You know, every so often, I bare witness to something that just simply irks me to no end and feel I need to yell about it from a mountain top somewhere. But after a recent incident I felt the need to express myself about, I did some thinking that encouraged me to save my voice (and the money it would cost for the rock climbing gear). And I remembered that I have this amazing blog!
So here goes! Welcome to the first (likely of many) edition of “The President’s Rant”. This one has to do with a situation involving a place that most Canadians all know and love: Tim Horton’s. Like many people in this great country of ours, I generally start off my day with a morning coffee.
So on my way to the office, I’ll make a pit stop at a local (for me that’s Pickering, Ontario – just east of Toronto) Tim Horton’s to wait my turn in a drive thru line to order a coffee (triple, triple with cream thank you!). One thing that I have ALWAYS hated about this particular Tim Horton’s drive thru is that it is set up using alternating lanes.
What this means is that instead of a first-come, first-serve basis, the next car in one of the queues will get a green light to go. That means if I have two cars in front of me in my queue, and a car comes out of nowhere to become the only car in the other queue, the person in that car will have the opportunity to make his or her order first.
Now, honestly, I don’t have such a big problem with that. It’s not much unlike other lineups in say, grocery stores, for example. Hey, I’m often a victim of joining the shorter line only for it to take longer for me to make it to the cashier than the people in the much longer line beside me.
The thing is though, with Tim Horton’s alternating queue, there is ALWAYS a problem. You see, people don’t seem to understand the concept of this queue, so many just drive up after the person in front of them goes, assuming that it is their turns. I see this turn into a problem EVERY single time I wait in this particular Tim Horton’s drive thru.
It literally creates road rage for many drivers coming from Toronto’s east end every day. And yesterday morning was no exception. A driver in front of me was so incensed that the woman in the other queue went ahead of him that he jumped out of his car and actually started accosting her!
Now, technically speaking, it was her turn to go. She received the green light in her queue before the light went green in his line – even though he may have been waiting in his line longer. Well, I couldn’t take this! I jumped out of my own car and began screaming at him to re-enter his.
How dare he begin screaming at a woman like that? Now, I don’t know if it was the volume of my voice or my 6’7” stature that quickly got him back into his vehicle (likely a combination of both), but I may have saved someone from a serious beat down! It certainly should not have had to come down to that.
Tim Horton’s has GOT to do something about these alternating queues. Until people can figure out how they work, they’re worthless. Well, perhaps not to me anyway. The woman I stood up for was so pleased that I had spoken up for her, she bought my coffee for me. I hadn’t even realized until the person working the drive thru let me know when it was finally my turn to pay! Thanks!