Week 5 Field session: Watching the jump

Two hours recording every instance of somebody being served out of order, and what happened next.

24 March 2027

This is the week where priority stops being a diagram on a board. You go out and watch it actually happen to people, which is a rather different experience.

What happens#

Twenty minutes, in the room. The three categories and how to tell them apart quickly, because you will have about two seconds to classify each one.

• Sanctioned. The system did it. A priority lane, a staff member calling someone forward, a card that says so.
• Negotiated. The people in the queue did it. Someone asked, someone let them, someone holding one item was waved ahead.
• Unnoticed. Somebody was served out of order and nobody reacted, including the person they went in front of.

Eighty minutes, at your own queue. One hour of recording, and the rest is travel. Every out-of-order service, with a timestamp, a category and an estimate of how many people were behind them.

Twenty minutes, back in the room, next week if the timing does not work.

The number to compute#

Queue jumps are cheap individually and this surprises people. One person moving forward past eight people who each lose the jumper’s service time is a total cost you can calculate in seconds. Do it. Then think about whether the smallness of that number is a defence or a distraction, because Whose Time It Was is going to ask you.

A note on ethics#

You are observing a public space, counting events, not recording individuals. Do not photograph anybody, do not follow anybody, do not record conversations, and do not intervene. If a member of staff asks what you are doing, tell them honestly; every student who has done so has been allowed to continue.

Bring#

• Observation sheet with the three categories as columns.
• A stopwatch.
• The name of a staff member to ask for, if your site has one.

What leaves the room#

One hour of jump records from your own queue, classified, with a total cost in person-seconds and a one-line note on whether anybody objected.