You can get a lot of thinking done while waiting in a long line at an ATM machine. Statistics may come into clear focus when they're formed up in a line in front of you.
A few months back, I was in a grocery store when their credit and debit card reading system abruptly crashed.
Cash only, every clerk apologetically told people.
Of course, here in card-loving Canada, many of us had no cash at all, and so we crammed ourselves into the line for the ATM that sat against one of the store's walls.
It was a busy time. There were many people in the line. And the line did not move.
Or rather, it had been moving, and then it ground to a halt. Around me, I could hear teeth grinding.
Then I could hear my own teeth grinding. People leaned sideways and craned their necks, trying to see what was taking so long up there at the front.
One person was standing there, baffled and terrified, regarding the ATM the way one of Arthur C. Clarke's ape-men stared up in wonder and terror at the monolith.
Every so often we'd hear the tap and beep of keys, then long pauses for thought, then more taps.
Eventually, the person gave up and left. We all moved forward one space.
And then it started again. Long delays. The new person, right in front of me, preferred muttered curses, calling for the death of the ATM, all its designers, installers, and owner.
Finally, he turned to me and glared at the whole line (many of whom were now fervently wishing the same curses upon his head) and announced "It's broken!" He stormed off, without cash. I then got to take my turn, got out my cash, and went to pay for my groceries. The line quickly diminished.
The machine wasn't broken, of course.
The line was the victim of the dark side of the 80-20 rule, a rough estimate known in business and economics, policing, education, retail, and instinctively grasped by anyone who has to deal with the public, in any way.
In this case, we can sum it up this way: 20 per cent of the ATM customers will use up 80 per cent of the time of the whole line.
In policing, 20 per cent of the people will commit more than 80 per cent of the crimes, 20 per cent of retail customers will consume 80 per cent of the time of the staff, and so on.
There is a positive side - supposedly 20 per cent of customers generate 80 per cent of a firm's profits.
But it's easier to see the frustrating side of the rule when you're stuck in traffic because 20 per cent of drivers don't bother to signal when changing lanes, and one of them has caused an accident.
You can tweak the numbers - maybe in policing it's more like 90-10, or 95-5. The general rule simply helps you understand how a small number of people can be a spanner in the works of almost any endeavour.
Unfortunately, we can't just get rid of the screwed up 10 or 20 per cent of the population, even if it were ethical to say, exile them to Lunar ice mines.
Those folks at the ATMs? Both fairly elderly.
When we age, we tend to fall behind on the technology.
Bad, reckless drivers? Often young and mostly male. Insane shoppers trying to return items without receipts? Picky eaters taste-testing every ice cream in the Baskin Robbins? Slow eaters? Slow talkers? They could be anyone. Or everyone.
When I walked away from the ATM, once my own irritation dissipated, I had to wonder at what time in my life I'd been that annoyance to someone else.
I couldn't think of a time - but the guy in front of me was firmly convinced that he'd done nothing wrong, too.
That machine was broken, after all. Matthew Claxton is a reporter with the Langley Advance.
