

The same happens at the MRT, at banks, Post Offices, Supermarkets. Surely they can’t be Singaporeans? Sadly, some are. They are particularly annoying at MRT stations.  Lines on the platforms tell you to wait and let passengers off first. This message is repeated ad museum from the Oxford accented announcer. This does not stop the ERP. As three thousand two hundred passengers exit from sardine can when its doors open, five percent of the waiting passengers will force their way in and rush to get any vacant seat. Usually, they fail, as it is hard to rush into a sardine can.

Advice: a) Suggest loudly that the ERP moves to the far queue (enunciate clearly).

b)  Surreptitiously stick your foot out as they push in.

8.              CURs

Curmudgeons: Mostly but not always old men. They are terrifying. Avoid them or you will suffer. They are constantly on the lookout for people who misbehave: bump into them, cut the queue, impatiently walk past him as he shuffles along, sigh in frustration.

He gets on the bus and you are sitting in the jump seat behind the driver.

‘That is my chair!’ he roars and prods you with his umbrella.

Advice: Stare him down, then ask someone to help you to the hospital to get treatment for your injuries.

9.     MOPs

Minders of Places. Scream! The bane of civilisation.  A sweet young thing stands in front of you. You shuffle along and just as you get to third from the counter, the PM in front turns and gaily beckons at the cluster of people standing nearby drinking teh o kosong and playing on their mobile devices. They rush in, smiling. Normally, the groups are less than 32 people, so it only delays you by 33 minutes.

Advice: I’d like to suggest studying ISIS tactics, but that is unworthy of me. Nonetheless, it’s worth a thought…

10.   999s

Numbers. Many places: banks, phone companies, hospitals, clinics, even some hawker centres, issue queue numbers. The idea is that you go to a ticket vending machine — the one you did not notice when you entered — and tear off the ticket that it spews out. You hold onto it tightly. Not too tight, mind you. It could:

a)             Disintegrate

b)             Become illegible

c)             Get stolen or

d)             Get lost.

a)             Worse is that you punched in the wrong choice. There are always instructions as to which button to press for your queue number. Unless you are a Singaporean, it can be confusing. If you did punch in the wrong queue choice, two things will happen: The sever will glare at you and scream: ‘Get into the proper line.’

More often than not, particularly in banks, when you reach the teller, his or phone will ring. Phone calls have priority.

b)             Advice: Graduate in IT before you arrive in Singapore.

There is a queueing etiquette in Singapore. Make sure you follow it.

  

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[1] See previous chapter…again.