Flock of Birds, or Customers

[MystyGlyttyr]

I have actually made note of this several times in sociological (sp? I do it, I don't spell it) experiments I've carried out.

I make it a point every time I go shopping to do so in the most random, haphazard way I can possibly do it. I go over to the hair care and pick out my hair dye. Then I go three aisles to the right and get cat food. Then I go two aisles back to the left to get shampoo. Then I go to groceries and get sodas. Then I walk ALL the way back to the shampoo and get conditioner. Things like that. And I make sure I'm walking with my posture straight, head up, eyes forward, determined marching...i.e., I am here to BUY SOME SHIT.

Every single time, EVERY single time, there is at LEAST one person who always seems to arrive in the aisle just behind me. Usually more than one! Which means that, for whatever reason, these people are either consciously or unconsciously following me around.

Now, when I do the same thing, but I'm distracted, looking around, acting confused, etc., it doesn't happen. People ignore me and go about their business.

So, I think BoxGirl is in the right direction. People seem to be drawn to folks who are "in charge" and know what they're doing and why they're doing it, and will follow regardless of how crazy it is...even for something as mundane as grocery shopping.

Now if I could just get a government grant to ramp up my studies to the next level...because I love fucking with experimenting on people.

[Belari]

Oh my goodness, I thought that only happened here. For us, the majority of the people who work on base take lunch between 11 and 1, so that's always the biggest slam of the day for the Deli workers. And the majority of the base gets off work between 4 and 6, so the store in general has its biggest rush then. So we have a giant influx of customers around 4:30 and the same people leave at the same time. Then another influx at 5:30 and they all leave together. Then one final influx at 6:30 and those have to be herded out when we close at 7.

[Automan Empire]

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yes, there is DEFINATELY a herd instinct among customers! I always notice that people arrive in threes, and my business handles a small number of clients spending a LOT of money each, so the people handling system can get overwhelmed very fast when more than one client is there at a time.

Today was a fine example. Not ONE customer for the first 3.5 hours we were open, not. fricking. one. I had my staff get involved in some pretty big projects to keep them busy; one working on pulling a bunch of seldom-used stuff and cleaning, and others taking project cars of mine a long way apart on the hoists, meaning it isn't quick or easy to bring in a different car.

Then, within 60 seconds, three customers arrived. They all started playing SC games, too. The first one was relishing the attention, so she took longer than necessary, asking blatantly gratuitous questions and resisting efforts to hurry things along. The second customer kept butting in, thus prolonging her wait by 3t for each interruption of duration t. The third one kept out of the initial fray, but over the course of the visit, kept attention whoring by having to say something, add something, remember something else they wanted checked etc, everytime an employee walked by or even glanced her direction while on the phone to another client. The three of them together spent a fraction of what a single client usually pays per visit. On top of them being annoying, I actually lost money serving them; you would not believe the overhead in this business.

Enough to make you want to bring a cattle prod to work, and whistle Rawhide, isn't it?

[MannersMakethMan]

They all started playing SC games, too. The first one was relishing the attention, so she took longer than necessary, asking blatantly gratuitous questions and resisting efforts to hurry things along. The second customer kept butting in, thus prolonging her wait by 3t for each interruption of duration t. The third one kept out of the initial fray, but over the course of the visit, kept attention whoring by having to say something, add something, remember something else they wanted checked etc, everytime an employee walked by or even glanced her direction while on the phone to another client. The three of them together spent a fraction of what a single client usually pays per visit. On top of them being annoying, I actually lost money serving them; you would not believe the overhead in this business.

Enough to make you want to bring a cattle prod to work, and whistle Rawhide, isn't it?

And there was me thinking you were setting up a maths problem for us! Something along the lines of SC1 was relishing the attention and thus turned a linearised decay of asninity into an exponential decay. If SC2 was prolonging her wait by 3t for each interruption of duration t, how many cattle prods are needed to make this transaction profitable?
Part (b) When and where should these prods be applied?

Maybe we should set up our own branch of maths - SC Game theory!