This reminds me of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. Know what you’re going to order, step up to the counter, have your money ready, step away. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I ran across your site while doing a Google search for having to pull up in the drive thru line at a restaurant.

Lately I’ve been taking offense at being asked to pull up because my order isn’t ready yet. I politely decline, stating that they are implying the customer behind me is more important, or that it is wrong to reset the timer so they appear to be doing an efficient job at moving people through the drive through. Today I was asked to move forward even though no one was behind me in line. The manager told me they were on a timer, my response was that if they couldn’t complete the tasks on time, they needed more staffing. Either you can complete the task on time, or you can’t. I will admit, I work in an occupation that requires a high degree of proficiency, little margin for error, and sometimes every second counting with no second chances, which skews my way of thinking.

No, I was not ordering for a gazillion people, it was a small order for myself, no special requests. There were three cars in front of me, so they had plenty of time to prepare my simple, two item order.

To me, it’s about a lack of integrity. They are saying that it took them less time to complete a task than it actually did. That’s lying. If it is so they can receive a productivity bonus, that becomes cheating & stealing. Asking me to move ahead to reset the clock is asking me to participate in that lie, which I won’t do.

As far as your other observations, I can say that I don’t violate any of etiquette rules.

Les
Phoenix, AZ

A great way to get back in touch with the faceless bank is to have someone stand in the ATM line outside and encourage people to have their ATM card out and ready along with any paperwork filled out already before proceeding in line. This could lead to a cultural change and hopefully one more way to save on gas!