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Clocks, Clerks, Customers: Queue Management Systems, Post-Socialist Sensibilities, and Performance Measurement at a Retail Bank

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Materiality and Time

Part of the book series: Technology, Work and Globalization ((TWG))

Abstract

If queuing is regulated electronically, does that lead to a more rational allocation of services or does it effectively change time itself? Economics sees queuing as an allocation problem. Take a bank branch, how do customers and clerks, sellers and buyers, find each other? Here, there are two different social roles, made clear by the fact that the bodies of customers and clerks are placed in separate arenas in space. Clients are milling around the waiting area or sitting at a desk, while clerks can be found behind the rows of counters and desks, either sitting or bustling. Customers must find their way somehow to clerks. Queuing systems solve this problem.

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Authors
  1. Zsuzsanna Vargha
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris-Dauphine, France

    Francois-Xavier de Vaujany  & Pierre Laniray  & 

  2. London School of Economics, UK

    Nathalie Mitev

  3. McGill University, Canada

    Emmanuelle Vaast

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© 2014 Zsuzsanna Vargha

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Cite this chapter

Vargha, Z. (2014). Clocks, Clerks, Customers: Queue Management Systems, Post-Socialist Sensibilities, and Performance Measurement at a Retail Bank. In: de Vaujany, FX., Mitev, N., Laniray, P., Vaast, E. (eds) Materiality and Time. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432124_7

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